George. Hey, universe here. Great eternal karmic engine of all that ever was and is and will be everywhere for all time, yadda yadda yadda. We have to talk.
Weirdest thing. I've been fighting this nasty rash, you see, this itchy painful scabby thing, very unusual, uncomfortable and annoying as all hell, as you might imagine. Not sleeping well. Tea tastes funny. Divine timeless luminous glow is flickering like a bad bulb. Haven't seen anything like this since, oh, the Crusades, or the Salem witch trials, or 'Nam. So weird.
But I think I've figured out the cause, GW. Turns out it's a person. Human. Pale and smirky and not all that articulate. You feel me?
Let's get to the point. All sources are telling me that you are more than a little outta control. Way out of line. Off-leash and lost and drunk on dreams of global supremacy and in deep need of major karmic spanking, a divine colonic. The various world deities are shooting me urgent e-mails left and right. We gotta have some words, brother. Are you sitting down? Thinking cap on? Pretzels out of reach? Excellent.
Word is you're reborn Christian. Great. Didn't quite get it right the first time, is what they say, what with all the inebriants and daddy's silver spoon and dodging Vietnam and, hey, nothing snags those God-fearin'-fundamentalist votes more than claiming you rediscovered Jesus while recovering from another gin bender on Dad's yacht, am I right? Fine and good. Whatever works, I always say.
Problem is, Jesus is a little piqued. He's right here with me, right now, and he's drumming his fingers on the table, eyes aflame. He has a question: "Just what in the heck do you think you're doing in my dad's name? Did you miss the part about 'Thou shalt not kill?' You dare invoke me and my father and call yourself a forgiving Christian and yet you stomp around the globe like you own it?" Christ, he is not happy.
He also wants to know what's with those hardcore evangelical Christian missionaries marching into Iraq. Sure, the food and aid they bring in is wonderful and needed, but the Bibles? The sanctimonious preaching? Billy Graham spawn Franklin Graham's bilious Islam-bashing ideology? What's up with that? Who you trying to kid?
Which leads us right to the thing with the prayer cards. What the hell is this? Some sort of sanctimonious pamphlet being handed out to U.S. soldiers in the battlefield, which they're supposed to tear off and send to you to let you know they're praying for you? Oh dear. Are you serious?
Let me get this straight: Soldiers who are right now in the line of fire -- basically thousands and thousands of poor, undereducated young kids, baffled, stunned, patriotically misled -- praying for you and the success of your corporate regime? And not the other way around? Jesus has two words for you, Dubya: Step off.
Well of course Buddha's here too, BTW. Always the chuckling one, always laughing at the divine absurdity of it all, the delicious tragicomic pageant. He's still laughing, but it's this sort of dry, resigned laugh of cheerless exhaustion. You know what I'm saying, George?
See, lots of people believe Buddha is the one who taught Jesus many of those lessons about surrendering the ego, about compassion and nonviolence and inner peace. All about how desperate attachment to greed and power and oil only leads to suffering. About how everything is connected, and if you irrevocably despoil one thing, you despoil everything. Simple truths, Geo. Always the most profound, you know?
Thing is, Buddha takes it a little personally when one of his greatest students is slighted and mistreated and deliberately misinterpreted in the name of violence and power expansion and empire. But then he just laughs. Damn, he's so good at seeing the big picture. He knows, in the grand scheme, you are pretty irrelevant. Aren't we all?

Well, except me.

Whoa. You hear that? That singing? That gorgeous, overwhelming sound, like an ocean roar? Like volcanoes erupting? Goddesses. Fiery ancient ones, they are, most existing long before the guys. They're eternal mothers and life givers and major destroyers.
Oh, man, they think you are so full of it. You have aggressively dissed women's rights, slammed choice, shown noxiously little respect for women in general and for the divine feminine cause overall. Wow. These are some of the most powerful and divine forces around here, Geo, representing some of the most basic, immutable laws of nature and time, and they are probably the most saddened by you, the most appalled and sickened. Isn't that interesting? Think about it.
There's Mohammed. Allah. Oh, man. He has such the headache right now. He looks terrible. Keeps banging his head against my walls, over and over, repeating, "This is so not what I meant, this is so not what I meant, this is so not what I meant." He's talking about the fundamentalist terrorists, slaughtering in the name of some martyrdom. But he also means you, George.
He thinks you need an inner hajj. That's a pilgrimage, George (we all realize that, until you bought the presidency, you'd never really been anywhere outside the U.S., so you don't know much of that "furriner" lingo). It's a journey, to find the self. See what you're really made of, divinely speaking. Because there are lots of doubts right now around these parts about what you might -- or might not -- find.
That skinny guy sitting quietly over in the corner sipping herbal tea and reading and sighing heavily? Gandhi. Nonviolence works too, bucko, he wants to remind you. True, it's far more difficult and requires far more internal fortitude and intelligence and calm. Not really your forte.
Peace is always harder than rage, he knows. Smashing and killing is always easier than reasoning and diplomacy. War is the last refuge of the small-minded and the lost. Pretty basic stuff, really. He's just sad you don't seem to get it.

Remember what Gandhi said when a reporter asked his opinion of Western civilization, and he said he thought it would be a good idea? I'm thinking that's aimed right at you, GW. But now he's just shrugging. I think he knows what awaits you, later, in the next life, if you keep this up. Uh-oh.
So, then, Dubya, here's my prayer for you: May you be suddenly reinvigorated with shocking amounts of divine sight. May plentitudes of epiphanic illumination and wet soapy awareness scrub your soul clean of the demons of self-righteousness and war and smirky pretense. (Translation: Go commune with Shiva for a change, and stay the hell away from Cheney.) May you go through a major spiritual crisis of meaning and love, some sort of "Christmas Carol" thing where angry ghosts show you shocking truths that make you shudder and recoil and whimper. And may they do it quick.
Word is you were very hard on yourself in preparing for this war, George. Word is you gave up sweets. Gosh. My prayer for you: Go back to the sweets. Suck sweets until you faint. Drench yourself in sweetness and ecstasy and lush sticky perspective until you're eyes roll around in your head and you begin speaking in tongues other than simpleminded drawl. Do it, Dubya. Do it now, before it's too late.

Unless, of course, it already is.

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist