Your granny is hopelessly transfixed when I detect instances of people infringing on God's intellectual property rights.  Rest assured, if I were God, it would only take a couple of lightning bolts and folks would get the message that I don't put up with passing off.  As you might imagine, I perked up when I read GQ.com's new revelation of a gross display of Jesus conscription by the U.S. Defense Department.  It seems the cover pages on the Worldwide Intelligence Updates hand-delivered by Donald Rumsfeld to President Bush in the lead up to and early months of the Iraq War were slathered up with Bible verses.  And I don't think permission to use these verses was obtained from the Author in advance.       

Since the public justification for invading Iraq was the threat of WMD's and it turned out that Saddam Hussein didn't have any WMD's, the presence of Bible verses on those intel briefs is obviously a misrepresentation.  Good thing for complicit top Pentagon officials that God isn't litigious.  Still, I'd keep my head down and brush up on the 30/30 Rule if I were Donald Rumsfeld or Major General Glen Shaffer.  

Folks will speculate that those Bible verses were used intentionally by Donald Rumsfeld to cynically manipulate President Bush.  That is perhaps the worst possible interpretation.  It may be that Rumsfeld's self-aggrandizing inner pharisee simply got the best of him.  Could be he was painfully lacking in humility and sobriety, incapable of circumspection, and just plain lazy.  Who knows what Rumsfeld's motives were.  Without a doubt he "appreciated" the sheen of righteousness those Bible verses lent to what we know to be a flawed endeavor.  It is dismaying that folks in the Defense Department with such solemn obligations would so thoughtlessly hijack God's name.

It would sure be handy if God had an official seal.  I think we'd all be surprised at how rarely God issues endorsements.  We could round up all the counterfeiters and be done with them once and for all.  I can only hope I wouldn't be among them.

UPDATE:  Looks like Rumsfeld is taking issue with the GQ report.  His denials don't seem to jive with the reporting on Major General Glen Shaffer's role in this debaucle.  I'm keeping an eye on this story.  --Granny, 5/19/09