Taking Sides

It’s a good thing we have a professional press corps to flush out the really important issues in the presidential campaign debates:

Q. Really fast, last, on a Sunday morning, President Bush has said that freedom and fear have always been at war and God is not neutral between them. He’s made quite clear in these speeches that he feels God is on America’s side. Really quick: Is God on America’s side?

I suppose Pat Robertson and company are trying to make this an issue by portraying Bush as God’s anointed president. But really, what’s a candidate going to say to this? No? And exactly what is the other side which God might be siding with instead? Oh yeah, the “evildoers”–we don’t want God jumping to their side. The candidates should be running campaigns geared to insure that God is on “America’s side,” right?
I think Senator Edwards offered the best possible response to this lame question:

MR. EDWARDS. Well, there’s a wonderful story about Abraham Lincoln during the middle of the Civil War bringing in a group of leaders and at the end of the meeting one of the leaders said, Mr. President, can we pray, can we please join in prayer that God is on our side? And Abraham Lincoln’s response was, I won’t join you in that prayer, but I’ll join you in a prayer that we’re on God’s side.

Exactly.