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DVD: George W. Bush: Faith in the White House
Starring George W. Bush
Written by Joseph Meier and Sharon Dymmel
Directed by David W. Balsiger (Grizzly Adams Productions)
Reviewed by Rusty Pipes
Faith In the White House is billed as "An Alternative to Fahrenheit 911." Frank Rich of the New York Times calls it "The Passion Of The Bush." It is an "investigation" into the most Christian President ever, by people who are just as Christian as he is.
Director David Balsiger is well known in Christian fundamentalist circles for producing videos about the secret codes in the Bible, the healing power of prayer, searches for Noah's Ark and other subjects of interest to the faithful, so his involvement in this production is not terribly surprising. It's a slick production with plenty of nice dissolves through archival footage and interviews with many people who know George Bush through his faith. There are a couple of reenactments too. George himself appears several times in recordings of speeches he's given on Christian themes, but it's hard to tell when some of them were given. All this paints a picture of a White House that hums with prayer. That's no stretch of the imagination, but clearly this video is also a call to fundamentalists to support a President that Balsiger thinks has been chosen by God to lead us.
Less than thirty seconds into Faith in the White House Balsiger makes the first error of fact, claiming that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were the only other Presidents in office when America was attacked on its own soil. James Madison would have something to say about that; the War of 1812 was certainly was fought here. Oh and by the way the way George Washington was not President during the Revolutionary War, he was a General. At least I assume that's what they were talking about. But that's minor compared to the overall thrust of the video.
To support the thesis that Bush is the most Godly President ever, Balsiger goes through Dubya's early years before he was in politics. They briefly cover his business ventures, of course never mentioning his oil company failure, just saying that he had "a throat full of Texas dust" in that time. The conversion he had, accepting Jesus on his 40th birthday and giving up drinking, figures prominently, and that is given as the reason why he is such a moral person now.
Further examples of his character include a reenactment of George as a boy consoling his mother when tragedy struck the Bush family. Another brief reenactment examines the claim that while working to elect his father President, George spurned the advances of a female campaign worker. This wouldn't be worth relating in this review except that they also claim that an official, "whose name you would know," told Dubya he should take up the woman's offer. George of course is said to have loudly rebuffed the man. They further claim that on a different occasion George shuttled a different unnamed Congressman out of his office, when in a meeting about a bill he dared to suggest that there was "something in it" for George. My point is that this is far from a real investigation into facts. I guess for the faithful you don't need to name names in these stories though. Wouldn't be Christian.
The whole video is rather like that. But they lay it on even thicker as its 70 minutes goes by. The only Bush family member that's interviewed is William Uncle Bucky Bush, who says that Dubya reads a 12 inch stack of briefings AND a book every day. (Lord, it's a miracle!) They claim that Bush has rebuilt all 240 hospitals in Iraq. (No points taken away for filling them up in the first place.) They show portions of a speech he gave to the UN on the international sex trade and attribute to him the "moral clarity of an old testament Biblical prophet." (And I've heard so much about his work on that since then!) They cover how George removed "roadblocks" to faith based drug rehabilitation efforts while Governor of Texas. (You know, little roadblocks like using accepted medical standards in the rehabilitation programs instead of just a whole lot of prayer.) The biggest supposition however is that George did not seek office, but rather was called to it by a higher power. And boy does he pray and pray and pray!
If any video can be called preaching to the converted, this is it. The message is that George Bush is doing God's work and we should all re-elect him to continue God's work. My only consolation is that in the video store where I rented it, there were at least a hundred copies of Fahrenheit 911 and only about 6 of these.
© 2004 - Rusty Pipes