Strange, strangest, stranger

So I open what appears to be a benign email from my uncle Mike with the title "Fw: Re: [Fwd: [Fwd: Fw: Awesome]]." It's worthy of reprint, although I thought the reporter may have lost a touch of objectivity in the pathos of the moment:

guys - i hope this is true!!
buzzroye [my uncle's bro]

I'll bet you didn't see this in the liberal news media.

At Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington DC recently the sergeant Major of the Army, Jack Tilley, was with a group of people visiting the wounded soldiers. He saw a Special Forces soldier who had lost his right hand and suffered severe wounds of his face and side of his body. The SMA wanted to honor him and show him respect without offending, but what can you say or do in such a situation that will encourage and uplift? How do you shake the right hand of a soldier who has none? He decided to act as though the hand was not missing and gripped the soldier's wrist while speaking words of comfort and encouragement to him.

But there was another man in that group of visitors who had even brought his wife with him to visit the wounded who knew exactly what to do. This man reverently took the soldiers stump of a hand in both of his hands, bowed at the bedside and prayed for him. When he finished the prayer he stood up, bent over the soldier and kissed him on the head and told him that he loved him.

What a powerful expression of love for one of our wounded heroes!

What kind of a man would kneel in such humility and submission? It was the wounded man's Commander-in-Chief, George W. Bush; a true leader.

This story was told by the SMA at a Soldiers Breakfast held at Red Arsenal, AL, and recorded by Chaplain James Henderson, stationed there.
Pass it on...the press won't.

I'm not exactly shocked that the email was little pro-Bush bizness, since everyone in my family--except me and maybe one cousin--is a hard-ass right winger. What surprised me was the follow-up email my uncle sent out. This uncle, you should know, graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, and while he's a little too into the Astros, I've always thought it was a fairly sound mind that he was filling with sports stats.

i do not believe george w. bush was elected president because of the "will of the nation"...............................

i do, however, firmly believe that god had had enough of watching americans make poor choices, and then stepped in and divinely controlled the 2000 election.

god rules our lifes a lot like we as parents rule our children's lifes. he let's us make a lot of our own choices, both good and bad. but when he wants to, he can step in at any time and take control. there is no doubt in my mind that he did that, when he decided, once again, to bless america and deliver president george w. bush to us as a christian leader.

And with that, the deductive power of my entire family suddenly came into frenzies internal debate. Is this how they all think??? Surely not Mom and Dad . . . who listen to talk radio and watch Fox News. Hmm . . . Uh, surely not my more level-headed uncle Jimmie, a high-up in the Airforce, or his son, my cousin Michael, who just went back to A&M to get his MBA.

Then today there was an email from the uncle mentioned above. I've always considered both Jimmie, who wrote that email from Iraq, and Michael two of the more earnest, intellectually commited conservatives of the bunch. They can back up what they believe with some sharp arguments, even if I don't agree with their conclusions. The rest of my family I've sometimes seen as the right-wing equivalent of those kids who think protesting is a stinky social gala. Anyways, I was fearful that Jimmie would betray my trust in his intellect:

it's true ... JLSimmons

Aaahh!!

Then I realized he was merely confirming the first anecdote about Bush praying for the soldier, not endorsing the Divine presence in Florida's fucked-up ballot boxes. Whew. I trust Jimmie, so this odd story that I assumed was propaganda is probably true, I guess. I wish he would have given a source, but I'm hesitant to ask him for one lest I reveal my communist/fascist/America-hating political leanings.

I still think my uncle Mike's sentiment is the most disturbing thing about the entire exchange. It showed me that there is a section of the population, probably larger than we isolated big-city liberals realize, that I will never be able to have any logical discussion with about politics. Scariest of all, these beliefs are popular among people exceedingly close to me, who I know are intelligent and educated, yet I will never be able to understand them.

In the face of the destruction brought about by religious extremism, do these people think the key to surviving and removing it is to counter with some of our own? Remember when people called W. the MBA president? Strange that he's now become the holy, annointed president.