I must agree. His sense of what is real and what the rest of the world knows is real are in such a disconnect. And he looks more reality based than Cheney.

You’re kidding right David? Take a look at the Katrina tragedy.The Christians saved what the secularists watched go down. What are the Democrats doing David? Nothing morally sound or decent.You need to reexamine what side your on. Christians are not the bad guys that the Progressives and Liberals paint us out to be.The “Faith-based” label, is not bad. I doubt that even you came to faith in Christ without using reason and logic. Now reason out who are the bad guys and who are the good guys.The bad guys don’t like the Faith-based among us. Bush is not one of them. I have no idea what turned you towards Leftist politics, as it is clearly antithetical to the “Faith delivered only once to the saints.” Have you ever thought to examine the fact, that you say one thing and do another? Sounds like a political life you are “still” imbibing in. It is not just about right and wrong David, it is about those that will not allow right a voice.Kinda like asking Christians to take a fast from politics, while their enemies are doing just the opposite. I’m wrong how?

Excuse but your voice has been loud and screaming in the government. And look where it has gotten us. You are the one who continues to be blinded and I for one am sickened by it. I hate to tell you this but DEMOCRATS and LIBERALS went down to New Orleans and dug in the muck and mire left by Katrina to save people. We collected food and clothes in the North for days on end. We let people come and live with us in the Satanic blue states. Don’t think for one moment conservatives or evangelicals have done it all. How dare you continue to assault us with these lies. Our president is asleep at the wheel. He is in dream land and our country is in deep trouble because of him and the people who continue to deny the TRUTH of what he has done. I for one am very happy David has seen the light on this and speaks to it. Maybe other people will see these faith based initiative are as hollow as the words spoken by our president.

Carol,As a resident of New Orleans, thank you. Thank you for your hospitality, efforts and thank you for your charity. And thank you for not forcing me to to be the lone voice against this insanity.

You are not alone. Just as a note; some of those Democrats/Liberals were christian and some were not nonetheless all helped. American’s are know to be generous. We can look to that and build on it. Generosity in helping, in spirit and in how we interact with one another.

Matt and Carol and David Is there a state in evangelical land (I know there is in Catholic land where I live) where anyone unlike me is the enemy. That is the tone I get from many posters. It would put Goebbels to shame. I know many Evangelical Christians who are amazing Christians and who see through the haze of politics. But there are people who love to hate (thus the Goebbels reference) and particularly like the believe that God hates the same people they hate. What a powerful and narcissistic view of God. So all you gotta do is find whatever verses in Scripture will somehow sanctify your hatreds, twist those scriptures in a little knot that makes no sense and present it as – truth. Now, in Catholic land where I live, we have the same sorts. the smirk of being in control is usually their expression (have you actually heard the guy who declares himself head of the Catholic League). I feel a sense of revulsion when I see that righteous and smirking expression – in politics or religion. I always know it comes from a hateful place inside. My daughter just returned from New Orleans – went with her progressive Catholic youth group. She had to throw away her clothes and backpack and shoes because they were covered with mold. She had spent 8 days tearing up old buildings in the ninth ward. My friend Vickie has gone three times – once to honor her daughter who died and twice because she can’t stay away from those in need. My husband went to Romania – children in need of surgery there – and he was with this darned old progressive group that paid their own way to work 15 hour days. Conservatives and liberals live out the Gospel imperatives – daily and to suggest that either does not is to align yourself with those who love to hate – need an opposition in order to find energy to live. This is not about faith at all. It is a religious energy that needs scapegoats and victims – little more than a sacrificial cult. It exists wherever religion exists and has nothing to do with God.

Thinker, I think youve touched on something of great truth. I think the question boils down to this:Which is superior in your heart, your politics or your faith? If they are tighly wound together, neither has any truth value.

Great t-shirt seen: “9/11 was a faith-based initiative”

Stephen Davidson, The Christian Right was busy blaming Katrina on homosexuals rather than climate change or bad engineering. How patently ignorant, stupid, and superstitious can your crowd get.

When, exactly, did Bush ever demonstrate any strong grasp of reality. He points to the faith based initiative as a success because he wants to see it that way — and in his mind reality is always what he wants to see.

Stephen, “The Christians saved what the secularists watched go down.” Simply not true. Just factually incorrect. Secularists and christians both worked tirelessly to help dig NO out of the mud. The government very plainly watched katrina happen. have you not seen the film of Bush getting briefed on what was coming, and then saying “no one knew what was coming?” “What are the Democrats doing David? Nothing morally sound or decent.” I don’t know what you call your “faith” but it obviously includes judgement and lies. Democrats have values just like anyone else. They have morals just like anyone. They just have different morals than, perhaps, you. If you can say, with a straight face, the republicans who are profiteering off of iraq are “moral” or “decent” you are a better gymnast than I. “You need to reexamine what side your on. Christians are not the bad guys that the Progressives and Liberals paint us out to be.” Most progressives and liberals are christians. Get a clue already. More non-christians are liberal, but that doesn’t mean more liberals are non-christian. Enjoy your ivory tower.

Don’t waste your time trying to understand whether or not George Bush actually believes these types of wild assertions. His public speaking or press interviews have more to do with building perceptions than helping his constituents understand an issue. To him, perception is reality and if enough people think his faith based initiative was a sucess or that he’s never been “stay the course in Iraq,” well then….that’s the truth de jour he uses to preserve his ego.

Some people worship Bush Republicanism above all else. In their minds, if you aren’t a Bush workshiper you are “evil”.

I think “compassionate conservatism” was meant to include a lot more than the faith-based initiative. For example, the No Child Left Behind program, which people talk about constantly, so it must be doing something. Also, I never understand the part when people complain about these horrible funding cuts. Andrew Sullivan, who links to you, complains that domestic spending is out of control, while you talk about scores of billions in funding cuts. Someone is living in fantasyland. Fortunately my lack of interest in politics exempts me from having to figure out who.

Morals and values. Makes a nice campaign slogan. Which party advocates “alternative interrogation techniques”? When James Dobson threatened to withdraw support from John McCain if he didn’t support the president’s torture initiative I about fell out of my chair. That was the final straw for me. I remember Ronald Reagan comparing the US to the Soviet Union. The differences were profound. One was human rights. Renditioning suspects to secret prisons in eastern European countries for torture doesn’t sound like the United States to me. I think the current administration uses faith as a vehicle and a cover for a lot of terrible behavior. Those who manipulate people using faith are not to be trusted.

Sean, NCLB is also a failure. Underfunded, few results, poorly run.It’s not the ‘funding cuts’ that Kuo (or even Andrew Sullivan) is complaining about here. It’s that Bush believes his legacy is ‘compassionate conservatism,’ and agree with that ‘ideology’ or not, it has be an abject failure in implementation and results and yet Bush still believes it was a success and a legacy. You might be for or againts this ‘ideology’ or for or against funding cuts, but one thing is clear no matter what, Bush lost touch with reality.

Trey, if Kuo is not complaining about funding cuts, then either I (Yale and Berkeley grad) am a very bad reader, or he is a bad writer. Similarly, your first complaint about MCLB is that it is “underfunded.” Is Andrew Sullivan’s, Steven Bainbridge’s etc. complaint about out-of-control domestic spending crazy? Or are you? I really don’t know, but you don’t advance the issue by saying, in effect: “They say Bush is spending too much, we say he is spending too little, but we all agree that he is a failure, so we must be right.”

“if Kuo is not complaining about funding cuts, then either I (Yale and Berkeley grad) am a very bad reader, or he is a bad writer.” Neither. You’re simply being intentionally obtuse. Just as Republicans claim to be for smaller government (which isn’t true, but let’s say it is for the sake of argument) AND for MORE military spending without that necessarily being a contradiction, others can want more funding for certain programs they deem vital but for overall less spending in general, particularly in wasteful earmarks.

It seems to me that Bush has been out of touch with reality for quite some time. Andrew Sullivan has previously suggested that an intervention was in order. I can’t believe that there is no one in the Administration who will pull the president aside and tell him to get a grip.

beetlebrox, my problem is that God never told me which federal programs are vital and which are wasteful, which is why I don’t bring my sanctimony (of which I have plenty, as you see) to politics.

I’m glad his faith-based thingie has failed. Not because lots of people don’t need help, but because the government ought not to be funneling tax dollars to the religious groups of its choice, for any reason, period. Full stop. Suppose an Unitarian somehow, magically, gets into the Whitw House and decides to start sending money tp Unitarians, Quakers, and Zen Buddhists. Wouldn’t the right go nuts about that? Before someone leaps on the “He’s bashing Christians!” table, he’s not. People of faith, Christians and others, do wonderful work in this country, usually at their own expense and with their own resources. It’s the deliberate mingling of government and religion that’s evil.

Kuo says, “That he can’t – or won’t – see that does not bode well for the rest of his presidency and should motivate us to pray ever harder for him as our president.” LOL Prayer…how to do nothing and still think you’re helping.

As an atheist, who could only arrive at this point based on the filth and sickos that call themselves Christians, I think you are all delusional. PLEASE let us have the Rapture…and quickly. I think the rule is that we get your stuff.

Rather than praying for his reform, we have reached the point that working for his impeachment for his crimes becomes appropriate, for the welfare of our nation and the world.

As I type this, I am watching The Worst President Ever lead a “press conference” heaped with his hubris, ignorance and jingoism. It is nauseating that this man is President of the United States. And it is even more nauseating still that venomous far right “Coulter Christian” ideologues would have us believe he is a man of God in any way shape or form.

Stephen Davidson, did you even read the post? Your “reply” doesn’t even touch on the point being made.

It’s slightly surprising that Bush is still talking about “compassionate conservatism”, because this was never really anything more than a slogan, standard deceptive marketing. (“Reactionary — with a vengeance!” didn’t do too well with the focus groups, I guess.) But other than that, it’s long been evident that this administration is simply impervious to external reality, and will ALWAYS turn to comforting orthodoxy when inevitable difficulties arise. In this sense, they’re really much more like 1920′s Bolsheviks than anything else.

>…the use of government to help people in the private sector…This is NOT the function of the government. The proper use of government is to help people in the public sector, not private. This is a public government. Bush doesn’t know one correct idea of what America is about at any level.

If President Bush thinks “Faith based funding” is the center of his legacy, he’s talking about institutionalizing discrimination in federally-funded programs–taking us backward by almost a century. And as recently documented (http://sexualintelligence.wordpress.com/), the Supreme Court is on the verge of declaring his whole Christian gravy-train ediface unconstitutional.