Bush "a hired Christian thug."
• Wearisome Bedfellows
Iraq plays into these concerns like no other issue. One reason is that fundamentalist Christian doctrine envisions a horrific conflict, the Biblical Armageddon, as the way to hasten the return of Jesus and the Millennium -- not the 21st century, but a thousand years of enlightenment that Jesus will return to preside over, according to the Good Book. And guess where Armageddon is supposed to take place.