Like I’m really surprised,  but this was ONE area of the Bush campaign I determined to keep an open mind about,  even though many of my fellow “non-conservatives” were already dismissing it. The faith-based thing reminds me of some of the themes of Sojourner’s Jim Wallis’ themes in The Soul of Politics and “Faith Works (paperback) : How Faith-based Organizations are Changing Lives, Neighborhoods, and America“.

Reading The letter to Esquire (the one mentioned in the link —

The previous link (my previous link with no commentary ,  just a link to the article)

From the article from Associated Baptist Press (Former Bush ‘faith-based’ official says White House driven by politics): 

In his eight months serving as an adviser to Bush, DiIulio said, “I heard many, many staff discussions but not three meaningful, substantive policy discussions. There were no actual policy white papers on domestic issues. There were, truth be told, only a couple of people in the West Wing who worried at all about policy substance and analysis….”

The result, he suggested, was “Mayberry Machiavellis — staff, senior and junior, who consistently talked and acted as if the height of political sophistication consisted in reducing every issue to its simplest, black-and-white terms for public consumption, then steering legislative initiatives or policy proposals as far right as possible.”

Reading further in the letter just brought back the distrust I have for the present “good ol’ boys” of the Bush regime,  and the way they utilize religious-right conservative fear and paranoia.  Not that conservative equals these things,  but certainly be taken advantage of,  especially by politicians.  And the promises of campaigns are always the easy part.  It’s scary when the work of the West Wing is seen mostly in terms of posturing and promising and which speeches bring the most bang for the buck,  while the things that the vision describes are abandoned when the “talk” has done its job (secured the victory)