PUTTING HIS MONEY WHERE REAGAN'S MOUTH WAS:

Bush gets religion into government by stressing faith (MARSHA MERCER, August 29, 2004, Richmond Times Dispatch)

At a prayer breakfast with thousands of evangelical Christian supporters, the president declares politics and religion inseparable.

"I believe that faith and religion play a critical role in the political life of our nation and always has," he says, "and that the church - and by that I mean all churches, all denominations - has had a strong influence on the state. And this has worked to our benefit as a nation."

He continues, "the truth is, politics and morality are inseparable and as morality's foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide."

Sounds like something George W. Bush might say on his way to the Republican National Convention, doesn't it?

Well, yes and no. That wasn't Bush. It was Ronald Reagan, rallying the faithful one August morning 20 years ago during the Republican National Convention in Dallas.

In 1984, when a president merely said religion and politics were intertwined, without lifting a finger to make it so, it was front-page news. Today, President Bush has welded religion and politics as a matter of government policy, and the policy has already become so ingrained that nobody notices.

Maybe that's because Bush, one of our most personally religious presidents, avoids using the word "religion." These days, "faith" and "faith-based" are the words of choice.

But Bush has done far more than Reagan ever dreamed to use the power of "a higher calling" to attack society's problems. Reagan mostly used the bully pulpit. Bush has put federal muscle and money into social-service agencies run by churches and other religious groups.

Funny thing about this, because he's done it by executive orders the Right doesn't appreciate it and the Left claims it's stopped him. Remarkable what you can achieve if you just don't worry about gertting credit for it.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 2, 2004 2:26 PM