Church-State Tidbits From Bush Q&A In Cleveland

Yesterday, at the City Club of Cleveland, President George W. Bush spoke on The War On Terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom (full text). The Q&A following his talk produced two interesting colloquies involving church-state:

Q [A]uthor and former Nixon administration official Kevin Phillips, in his latest book, American Theocracy, discusses what has been called radical Christianity and its growing involvement into government and politics. He makes the point that members of your administration have reached out to prophetic Christians who see the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism as signs of the apocalypse. Do you believe this, that the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism are signs of the apocalypse? And if not, why not?

THE PRESIDENT: The answer is -- I haven't really thought of it that way. (Laughter.) Here's how I think of it. The first I've heard of that, by the way. I guess I'm more of a practical fellow. I vowed after September that I would do everything I could to protect the American people....*** I take a practical view of doing the job you want me to do -- which is how do we defeat an enemy that still wants to hurt us; and how do we deal with threats before they fully materialize; what do we do to protect us from harm? That's my job. And that job came home on September the 11th, for me -- loud and clear.....

Then, as part of a long answer to a question asking about domestic policy aimed at helping unsafe and poverty-stricken neighborhoods, the President promoted his faith-based initiative:

I believe that the idea of empowering our faith-based institutions -- government can help, but government sometimes can't find -- well, it just doesn't pass -- it's not a loving organization. And so I believe strongly -- I believe strongly in empowering faith-based and community-based programs all throughout America to help achieve certain objectives.

Mentoring, for example, mentoring of children in prisoners -- whose mother or dad may be in prison is an initiative I started. Drug rehabilitation, giving those who are eligible for drug money a voucher, money themselves, a scrip so they can redeem it at a program that they choose, not that the government assigns them to. In other words, there's a variety of social service programs aimed at lifting people up.