A letter I received from a friend:

There is a man in our church, Jeff Benoit, who has a friend who served on President Elect Bush's campaign in Austin, and she called him to tell this story.

Last week, Gov. Bush appeared at the thank-you banquet for his campaign staff, and was going table to table to shake hands with the 1000+ campaign volunteers. He got to one lady, who by a brief comment she made, indicated she was a Christian. She was there with her 16 year old son. Gov. Bush asked him if he was a believer, too. He said he didn't think so. Gov. Bush then asked, "Do you mind if I tell you how I came to know Christ as my Saviour?"

The boy agreed, and Gov. Bush pulled up a chair and witnessed to him for 30 minutes, and led him in the sinners prayer!! Jeff's friend was so choked up, she could hardly tell the story through tears. How glorious to know that our new president is a man that doesn't feel the political pressure to glad-hand 1000 people, but would take 30 minutes of his precious time to lead a teenager to Christ!

I pray that the New Year will bring many opportunities for all of us to share the Gospel with those seeking a relationship with Jesus Christ!

-- I believe in Him (Jesus is King@Kingdom.come), January 20, 2001

Answers

if this story is true=bush is a minority!! and it will be vry hard to wear 2 hats!!

the ant-christ=spirit is very-strong on america!

should be interesting---times!!

-- al-d (dogs@zianet.com), January 20, 2001.

This story is highly suspect. Where would the President-elect come up with 30+ minutes in the middle of a packed event and schedule to talk Jesus with the son of a campaign volunteer? Think about this logically: Bush is at a function where 1,000 people are waiting to meet him. He is surrounded by the press, his staffers, and his body guards. His schedule has been coordinated down to the minute so he can maximize the "honeymoon" the president-elect gets in the weeks surrounding the inauguration. Suddenly, in the middle of a 1000+ person receiving line, he's going to pull up a chair and talk to someone, one on one, for thirty minutes? No way. He would be pulled away by his staffers and the demands of the crowd if his security detail didn't do it first (remember Robert Kennedy?).

Assuming that Bush did somehow manage to talk with someone one-on-one for such a long period in the middle of the chaos, the press would have been there recording his every word. He's been living in a fishbowl since he began campaigning. Remember the private comments that got published last summer? Imagine how much steam an enterprising reporter could find with a story about how G.W. Bush converted a teenager.

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), January 20, 2001.

Tarzan,

For what it's worth, we had the story verified to us by other sources, so we mentioned it on air. The meeting was closed to the press; it was a private banquet.

The only thing that's questionable is whether he spent "30 minutes" -- it might have been more like 5-10 minutes. But the event happened essentially as reported above.

-- Stephen M. Poole (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), January 20, 2001.

Date, time, location, and source please.

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), January 20, 2001.

This sounds INCREDIBLY like the story that was just debunked by one of the ministries or another. they had run with it for several days and debunked it on Thurs or Wed.

NT

-- night train (nighttr@in.lane), January 21, 2001.

Bush pulled up a chair and witnessed to him for 30 minutes, and led him in the sinners prayer!!

Oh, make me VOMIT! Why won't the "christians" just keep it to themselves and stop trying to force their dogma down everyone else's throat?

And how "christian" is it to STEAL an election? Hypocrites, ALL!

-- Drop (TheSugarCoating@PresidentInThief.com), January 21, 2001.

tarzan you weenie, you only hear what the press wants you to hear. They are not going to print a story that actually makes him look good. DUH

-- (yeah@you know.me), January 21, 2001.

Actually Cin, I don't think this story is flattering to George Bush at all. It shows that he's so fanatical about his religion that he's willing to completely ignore the very volunteers he was there to thank in order to browbeat a teenage boy for 30 full minutes. It shows that he has no regard for his campaign workers or the folks who were at his next stop.

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), January 21, 2001.

Tarzan,

As a heathen, you would see it that way.

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), January 21, 2001.

Yep Ape Man, this Prez does things differently. HE actually has morals, ethics & virtues and the same strong faith in Jesus our founding fathers had and this country was founded on.

-- Ain't Gonna Happen (Not Here Not@ever.com), January 21, 2001.

The only people who would see this as a flattering story are evangelical Christians. The rest of the country would see a man so driven by the need to promote his religion that he can't even govern his schedule let alone this country.

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), January 21, 2001.

God bless America...again!

Deal with it Tarzan..

-- Ain't Gonna Happen (Not Here Not@ever.com), January 21, 2001.

I have blessed this Dubya man. Do not oppose him if you give a fig for your everlasting soul.

-- (GOD@His.lair), January 21, 2001.

LOL Ain't. Clinton had several poses like that and was also an avowed Christian. That didn't mean that he did what you and others would like.

Anyway, Bush is our president, and I, like everyone else, will have to deal with it for four years.

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), January 21, 2001.

also an avowed Christian.

Says who? Him? Spare me PULEAZE!

-- Ain't Gonna Happen (Not Here Not@ever.com), January 21, 2001.

Says him. Repeatedly.

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), January 21, 2001.

Just because someone says they are something doesn't necessarily make it true.

No matter how many times I say I am a car I will never be one.

No matter how many times Bill Clinton says he's a Christian, this alone won't make him one.

The real proof is/was in his actions. NOT his words alone which have time and time again, proved him to be a liar.

-- Ain't Gonna Happen (Not Here Not@ever.com), January 21, 2001.

Dubya is the farthest thing from a Christian that ever lived. In fact he could be the Antichrist.

There are lots of sinners like him who do awful and disgusting things and think they don't have to be responsible because they are young, even though he continued to act like an irresponsible asshole until into his 40's.

The thing that is really pathetic about Dubya is that he never expressed remorse or truly changed his ways. He seems to think that ever since he talked to Reverend Billy Graham that he is holier than other people, and all of his sins have disappeared.

This gives him the right to lie about his past and call other people assholes, because he somehow has a special relationship with Jesus Christ. What he doesn't realize is that makes him even worse, using the name of Christ to justify his sinful behavior that he never really stopped.

-- Mother Theresa (one@holy.mama), January 22, 2001.

Hmmm....maybe Dubya can use this talent on the Middle East situation. You know, bring Yasser and Ehud together and tell then that, you know, they just knew the Lord the way he does then this whole little dust-up could be settled lickety-split.

I have no problems with Dubya being an avowed born-again Christian (to each his own etc...), but I'll be watching with interest to see if he does a little Texas two-step on the line between church and state.

By the way, I'm writing this from Colorado, where I'll be all this week on business. Every time I travel to the States I am quickly reminded that it is a foreign country, despite us Canadians' constant electronic ingestion of US culture. On this trip the 2 events that made me realize that, yep, I wasn't in the Great White North were when my business host here reminded me that Colorado allows the carrying of concealed weapons (with the proper paperwork) and, two, when I came down to breakfast at my hotel this morning and discovered that one of the ballrooms being used for a church service. (Using hotel ballrooms for church services may be a commonplace in the US, but I've never seen it in Canada.)

Regards

Johnny (who is now conscious of his "oots" and "a-boots")

-- Johnny Canuck (j_canuck@hotmail.com), January 22, 2001.