Steven Waldman writes in Slate about the idea, expressed by many of President Bush's supporters — including several speakers at the GOP Convention — that George W. Bush became president not because of the will of the sovereign people, but because of the intervention of Almighty God:
While Bush's public comments about faith have been mostly within the mainstream tradition of presidential rhetoric, his supporters lately have gone in a less-familiar direction: conveying the idea that God is responsible for Bush being in the White House.
"He is one of those men God and fate somehow lead to the fore in times of challenge," said George Pataki in the high-profile introduction of Bush at the Republican National Convention, an introduction almost certainly scrubbed if not written by the White House. …
"I think that God picked the right man at the right time for the right purpose," said popular Christian broadcaster Janet Parshall. Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin, who got in trouble for derogatory comments about Islam, argued that it must have been God who selected Bush, since a plurality of voters hadn't. "Why is this man in the White House? The majority of America did not vote for him. He's in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this."
… It's hard to recall another instance of a presidential campaign so confidently promulgating the idea that its candidate had divine endorsement. The potentially dangerous implication is that since God put George W. Bush in the White House, opposing him is opposing Him. A person could get smited for that.
Yet Waldman concludes that the Almighty works in mysterious ways, so maybe God did put George W. Bush into office:
After all, in the Bible, God is described as doing things for all sorts of inexplicable reasons — sometimes as a reward to the people, and sometimes as a punishment.
I'm not part of the "blame America first" crowd. Yes, our nation has many sins to answer for, but I don't think we're so utterly degenerate as to deserve a divine punishment as harsh as that of a Bush presidency — let alone a second term of this wage-lowering, job-destroying, treasury-emptying, grandchild-impoverishing, environment-despoiling, security-weakening, military-squandering, enemy-strengthening regime.
But I could be wrong about that. Unlike Jerry Boykin and George Pataki, I cannot claim to know the mind of God. And their words do seem to echo those of the prophet Samuel:
Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king.
He said, "This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.
He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves.
When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day." (1 Samuel 8:10-18)
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