Giving al Qaeda what they want

Dubya's daily campaign events are organised around a feature called Ask President Bush. It's a bit like Prime Minister's Question Time from the House of Commons -- with the exception that the Opposition never gets to ask any questions. Thus every question is along the lines of "Do you agree that you are the greatest human being of all time?"

Sometimes the main substantive content is in the comments within questions that are allowed to pass with just a nod by Dubya i.e. implicit agreement by him without having to say so. He used this trick before to put John Kerry's Vietnam war record in play. But check out his implicit agreement with this question, reported in today's Washington Post:

"Q Mr. President, first, we just want to tell you that we pray for you every night as our President.

"THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, sir. (Applause.)

"Q ... maybe my little seven-year-old should come down here and share it with you. Can you tell the President what Noah Webster (phonetic) said about our republic?

"SEVEN-YEAR-OLD: It would do our system well to learn at an early age that the correct principles of our republic is the holy Bible, the New Testament, and Christianity. (Applause.)"

And that's the end of that exchange. Note: from the US State Department critique of the status of religious freedom in Saudi Arabia:

As custodian of Islam's two holiest sites in Mecca and Medina, the Government considers its legitimacy to rest largely on its interpretation and enforcement of Shari'a. Consequently, the Government has declared the Koran and the Sunna (tradition) of Muhammad to be the country's Constitution ... Neither the Government nor society in general accepts the concept of separation of religion and state.