The Revealer‘s normal modus operandi is to say: Didja see that? Religion! In the secular news! We’re always on the lookout for the god in the machine, and no more so than in the sermons of our preacher-in-chief. Dude’s brilliant. Or, at least, Michael Gerson is. In this judgement we usually have company — even the most godless, gayest, baby-killingest urban liberal journalist notes the religion in Bush’s rhetoric. But: Who notes the godlessness in his speeches? Like last night. Holy Ghost Power: AWOL. Where was it? No God. No scripture references we picked up on. No equation of freedom with Je-hov-ah! Nuthin. The American Ethical Union could have written that sad, rational, godless speech. Even the part about the gays — you know, we shouldn’t let ’em marry — even that was put in strictly materialist terms. Ahistorical, factually inaccurate terms, but rational straight down the line. So we’re left wondering about liberal media bias. And conservative media bias. When Bush talks God, the left screams in horror, the right screams in delight. But when Bush lays out the state of the nation as if it weren’t the work of an interventionist lord, not a peep. Man — is Peggy Noonan that powerful?