Bush plans to highlight the initiative in his State of the Union address
and reintroduce the expanded legislation before the new Republican
Congress. The number-one "Mayberry Machiavelli" keeps confusing holy
work with partisan gain.

Following the money.


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The Faith-Based Fraud

Mon Jan 24,10:55 AM ET

Ari Berman

After its highly touted unveiling, President Bush (news - web sites)'s
faith-based initiative has proceeded largely under the radar. But a
lack of attention hasn't shielded the program's constitutional
questionability, or its brutal effectiveness.

In 2003--according to White House data reported by the Los Angeles
Times--Bush doled out $1 billion to hundreds of faith-based groups
through a little-noted executive order. More importantly, the Bush
Administration used the grants to sway influential African-Americans
in key battleground states and reward longtime political supporters at
taxpayer expense.

For example, after the Rev. Herb Lusk II delivered the invocation at
the 2000 Republican convention, his Philadelphia church received $1
million in federal funds. Bishop Harold Ray, who offered the
invocation at a rally for ***** Cheney (news - web sites) in Palm
Beach, Florida, got $1.7 million for his South Florida ministry. In
2002 Bush personally visited Milwaukee's Bishop Sedgwick Daniels--who
voted for Clinton and Gore--and later awarded him a $1.5 million
grant. This fall, Daniels's face appeared on Republican Party fliers
in Wisconsin, endorsing Bush as a man who "shares our views."

The faith-based initiatives likely played a crucial role in increasing
Bush's take of the black vote, especially in targeted swing states.
Funnily enough, the campaign held grant-writing workshops in St. Louis
in September (when Missouri was still in play) and Miami in October.

Moreover, it's unclear exactly how much money is going where. The
recent White House data contains a caveat that it represents all
grants. Even the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's cultish Unification Church has
received funding. And House Republicans allegedly blocked Democrat
Chet Edwards from investigating the money flow.

When the initiative's first director, John Dilulio, resigned after six
months on the job, he called White House policy-makers "Mayberry
Machiavellis" 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."

Bush plans to highlight the initiative in his State of the Union
address and reintroduce the expanded legislation before the new
Republican Congress. The number-one "Mayberry Machiavelli" keeps
confusing holy work with partisan gain.