"Lord, I used to drink banana oil and shovel cocaine up my nose," says a praying George Bush in the first panel of a comic strip by Steve Bell published in the Eureopean edition of the British newspaper The Guardian.
It gets worse, as the American president gyrates in front of a cross and finally throws his arms up to the sky, saying in the next three panels:
"I used to fiddle and diddle and trade on ma name as ma daddy's son ..."
"But that was long ago when I was a dirty l'il frat boy ..."
"Today I'm a clean livin' full grown threat t' world peace! Thank you Jesus!!"
"The God thing" is the latest European attempt to figure out why the Americans are so eager to go to war in Iraq. It has, for the moment, replaced "the Israel thing" as people on both sides of the English Channel, or at least political commentators, watch us marching as to war. Kiosks here are dominated by photographs of Bush at prayer. Le Point's cover line is "La Guerre Sainte de Bush." On the music magazine Les Inrockuptibles, it's "l'Amerique integriste en guerre au nom de Dieu." (Roughly, "The American fundamentalist at war in the name of God.") Then there is Newsweek International, with "Bush and God."
The round of Bush-as-fanatic-Christian stories have replaced columns reporting that much of Bush's recent rhetoric -- particularly the line, "We will stay as long as necessary, and not one day more" -- is word-for-word lifts of Gen. Ariel Sharon's statements when Israel invaded Lebanon. And whatever anti-Semitism there is now in Europe -- France is the only country on the continent with significant numbers of Jews -- there is an enormous hostility to Israel.
People here pretty much think George W. Bush is nuts, and his religiosity is seen as evidence of that. Much of "Old Europe," as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has defined our allies of the past half-century, is simply anti-religious. That is not surprising after centuries of religious hatred, oppression and warfare over which face of God to worship. "I hate religion" is a routine second line of conversations here. There is regular and serious comparison around here of the destructive fervor of fundamentalist Muslims and Christians. "What's the difference?" I have been asked many times over the past week.
The answer to that question is that the United States has laws and traditions that separate church and state, while Muslims believe there is no difference. Islam is more than a religion; it is a system of life itself, encompassing governance, economics and social interaction. But not many people here are interested in talking about that now.
People are afraid of President Bush. The polls declaring that Europeans think we are a greater threat to world peace than Saddam Hussein reflect real attitudes and a certain logic: Saddam may be a monster, but he is a threat only to those in and around Iraq. What the Americans think and do touches every person on the planet. That's part of being the world's only superpower.
It is a bit startling to hear old friends talk with feeling about the danger from America. It is much more intense than the suspicion of President Reagan when I lived here in the 1980s. History has shown that priests of various kinds are a great deal more dangerous than cowboys. Although his rather fundamental religious beliefs were not that different from those of George Bush, Reagan rarely made a big deal of his godliness, and he was seen as being less religious than his born-again prdecessor, Jimmy Carter. In fact, though Europeans, governments and people alike, disagreed with Reagan about many things, he offered what is really wanted here: strong and predictable American leadership.
President Bush is not seen as offering either of those things. But success is its own reward. Europe, old and new, will fall in line (and stand in line for their share of desert oil) if the United States runs Saddam out of town -- and somehow maintains control of the Middle East. But that is not an easy thing to do. After their first invasion of Lebanon in 1978, the Israelis stayed there for almost 22 years, and not one day more -- and got nothing but grief for it.