"by the grace of God" she said

[RussBLib]

13. thanks for the thoughtful post

let me try it this way...bear with me?

Scenario 1:
You are driving down a road with your spouse, your 2 kids and your 2 pets. It's raining, your car hydroplanes, runs off the road and rolls over 3 times in a field. Everyone inside, including your pets, is miraculously uninjured.

I could certainly understand, and would not complain about, you using the "grace of God" phrase here. Chances are close to zero that the same circumstance would happen again anytime soon. Probably never.

Scenario 2:
Russian soldiers are closing in on a Ukrainian nuclear power plant. They launch a few rockets and a hail of gunfire at the plant. A fire breaks out in one building on the site. The fire is put out but the world is afraid the nuclear plant might meltdown. This is a war zone. Tanks, rockets, missiles, planes, everywhere, this is chaos. We don't know the Russians' ultimate intent. They might WANT to cause a meltdown, for all we know.

So the likelihood of an actual meltdown is still very much a possibility, very unlike Scenario 1.

That's really all I was saying. This is a bad spot to express any thanks to God, especially considering that the plant could meltdown at any time going forward.

And I doubt she means "god" in the same rather generalized sense that you seem to mean. Hey, maybe she is an atheist too, but uses familiar language to communicate.

Oh, and by the way, I am in no way suggesting that we treat the Ambassador's usage of the word God in this context as a "priority battleground." I, personally, find it inappropriate in this context, but I would not call in to C-SPAN to bitch about it and hope no one does either.

damn nuance