David Kuo is the author of a new book called Tempting Faith and was interviewed last night on 60 Minutes. Kuo could be a big problem for the Bush Administration, because he asserts that the famous White House "Faith-based Initiative" fell far short of its bold promises, was a cover-up for very bad domestic policies on poverty, and was cynically politicized to serve partisan Republican purposes. Kuo was a Special Assistant to the President and the number two official at the White House Office on faith-based initiatives from 2001-2003. ...
For full disclosure, I should say that I've known David Kuo for years. We met at a retreat and began a conversation which has lasted ever since. He was, and is indeed, a conservative evangelical Christian, as he said on 60 Minutes, and was quite unhappy with the many contradictions and hypocrisies of liberalism. I had to agree with much of his critique. But he also genuinely cared about the poor and that was our point of connection. David Kuo was one of those genuine "compassionate conservatives" which many liberals don't believe really exist, but truly do. Yet he eventually came to realize that there weren't many compassionate conservatives in the White House, which preferred to use the religious community for their own political purposes.
When asked if he believed the White House will now come after him, Kuo replied, "Of course they will, I can hear the attacks, 'Oh, he's really a liberal, or maybe that brain tumor really messed up his head." (Kuo survived a bout with brain cancer while serving in the White House). But, he says, "I have this burden on my heart that the name of God is being destroyed in the name of politics ... I felt like I had to write this."
I am interested to see how much Kuo talks about Bush in his book - whether he ever was really a compassionate conservative himself or not, or whether he was either distracted or overruled by other conservative agendas. David and I had lunch just before he left the White House, and he told me of his plans to resign. "I believe the president really has a heart for the poor," he told me, "but I don't think it matters." It was a stunning statement, clearly suggesting that other priorities ruled at the White House. "So," he told me, "I am going to leave before he breaks my heart." Now Kuo is the Beliefnet editor that hosts my blog (another full disclosure).
The White House Office on Faith Based and Community Initiatives (its full title) hired some of the best people around. Its first and second directors, John Dilulio and Jim Towey are people I greatly respect and consider friends, along with David Kuo. Dilulio realized quickly what the White House priorities were and got out, while Towey stayed too long in my opinion. In the beginning, I supported the initiative too and met with President Bush and other religious leaders on several occasions to discuss it. I believed, and still do, in a level playing field for faith-based organizations who ought to be eligible for public funding if they obey federal law and guidelines, and not use social service funding for explicitly religious purposes. "Fund results, not religion" as Dilulio used to say. But I said to President Bush early on that partnerships with faith-based organizations should never become a substitute for sound domestic policies aimed at serious poverty reduction. And that's exactly what happened. Then political manipulation of religion only compounded the crime of political neglect of the poor.
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Jim Wallis is the editor of Sojourners magazine, author of the best-selling book God's Politics, and blogs at www.GodsPolitics.com, a partnership of Sojourners and Beliefnet.