From “An evening with Ann”¦ and Lynn,” in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, with thanks to Mackie:
First, Coulter found herself in the uncharacteristic position of being upstaged by her introducer, Mike Gallagher.
He told the audience he was fresh back from an hour-and-45-minute session which President Bush held in the Oval Office Friday afternoon with him and four other conservative talk show hosts: Atlanta’s Neal Boortz, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Michael Medved. Rush Limbaugh couldn’t make it, he said.
Though he said this session was supposed to be off the record, Gallagher described it at some length, including Bush’s observation to the right-wing radio jocks that the War on Terror has to be about right versus wrong, “because if it’s about Christianity versus Islam, we”ll lose.”
Fair enough. Certainly Christianity as such doesn’t seem to have the unity, will, or moral strength for such a conflict right now. But the jihad is advancing not just against Christians. This is an opportunity for President Bush to call for a coalition of all the actual and potential victims of jihad violence and oppression — Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims who reject the jihad ideology of conquest and subjugation, atheists, whatever — to join together to defend the civilization of the West and universal human rights. There are many things about which we all disagree, but at this point we need to unite simply in order to survive. We can sort out our disagreements later.
I will not, however, be expecting Bush to do this anytime soon.