Long live the king

Very shrewdly, President Bush beat a tactical retreat on the role of religion in politics during his recent White House press conference. Speaking soon after "Justice Sunday," a closed-circuit telecast in which certain of the Republican Party’s more fervid theologians decreed that Democrats had shown their enmity to "people of faith" by rejecting a handful of his judicial nominees, Bush was asked if that struck him as an appropriate characterization. After a bit of tap-dancing—the president said he didn’t agree with calling Democrats anti-God, but wouldn’t call it inappropriate, either—Bush eventually emitted a bit of bedrock Americanism. "I think faith is a personal issue," he said. "And I take great strength from my faith. But I don’t condemn somebody in the political process because they may not agree with me on religion. The great thing about America is that you should be allowed to worship any way you want. And if you chose not to worship, you’re equally as patriotic as somebody who does worship. And if you choose to worship, you’re equally American if you’re a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim. And that’s the wonderful thing about our country and that’s the way it should be."