Politics and Religion

*Disclaimer* What lies below is my personal opinion, and only my opinion. It in no way should be taken for fact, and all points should be double checked with other reliable sources.

Over the past 24 hours, I've been very disappointed with the conduct of President Bush, his administration, and the so-called reporters that flood the internet with opinion rather than fact.

This began last night while I was checking some headlines, and noticed that President Bush and the First Lady had gone to Rome to pay respects to the deceased Pope. This annoyed me for a couple reasons. President Bush, to my knowledge is an Evangelical Christian, and not Roman Catholic. I understand the Pope was a world leader and greatly respected by peoples of all faiths, however, with crowds estimated into the millions of Catholics waiting to pay their respects, I found Bush's appearance in the front row to be a photo op, and a disruption to the poor souls waiting in line for many hours.

My irritation grew this afternoon when I did a little more digging, and realized there were actually 4 others in the leading US delegation, along with the President. Former Presidents Clinton and Bush, as well as the First Lady and Sec. of State Rice were also giving the red carpet treatment. I found it a bit strange that Former President Carter was not along with the delegation. Former President Ford, I discovered, is in poor health, and has been advised not to travel. But when looking into the missing Pres. Carter, I discovered a variety of "news" articles, from both ends of the political spectrum, explaining his absence. The far right claimed that Carter "had the audacity to suggest to President Bush that he lead the delegation, if President Bush were unable to attend." Hmm, that's odd, that doesn't seem very audacious to me. The far left chimed in that Carter had "been snubbed by the White House, and left to watch the service on TV." Now that can't be either. The President just couldn't be dumb enough to publicly snub another former President. After searching for an article that wasn't rife with its own political commentary, I finally found one that seemed to do the best job of explaining the situation.

It seems that Carter had been told there were a limited number of spaces available for the trip, and he declined, feeling it wasn't his place to infringe on others. However, by the time it was discovered there would have been room for him, it was too late.

The pieces that still don't line up for me is the following: 1) No President has ever been to a Pope's funeral/period of mourning. The highest ranking US government official, until yesterday, to visit a Pope's wake was LBJ, while he was Vice President. 2) Carter was the first President to have a Pope visit the White House, and I believe it was John Paul II. 3) Two other former Presidents attended along with President Bush. This being the case, I can find no reason, besides President Bush's dislike for Carter's public criticism of the Iraq war, for him not to be invited, especially above Dr. Rice, and Mrs. Bush.

Now that I've had some time to cool down from my initial infuriation, I see this as nothing more than one more publicity stunt by the Bush administration gone awry. I hope others beside me saw this and were equally displeased with politics playing a role in a diplomatic and highly religious event.

-peace