Bush Picks Faith-Based Action Czar

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 -- President Bush has selected John J. DiIulio Jr.--a Democrat and an academic--to head his new White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

DiIulio, a respected professor at both the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University, also runs the Jeremiah Project at the Manhattan Institute, a program that encourages and studies faith-based programs.

Bush plans to announce the DiIulio appointment Monday, followed by a week of meetings with religious leaders, during which he will more fully explain his legislative plan for allowing religious organizations to compete for taxpayer money to provide after-school, prison ministries, drug treatment, and other such programs.

Skeptics say shifting government money to churches, synagogues, and mosques so they can expand assistance programs raises church-state separation questions. Even some religious leaders--including conservative ones--are wary of government money that might come with strings attached.

"I can't imagine a person more qualified [than DiIulio]," said Michael Cromartie, director of evangelical studies at Washington's Ethics and Public Policy Center. "He won't want to just [run] an office and say 'Oh, isn't Bush compassionate.' He brings personal passion for helping people in need and suffering."

Bush apparently leaned early on toward former Indianapolis mayor Stephen Goldsmith, who is Jewish, to head the office, but Goldsmith instead will be an official White House adviser on faith-based charity issues and the chairman of a new national advisory board whose work will complement that of DiIulio's office.

DiIulio, a Roman Catholic, has fans on both sides of the political aisle--he's written regularly for both conservative and liberal publications, and he's worked for the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution and the conservative Manhattan Institute.

Indeed, though DiIulio advised Bush during the campaign, he has not always toed the Bush party line. After the election, he wrote an article in the "Weekly Standard" that strongly criticized the U.S. Supreme Court ruling handing the election to Bush.

"The arguments that ended the battle and 'gave' Bush the presidency are constitutionally disingenuous at best. They will come back to haunt conservatives and confuse, if they do not cripple, the principled conservative case for limited government," DiIulio wrote.

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