Fair Game
GOODMAN, WALTER
Fair Game by walter goodman Presidential Piety Heaven Unfortunately for the victims of the earthquake in Italy, the casualties of the brotherly spat in Lebanon and India's starving multitudes,...
...That constant praying...
...According to New Leader sources here, the Lord has had scarcely a moment to call His own since the New Hampshire primary...
...Although Gerald Ford's praying has increased somewhat since the Indiana primary, he still isn't asking for much...
...All they found under Reagan's name were a couple of standard pleas that the spirit of George Wallace should look kindly upon him...
...When Brown reported that the mystical Three Degrees of Humility were eluding him, God could scarcely contain Himself...
...We really appreciated that highbrow anguish, so much more interesting than Episcopalian devotions yet easier on the ears than the revivalists...
...If J.C...
...I hope they get it settled between them without papal intervention...
...For one thing, he is not given to spontaneous prayer...
...Michael felt this could not be called a healthy relationship...
...Yet a definite warmth was observed toward Morris Udall and Frank Church, not because of any of their opinions but because they have not stirred up a lot of paperwork for the Heavenly bureaucracy...
...In short, does God fear to offend the likely next inhabitant of the White House...
...Close associates say that Governor Brown's Jesuit twist on Eastern spirituality breaks Him up...
...No statement of Presidential preference will be forthcoming from the Almighty...
...The man is 100 per cent in earnest when he asks the Almighty to light his way through the difficult issues that confront any contender for the Presidency...
...Frankly, we prefer a President like John Kennedy, who was a true American Catholic in that he would never consider bothering God about his career...
...Does He want to have a friend down there...
...Michael himself grew somewhat agitated as he discussed this candidate: "How do you think we liked it when Reagan said after he won the North Carolina primary that he had prayed hard that he would lose decisively so that he could call off his campaign at that stage...
...acts stupid, our image suffers...
...Anyway, we're not getting involved...
...They haven't got a prayer...
...And if you've ever heard a Southern Baptist pray, you know it's not easy to ignore...
...What do I think about me and what do You think about me and what do all of them out there think about me?'" But why is Heaven giving Carter such attention, we asked shrewdly...
...And that sinister Korean who calls himself Sun Moon told the world that Nixon had been chosen by God personally...
...And he is smart to use prayer to learn the answers, for it has become apparent to all of us Up Here that God only knows what Jimmy Carter thinks about anything...
...His favorite line from the Bible is, "Trust in the Lord with thine own understanding"—to the latter part of which Many in Heaven cry, "Amen...
...We could never stop John Foster Dulles from implying that God was in favor of massive retaliation...
...The stuff they put out on Joseph and Mary was in especially bad taste, I felt—you remember, those incidents in the stable...
...What do I think about ethnic purity...
...What he needs is a road map...
...It's very hard on A Person's train of thought...
...Nobody in Heaven knows exactly what Governor Brown is praying for, outside of everything, but they were reassured not long ago to hear him say, at a Protestant prayer breakfast, "I think we've come a long way individually and collectively, because many of the apparent divisions that separate people and their ideas and their philosophies and their roles are not quite as different and separate as we thought...
...Heaven always gets plenty of notice when Gerald Ford intends to deliver up a prayer...
...It makes it look as though we're not doing our job...
...The President is accompanied on those occasions by four carloads of photographers and reporters...
...By the time he finished his term, everyone in the country would be a powerful believer...
...We suspect that Cardinal Spellman was doing some informing, and I have sent along a request under the Freedom of Information Act for what they have on us...
...It so happens that the Division of Candidates' Requests has done a thorough check of the period in question, and can find no record whatever of that particular request...
...What with the Heavenly City's cutbacks, the little prayers of undernourished children are being buried under all those great big prayers of Jimmy Carter: 'Oh, Lord, what do I think about detente...
...We really liked Eisenhower Up Here—an occasional humble request for a birdie and he'd leave you alone till the next sunny afternoon...
...After all, we are also them...
...He does more praying than Eisenhower did putting...
...It's my personal opinion that the best situation from our point of view would be to have a publicly declared atheist as President...
...Michael's eyes brightened: "Say, if Jimmy Carter reads Neibuhr, then maybe he also subscribes to The New Leader...
...Now and then, a three-piece ensemble from Lawrence Welk's orchestra comes along to play hymns...
...he kept trying to get us to sign his petitions...
...There's always somebody like that circulating...
...We're darn lucky we weren't subpoenaed in the Watergate mess...
...Fair Game by walter goodman Presidential Piety Heaven Unfortunately for the victims of the earthquake in Italy, the casualties of the brotherly spat in Lebanon and India's starving multitudes, God has very little time to spare these days...
...Is he getting priority treatment out of political considerations...
...He found it funnier than Pat Moynihan in a yamulke...
...For Heaven's purposes, Jerry Brown has been filed away with the Unitarians...
...the Reverend Billy Graham is brought in to do the writing...
...He is all tied up in the American Presidential primaries...
...Guilt by Association...
...It all happened, of course, before the courts decided that what goes on in the privacy of a stable is subject to police regulation...
...As for Reagan, officials Up Here can't figure out where the man got the idea that God is an American, probably from the Southwest...
...Michael made it clear that Heaven has nothing against prayer: "It's just that people tend to overdo a good thing...
...Michael was taken with the curious report of Woodward-Bernstein that Richard Nixon liked to fall to his knees in the presence of Henry Kissinger...
...What does he mean about holding onto Panama for us...
...You didn't hear him blaming us for the Bay of Pigs...
...In an exclusive statement to The New Leader, given on the understanding that we would keep our circulation from exploding, Michael revealed that Heaven is quite nervous about candidates who believe they are in close communion with Himself...
...our present policy is firm—a definite Heavenly laying off of hands...
...No sooner does The Boss settle down to a serious matter like the torture of political prisoners in Chile than Carter is back on his knees seeking guidance...
...We got burned in the '60s, when the FBI was tapping in on the prayers of the Concerned Clergy and spreading rumors about us in order to discredit them...
...Prayer and Sausages Michael reported that Gerald Ford has not been making nearly as many demands on Heaven as Jimmy Carter...
...It's a tricky matter for us," Michael explained...
...Also, he suspects that Henry Kissinger sometimes falls to his knees in his own presence...
...Everybody Up Here does...
...Michael remembered Dr...
...John Connally, too, by the way, believes that his initials signify something special...
...You know the way political people have of blaming all their preferences on us...
...and the ceremony is invariably conducted over breakfast, along with eggs, sausage, cold cereals, and a number of Congressional alcoholics, some reformed...
...You remember that peculiar rabbi who still hangs around with Richard Nixon...
...But with Carter it's rain or shine...
...The Archangel Michael, who is heading up a task force to take some of the heat off God, explained: "Jimmy Carter has got a lot to answer for...
...Michael was pleased to learn that Jimmy Carter had heard of the name Reinhold Neibuhr, and even claimed to have read some of his writings...
...Michael denied any political deals...
...The man does more praying than William Jennings Bryan, the last big nuisance along these lines...
...When you go into partnership with somebody like Jimmy Carter, you become the silent partner...
...Neibuhr from the old days when he was Heaven's token intellectual, as well as a regular contributor to this publication...
...You have to give it to those guys," said Michael...
...Incidentally, the Lord has been unable to make head or tail of Governor Jerry Brown, who has been known to speak in tongues, but the young fellow does reportedly give Him a good laugh now and then...
...All the President really wants is that God keep him from falling on his face in the final pray-out with Ronald Reagan...
...No matter who wins, we have to lose...
...When he falls suddenly to his knees, it only means he has tripped over something...
...A spokesperson for Heaven's Foreign Office expressed bewilderment over Reagan's policy statements on Latin America...
...If Lyndon Johnson had been pious, he'd probably have claimed on television that it was us who told him to bomb the North...
...We can't ignore his prayers, because they are so evidently sincere...
...Heavenly Hands Off The Archangel Michael was careful to reiterate Heaven's longstanding policy of impartiality in the affairs of men...
Vol. 59 • June 1976 • No. 13
