Mayberry Machiavellis


While I’m currently snowed under (literally and figuratively), here’s some interesting reading, from Religion Dispatches, on George W. Bush’s first “faith czar,” and his praise for Obama’s faith-based initiatives.

John J. DiIulio, the first director of George W. Bush’s White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, has taken to the Washington Post to laud President Obama’s White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. In it, he cutely claims to like Obama’s director of the faith-based office, Joshua DuBois, better than “Bush’s first ‘faith czar.'”

Less than a year into his own tenure, DiIulio resigned in disgust, and complained about Bush staffers who sought to dole out favors to religious conservatives rather than serve “compassionate conservativism.” He notoriously coined the term “Mayberry Machiavellis” to describe Bush insiders, who, in relation to faith-based legislation, “winked at the most far-right House Republicans” in attempting to pass legislation for the faith-based office. That bill, which went nowhere, was drafted because Bush staffers thought it “satisfied certain fundamentalist leaders and Beltway libertarians.”

It’s an interesting read, especially in light of frequent accusations that Obama is somehow anti-religion (whilst simultaneously being Muslim, Nazi, Socialist, and Communist, hmmm).

Comments

  1. Rodney Nelson says

    I find it mildly amusing that the same people who complained about Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, are now accusing Obama of being an atheist Muslim.

  2. jaytheostrich says

    Ooo ooo.. fun exercise: make a list of all of the slurs you think HAVEN’T been used against Obama by a Replubican in public yet!

  3. sqlrob says

    @jaytheostrich

    That’s easier than you intend :D. Any of the slurs against caucasian or oriental people would be on that list.

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