God Rebukes Bush for Presumption of Blessing

Earth, January 22, 2007 -- Speaking in a worldwide multimedia simulcast, God, Creator of the Universe, yesterday rebuked U.S. President George W. Bush for repeatedly using the phrase "May God continue to bless America" in speeches.

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God, Whose voice was controlled but Whose tone was at times testy, warned that He has been punishing and will continue to punish Bush for the conceit inherent in the phrase.

God made His irked presence known by means of a worldwide announcement in every human language broadcast simultaneously via all television and radio networks, loudspeakers, pagers, BlackBerries, cell phones, and naturally resonant silica deposits in unwired regions. His unanticipated Revelation drew the ire of millions of American television viewers due to the pre-emption by His message of hit series American Idol 6: More Idiots on Parade, which had just launched its season premiere.

"I think – in fact, I know. I am omniscient, after all -- you people should understand that by saying 'continue to bless', George W. Bush is assuming I've already been spending My invaluable time and energy blessing America," God explained. "That requires just a supernatural degree of arrogance and presumption, wouldn't you agree? And frankly it irks Me to have an insignificant speck of a human being presume to know My ways and to dare to issue Me instructions."

Shortly after his selection as president, George W. Bush began departing from the tradition practiced by many of his predecessors to conclude public addresses with the phrase "God bless America", instead adding the word "continue". This addition implies that God has already blessed America and carries with it the subtext that Bush somehow deserves a portion of the credit for that presumed blessing.

"Look around," God said. "Does Bush thinks America looks like it's been blessed by Me lately? What kind of incompetent celestial potentate does that posturing shrimp think I am? I'll give you a hint – I don't go around blessing the fruit of My omnipotence by killing them in buildings and floods and on deserts, disenfranchising them, driving them into poverty and denying them medical care while allowing the magnificence of My creation to be chopped down, drilled into and blanketed with toxic waste, for Christ's sake."

According to God's Message, He has indeed been handing out plentiful supplies of unspecified blessings in recent history, but relatively few of them were necessarily directed at Americans, and none at the United States of America as a unit.

"To begin with, I do not recognize national boundaries," God said. "That should be obvious even to those humans whom I have not granted more than the most limited capacity for rational thought. As sole Creator of the Universe, I most certainly do not interest myself in petty and arbitrary borders drawn by strutting politicians. Take Alaska. Just because an obscure Secretary of State named William Seward paid Imperial Russia $7 million for it in 1867, does Bush genuinely think I have been blessing that clump of My creation any more than some random adjoining clump of Canadian territory? Unbelievable."

God said He has meted out a Just and Appropriate punishment to President Bush for his presumption, and that He will continue to do so until Bush acquires "at least the bare rudiments of humility."

"In order to push that along a little," God said, "I have made Bush about a half inch shorter and five pounds fatter each year, and will keep making him shorter and fatter every year until he gets with the program. My will be done."

By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor