President George Bush wants to be seen as a good Christian leader but, according to a new book by Australian professor Peter Singer, he actually has the moral development of a 13-year-old boy.
Professor Singer, a prominent ethicist whose own morality has been the subject of much debate, said Mr Bush saw the world "very simply, in black and white, as good versus evil, and he thinks that America is the good guy, and therefore whatever America does is right".
"That's incredibly dangerous when you are the leader of the most powerful nation on earth," Professor Singer told The Age. "But that belief is what enabled him to justify starting a war with Iraq that would cost thousands of innocent people their lives."
Professor Singer's book, The President of Good and Evil: the Ethics of George W. Bush, does not conclude that Mr Bush is himself evil "because that's not a word I throw around too much". Neither does Professor Singer go so far as to say that Mr Bush is stupid, "which a lot of other people might say. But I do think he's a moral failure, in his own terms, and in any terms."
Now, it should be said that Mr Bush likely has the same view of Professor Singer. After all, the Australian professor - who was recently described in The New Yorker as one of the most influential and controversial philosophers alive - believes that parents should be able to kill their disabled children; that animal lives have the same value as human lives; and that adult children should, in some circumstances, be able to decide when to end the lives of demented parents. So who is he to comment on the President's ethics?
"I hold a different view (of the sanctity of human life), it's true," Professor Singer said. "But Bush claims to believe that human life is sacred. So my book asks whether his statements about human life, and his willingness to go to war in Iraq are actually consistent, or is it evidence of muddled thinking?"
Professor Singer said Mr Bush was wrong to go to war in Afghanistan (he suggested that a truly Christian leader would have "turned the other cheek" when America was attacked on September 11, 2001) because it led to the loss of innocent life.
He said Mr Bush was also wrong to go to war in Iraq, since Saddam Hussein posed no threat to the US. He conceded that all presidents had moral failings, but said Mr Bush's were more serious, because of his power.