His Terrible Swift Sword

Last night's Republican National Convention, they say, was classy. It's an extrordinary thing to set aside an entire quarter of your infomercial and devote it to non-partisan efforts. I'm not going to watch this one much either, but the talk in the streets is the RNC got it right. And since Gustav has apparently shed much of its strength and fury, it is safe to return to a more conventional Convention.

I'm just wondering though, for consistancy's sake, about the role of God in all this.

The evangelical community was quite fond of pointing out that Katrina was God's way of punishing New Orleans for its sinful ways. So presumably the storm this time around is God's way of saying, "You're cleaning up there, New Orleans. Good on ya." However, Gustav forced Republicans into giving up all that free TV time - isn't that God's way of saying that they're on notice?

And though some were saying that the party dodged a bullet in that they were able to credibly cancel the President's and Vice President's appearance on Monday. But Bush will speak, via satellite, tonight. So his appearance is separated from Palin's speech and McCain's (he's also running) speech by one less day. Surely, if God uses storms as a way of administering justice and engineering the big picture, this demonstrates that he wants the Republicans to lose, right?

As a matter of fact, there was a movement several weeks ago. A pastor implored people to pray for rain during Obama's stadium speech. And the Democrats were spared rain while Republicans were flooded out of an entire convention night. I don't claim to speak for Mr. Big there, but there's no mistaking which team he's rooting for right now.

Addendum: Here's the class keepin' on goin' - President Bush this morning.

President Bush said Tuesday that while it’s too early to assess Hurricane Gustav’s damage to U.S. oil infrastructure off the Gulf Coast, the storm should prompt Congress to OK more domestic oil production.

“One thing is for certain, when Congress comes back, they’ve got to understand that we need more domestic energy, not less,” Bush said in the Roosevelt Room. “One place to find it is offshore America lands that have been taken off the books, so to speak, by congressional law and now they need to give us a chance to find more oil and gas here at home.”

It takes a guy who doesn't do nuance to use a massive gulf storm to argue that offshore drilling is a great idea.