Election Shrapnel by Adam Cadre

An excellent article, written by another atheist gamer like me, a week after the election.

It's not just that [Bush] proudly proclaims that he doesn't read newspapers, trumpets his bad grades at Yale to prove he wasn't tainted by higher education, mocks people for speaking foreign languages or using words outside his active vocabulary, and is regularly described even by his most ardent supporters as "incurious". It's his sheer hostility to unsolicited input. Even questions from reporters are invariably greeted by Bush with defensive whining; while John Kerry's town hall meetings during the campaign were come one come all, Bush's audiences had to sign loyalty oaths to get in. And then there's his approach to foreign affairs, in which the US says, "This is what we're doing; you can help if you want," and if other countries try to chime in with an opinion, the response is effectively, "Shut up — fuck you — we don't care what you think."