New Chief Oversees a Less Visible Faith Office

[leftchick]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/24/AR2006082401371.html?nav=E8

The White House announced Jay F. Hein's appointment at 6:30 p.m. on a Thursday three weeks ago, the kind of timing usually reserved for news the administration wants to bury.

Hein is the new director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, the third person since 2000 who has headed President Bush's effort to help religious groups win public funding to counsel addicts, mentor prisoners' children and provide other social services. Before he took up his duties this week, the position had been vacant for more than two months.


To some supporters of the president's "faith-based initiative," those circumstances are a stark indicator of how low one of Bush's signature programs has fallen in the priorities of his second-term, wartime administration.

"It's part of a continuing story of ambivalence. It's hard to look at the evidence and see any real passion for the initiative from the White House," said J. David Kuo, a former deputy director of the White House's faith-based office.

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. Now that Bush never has to run for office again

his base can go to hell as far as he's concerned.

[Kutjara]

2. Yeah, never mind the fact that the Federal Gov't....

...has no business involving itself in the promotion of religion in the first place. "Faith-based initiatives" my ass. The whole fucking Administration is a triumph of faith over evidence.

[GeorgeGist]

3. I think you've got it backwards...

The whole phucking Administration is a failure of religious faith over substance.