Bush bashing at its finest

Since he took office, Bush has spoken about evil in over 319 speeches. Using "evil" as a noun 914 times versus using it much less as an adjective (182 times), the president is referring to evil "as a thing, or a force," and talks in some kind of apocalyptic Christian language. His talk of "servants of evil," "axis of evil," or calling "evil by its name" identifies with over half of all adult Americans who expect the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

While Bush prays daily and reads the Bible often, his moral argument for the death penalty and his utilitarian view of the war in Iraq deeply contrast with his devout Christian beliefs. Singer - using Bush's very words against himself - explains the president's foolish and embarrassing incoherent ethical positions.

Paul states in the Bible: "Do not repay anyone evil for evil ... Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." However, it's a bit odd, it seems, how Bush - after elected - reinstated the death penalty, and as governor of Texas signed more death warrants - 152 - than any other governor in modern times.

Of course, Singer says, "faith cannot tell us who is right and who is wrong," and Bush's "naive" religious beliefs present a "man who accepts what he is told without asking himself any critical questions." Interestingly, this unquestioning acceptance of faith could well be the primary characteristic that appeals to a bulk of his voters.

Singer, having lived most of his life overseas in countries with very different modes of thinking, recognizes this weak ethical stance not solely belonging to President Bush, but to a majority of Americans as well. At times, "The President of Good and Evil" is like an outsider's look at a certain way of American thinking: one full of dead ends and contradictions.

The ethicist introduces his entire essay with a discussion of Bush's confusing tax policy, which makes our commander-in-chief look like an idiot (or more of an idiot, depending on your opinion). Bush proclaimed in his inaugural address that "everyone deserves a chance," and that "every child must have an equal place at the starting line." This American form of equality, the "equality of opportunity," does not offer any promise of a just society. "Starting line," Singer says, is a metaphor implying that life is a race, and only the fit, the beautiful and the rich will survive.

Singer also points out Bush's campaign to eliminate the death or estate tax, which taxed the inherited wealth, while he simultaneously said that Americans should earn money and property through hard work, and to earn wealth any other way would not promote his "single nation of justice and opportunity."

Singer's more intriguing discussion arises in "The Culture of Life," in which he picks apart Bush's wobbly position against stem cell research funding. Stem cell research can potentially save millions of lives of those with Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and other diseases. The embryo, of course, does not survive the removal of stem cells, thus the reason for controversy.

Bush will not fund stem cell research "in a way that encourages the destruction of human embryos," which are "unique" human lives from the moment of conception. If embyros are human life, Bush says, they are "therefore something precious to be protected."

But the fact that something is "unique" is not in itself a reason for preserving it, Singer contends. Does Bush think it's necessary for more unique humans to be born? And even if that's a "yes," is this more important than the current, possible research that could save the lives of millions of Americans already living?

The ethicist's discussion grows more interesting, and his animal rights background surfaces much in the chapter, targeting Bush and the majority of the American public's "unargued assumption" that to be a member of the human race is "sufficient" to make a being's life worth keeping.

Bush's "culture of life" outlook is sorely tainted, avoiding the sticky subject of the gruesome research on all kinds of laboratory animals, whose consciousness may be more like a human's than we'd like to admit.

Bush seems to concur with the argument that humans possess a higher mental capacity than, say, chimpanzees do, and these primates are less aware of the past, future and their own pain or death. It's therefore OK to kill them in labs. However, embryos are "utterly lacking" in such mental capabilities, Singer says, so in Bush's line of thinking, embryos fall into the same doomed category of lab animals. Ultimately, Bush's resistance to stem cell research cannot be well defended on secular grounds.

In addition, what ethics book is complete without some talk on capital punishment or war tactics? Again, Bush's moral stance holds weight on the surface, but Singer shows how the president's position can never be articulated in a clear, intelligent way.

Bush's thought process does not run deep, and in regards to saving embryos and executing criminals, it's all simply a matter of right and wrong, good and evil, and of the preservation of the innocent and the punishment of the guilty. Sadly, dealing with human life is not that black or white as Bush makes it out to be. His quick, trigger-happy attitude may possibly "save other people's lives," as he stated in a presidential debate with Al Gore, but it also reflects Bush's disregard for the possibility of human error - and yes, his administration is marked with many of those.

Presumably the most heated section of the book discusses Bush's utilitarian argument for the war in Iraq, his right to take preemptive action, and how there was a "greater good" of freeing millions of Iraqi citizens from Saddam Hussein's dictatorship that justified the harm inflicted on the smaller number of Iraqis - many of them innocent women and children - killed in the war zone.

While Singer covers all the bases, even euthanasia, the violation of human rights and federal over states' rights, nothing he discusses is groundbreaking, and most everything about our verbally-challenged president he presents is a) something we already know, or b) something we didn't know but aren't surprised to learn. It will interest Bush's opponents greatly, however, and is written with eloquence.