Big Issues: Politics, God And America
A weekly commentary by CBS News Correspondent Andy Rooney:
The last thing most politicians say when they're making a speech is "God bless America." We like to hear politicians say that because when they do, we know they're done and we won’t have to listen to them any more.
I have so many opinions about so many things that it seems likely that, sooner or later, I'll express an opinion that so many people find offensive it will end my career here.
This may be it: I hate it when politicians end their speeches by saying, "God Bless America."
What kind of meaningless, self-serving thing is that to say, anyway? The three words are spoken as if they were an order. But I suppose they're meant as a request. "Please God" is sort of assumed.
I just dislike the idea of anyone using God's name to get in good with us and I'll bet he doesn't like it, either. And what does it mean?
Does the politician who says it want God to bless America and not any place else in the world?
If they're talking about God giving Americans more than he gives the people of other countries, it seems as if he's already done that. We certainly have more than our share of the good things on Earth. But I don't think we're blessed with so much because God likes us best or because politicians are always asking him to bless us.
Do the people who ask God to bless America believe that a just and caring God who has the power to make things better or worse for a country, would really choose to make things better for Americans than for the people of, say, Canada or Botswana?
Why would God do that? Certainly not because George W. Bush or Jesse Jackson asked him to at the end of a speech.
If the politicians who are always saying it were as religious as they like to make voters think they are, they'd be saying "Please God, make available to every human being in the world, all the good things we are so lucky to have here in America."
I have one concluding thought about political speeches, too. I liked President George W. Bush's inaugural address. It was good but it didn't sound as though he wrote it. I don't think he did. As a writer, I like to see writers get credit for their work.
Every political speech ought to end, not with "God Bless America," but with the name of the writer.
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