Orson,

I don’t grasp how the non-scientifically minded, like Bush, can go though life without all of the unintegrated, mythical awareness simply driving out the rational components

Why so? Pepole compartmentalize all the time, and successful people especially balance all sorts of intellectual and emotional contradictions.

As to Bush’s evangelical faith, it came to him relatively late in life, in early middle age. I think it’s fair to locate the emotional valence of his conversion in the intersection of his efforts to overcome alcoholism, save his marriage, and carve out a relationship to his father that involves the usual son-father rivalry along with a desire to make good in the one sphere where he has undeniable brilliance: managing political relationships.

It would appear to me that his evangelical faith has undeniable therapeutic benefits but also allows him to create a successful political and professional identity that is completely independent of his father. There may also be some psychic satisfaction for the former wastrel son in using precisely that evangelical support– electoral and emotional– to exceed his father’s achievements. Recall that it was the hard right whose lack of strong support did in Bush pere in ’92.

All of which makes it entirely logical that a man who is so intuitively sharp, and exceptionally gifted at the chess game of politics, would latch on to the creationist wagon.

That’s a pity. Ultimately it’s not the Democrats but your children and mine who are going to suffer the consequences. Looks like daddy’s not going to have too much time for blogging: I’ll have to scramble to earn the extra $20,000+ (actually, $30,000 in pre-tax income) needed each year for private school tuitions. And drive the kids many miles each day to reach the only secular private school in the region. What madness.