President Bush is reminding his base — and liberal religious activists who could provide swing votes — of FBI, his faith-based initiative program, which has been inching up in funds and scope throughout his presidency.
A small local politics piece from The Village Voice, meanwhile, reminds us that FBI not only brings faith into governance, it brings the petty corruption that attends government back to the faith business. Federal prosecutors, reports Tom Robbins, have banned Rabbi Milton Balkany, dean of the Borough Park Girl’s Yeshiva (and a big winner in the faith-based initiative sweepstakes even before Bush), from lobbying U.S. Bureau of Prisons officials.
What’s the connection? Read the story…