Broadcasting Scripture: Bush's authority in light of the 171st LDS General Conference

Presidents must attend to religious messages as part of their presidential rhetoric. This civic religion is conveyed through the mass medium of broadcast, via television and internet, as was George W. Bush’s 2001 October 7th broadcast announcing war against the Taliban in retribution of 9/11. But broadcast media conveys its own message of emotion, entertainment, and moralization of religious messages. For LDS audiences, broadcast goes even further than moralization, by being the medium through which modern-day scripture can be received through General Conference sessions. Thus, when Bush broadcast his announcement of war during the Sunday morning General Conference session (as it aired on Utah’s local KSL), his pre-emption of the session bore a continuity with religious leaders that reinforced his legitimacy as a civilly ordained ‘prophet, priest, and king’.