"Play[ing] to Stereotype" on the Faith-Based Initiative

This article, written by David Kuo -- former Deputy Director of the President's Faith-Based Initiative -- is saddening and sobering, but well worth a read.  Here is a taste:

[S]ince the early-1990s I've been what columnist E.J. Dionne termed a "com-con" or "compassionate conservative." I worked for William Bennett and John Ashcroft in the mid-1990s on issues like immigration, welfare, and education as they tried to promote a more compassionate Republican approach. While pure com-cons were never terribly powerful in Republican circles, Bush's endorsement of this progressive conservatism was exciting. And when he became the president, there was every reason to believe he'd be not only pro-life and pro-family, as conservatives tended to be, but also pro-poor, which was daringly radical. After all, there were specific promises he intended to keep.

Sadly, four years later these promises remain unfulfilled in spirit and in fact. . . .

The moment the president announced the faith-based effort, Democratic opposition was frenzied. Hackneyed church-state scare rhetoric made the rounds; this was "radical" and "dangerous" and merely an "attempt to fund Bob Jones University." One Democratic African-American congressman came to the White House to back the president but was threatened by influential liberal groups that they would withhold funding if he didn't denounce the President. The next day he was forced to retract his statement. All of this came despite the fact that former Vice President Al Gore had endorsed virtually identical faith-based measures during the 2000 campaign.

Congressional Republicans matched Democratic hostility with snoring indifference. Sen. Rick Santorum spent endless hours alone lobbying Senate Leadership to give some floor time, any floor time to get a bill to help charities and the poor - even after 9/11 when charities were going out of business because of a decline in giving. He was stiff-armed by his own party.

At the end of the day, both parties played to stereotype -- Republicans were indifferent to the poor and the Democrats were allergic to faith.

Rick