President Bush loses his grip

Let's assume there will be an official clarification from the White House press office by the time you read this, but on Monday President Bush said he believes "intelligent design" should be taught in the schools along with evolution. "I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought," Bush was reported to have said, "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes."

"Intelligent design," if you don't follow this kind of thing, is the new name for creationism. Creationism is the belief of faithful evangelical Christians that the earth was created exactly as the book of Genesis describes, in six days.

If President Bush meant what he said, Congress should cut short its recess, rush right back to Washington and repeal the No Child Left Behind Act. Closing the Department of Education isn't a bad idea, either. The federal government should be locked out of public education before somebody gets seriously hurt.

Let's not waste a lot of time here: faith is not fact, religion is not science, belief is not knowledge, the IRS is not a collection plate.

That said, the president might be devious enough to be up to something. Perhaps he's stroking the religious right to distract them from something that they won't like at all. It might be that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts will never vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Or it might be that President Bush has decided not to veto legislation expanding federal funding for stem cell research.

Hey, a girl can dream.


Copyright 2005


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