E. L. Doctorow on Bush

E. L. Doctorow ponders his perception that Bush cannot mourn, and further, that Bush’s inability to do so has led us into a vast moral quagmire. Doctorow is eloquent, and I find this statement even more interesting:

"The president we get is the country we get. With each president the nation is conformed spiritually. He is the artificer of our malleable national soul. He proposes not only the laws but the kinds of lawlessness that govern our lives and invoke our responses. The people he appoints are cast in his image. The trouble they get into and get us into, is his characteristic trouble."

"With each president the nation is conformed spiritually." What a fascinating assertion -- and I wonder if, particularly in a digitally mediated cultural space -- it is particularly evident today? If so, religious educators would seem to be an even more vital national resource!