In his 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush talked a lot about “compassionate conservatism” and made promises to his base, the religious right, that if elected he would start an Office of Faith Based Initiatives—granting federal dollars to religious organizations involved in charity work.
Bush made good on his promise to his base, setting up the office in his first term and opening the taxpayer’s checkbook to faith-based charities. Things changed in 2004, however. After his election, the staff for the faith-based initiatives was slashed by some 40 percent.
David Kuo, then deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, said the cuts came because the office had served it purpose—as a campaign promise to a valuable bloc of voters.
Kuo, along with several other current and former Bush aides, recounts his memories of that time in a new Vanity Fair article. He calls the relationship between the White House and the religious right “uneasy” and dispels the myth that the White House was full of right-wing religious fanatics.
The reality in the White House is—if you look at the most senior staff—that you’re seeing people who aren’t personally religious and have no particular affection for people who are religious-right leaders. Now, at the end of the day, that’s easy to understand, because most of the people who are religious-right leaders are not easy to like. It’s that old Gandhi thing, right? I might actually be a Christian myself, except for the action of Christians.
And so in the political-affairs shop in particular, you saw a lot of people who just rolled their eyes at everyone from Rich Cizik, who is one of the heads of the National Association of Evangelicals, to James Dobson, to basically every religious-right leader that was out there, because they just found them annoying and insufferable. These guys were pains in the butt who had to be accommodated.
I find these revelations alarming in light of President-Elect Obama’s invitation to Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration. Obama has no bill to pay to the religious right for its support. They worked tirelessly to see Obama defeated, so it’s not like he owes them anything. Perhaps the leaders of the religious right understood that the Bush administration was playing them—promising a tit-for-tat deal for their support during the 2000 and 2004 elections. Here, they have no such deal—no overt leverage.
That’s what concerns me. By selecting Warren for such an honor, he’s not paying anything back in a cynical political give and take. Instead, he’s actually giving legitimacy to a religious right leader that no one in the Bush administration would even think twice about doing. If it’s true that religious right leaders were the source of derision in the Bush administration and merely “pains in the butt who had to be accommodated”—then perhaps they actually have a better shot at getting their agenda through in an Obama administration that seems open to bringing them to the table and actually listening to them instead of pandering for votes or granting payback for past support.
So many progressives rejoiced at Obama’s victory, but the latest developments mean we must keep close tabs on his administration. It’s admirable to want to bring your enemies to the table, but one must always remember they are still enemies.
With no political support to repay, Obama’s inclusion of them signals that he’s ready to give the religious right more power than they have ever enjoyed within Republican administrations—who knew better than to give them any real power.
In an attempt to honestly reach out to his opponents, Obama is playing with fire. Unfortunately, it may well be progressives who again get burned.
