Fundamentalist Crackpot or Unscrupulous Fraud?

See? I carefully consider both sides of an argument, folks.

There's been a spate of articles published lately that contemplate the dark side of Bush's faith. After all, there have been about a half-dozen books touting his Christian bona fides. So why not a few rebuttals?

The most significant is Ron Suskind's NYT magazine piece from Sunday:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html?oref=login&oref=login&pagewanted=all&position

Here's a good New Republic article that uses a lot of info from Richard Clarke. The idea is that Bush's ideology means that he can be played like a fiddle by savvy advisors:

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041011&s=scheiber101104

Finally, there's this piece from the American Prospect, suggesting that Bush is in fact manipulating faith for other ends:

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8790

Thanks to the Mighty COW for prompting this post.