THE FIRST CHURCH OF ME

Near the end of Bush's press conference today, as he was answering a question about continuing the war despite the lack of popular support, he said something revealing:

... when it's all said and done, Ed, if you ever come down and visit the old, tired, me down there in Crawford, I will be able to say I looked in the mirror and made decisions based upon principle, not based upon politics. And that's important to me.

Read that again: "I will be able to say I looked in the mirror and made decisions based upon principle."

For Bush, is that where abstract moral principles comes from? Looking in the mirror?

A couple of years ago, when Bush said to Bob Woodward, "There is a higher father that I appeal to," most of us assumed he meant he looked to God for wisdom and truth (and snubbed his own dad). But today's remark makes it sound as if Bush thinks the Universe's Ultimate Moral Authority is ... well, himself.

Then again, there's the theory Phil Nugent advanced here earlier this week:

Bush famously described his "earthly father" as "the wrong father" to consult at times like these, and it's been generally assumed that the father he was consulting was the guy in the sky. But it seems clear by now that Dick Cheney has taken over as the father Bush always wanted, the one who lets him feel like a big man by pumping up his ego and pretending that he's the one making the decisions, yet somehow we always go where Dick wants us to go.

So I guess Bush thinks he and Cheney are like God the Father and God the Son -- separate, yet each whole and divine. And God the Holy Ghost would be, I guess ... er, Barney.