As a sales team seeking to promote their political goals, the
          present occupants of the White House truly excel. By now,
          everyone must know that the Bush administration is a cheerfully
          efficient team of “compassionate conservatives” presenting the
          nation with “charitable choice” so that we can achieve “faith-based solutions”
          to our national woes. Yet behind all this happy-sounding rhetoric
          lies a reality that is less uplifting and wholesome.

          The President’s determination to channel billions of tax dollars
          to religious organizations may support some worthy inner-city
          programs, and his lawyers may find a way to finesse the
          Constitutional questions raised by such funding. But eventually,
          choices will have to be made about which groups get money
          and which do not—and those choices, being made in the White
          House, will inevitably carry a political tinge.

          Bearing in mind that the original promoter of “compassionate conservatism” in the
          Bush camp was campaign strategist Karl Rove, it seems likely that the Office of
          Faith-Based Initiatives will soon become a highly effective patronage scheme. That
          assumption is confirmed by the new administration’s reduced emphasis on such
          traditional executive-branch operations as the Domestic Policy Council, the Office
          for Intergovernmental Affairs and the Office of Public Liaison. Despite all the
          feel-good assurances offered to justify the new partnership between church and
          government, it would be a mistake to forget that Mr. Rove more closely resembles
          Boss Tweed than St. Francis of Assisi.

          There were a few ominous hints of what Messrs. Bush and Rove may intend during
          one of the Washington gatherings that celebrated the Bush inauguration. At an
          enormous “prayer luncheon” held in the Hyatt hotel ballroom on Capitol Hill on Jan.
          19, the featured speaker was none other than John Ashcroft, then in the midst of
          those difficult hearings concerning his nomination as Attorney General. The former
          Missouri Senator—who wrote the first federal “charitable choice” legislation a few
          years ago—told the assembled multicultural divines that he had just been endorsed
          by a street musician who played “Amazing Grace.”

          The luncheon was also addressed by Stephen Goldsmith, the former mayor of
          Indianapolis appointed to oversee the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. “This is an
          administration that will clear out the regulation problems, clear out the legal
          problems,” he vowed. What made Mr. Goldsmith’s pledge slightly eerie was the
          luncheon’s sponsorship by the Washington Times Foundation. The foundation is
          yet another tentacle of Sun Myung Moon, the would-be messiah who went to
          prison for federal tax evasion and illegal commingling of his business and spiritual
          interests. At the luncheon, the Unification Church leader received an award for his
          “work in support of traditional family values” (which presumably did not include
          spiriting young people away from their homes to serve his cult). Before returning to
          whatever palatial compound he currently inhabits, Mr. Moon reminded his fellow
          ministers that “religions tell us to fast, to serve others, to be sacrificial.”

          In keeping with that injunction, Mr. Moon runs charitable organizations along with
          his huge media and industrial holdings. So does Jerry Falwell, the partisan Baptist
          preacher who in recent years has become a virtual adjunct of the Moon empire.
          And like his Korean benefactor, Mr. Falwell has long been a loyal promoter of the
          Bush family’s political causes.

          Another dependable Bush ally is Pat Robertson. The wealthy televangelist and
          Christian Coalition leader also controls Operation Blessing, a far-flung charitable
          outfit that he expects to benefit from the President’s faith-based federal boodle. He,
          too, has had his troubles with government authorities, due to violations of the
          Christian Coalition’s tax-exempt status and also because of Operation Blessing’s
          misuse of certain assets to serve his commercial enterprises. Specifically, the
          charity’s airplanes were found to have secretly transported personnel and equipment
          for a diamond-mining enterprise in Zaire, undertaken by Mr. Robertson in 1994
          with the blessing of the late and unlamented dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

          An expose of that affair by the Virginian-Pilot newspaper led to a state
          investigation of Operation Blessing two years ago. That probe’s findings were
          embarrassing, but Virginia’s Republican governor and attorney general—both
          recipients of large contributions from Mr. Robertson—saw no reason to seek
          indictments or fines. And now, quite predictably, Mr. Robertson anticipates a nice
          big check for Operation Blessing from his White House friends. With one hand he
          feeds the hungry, while with the other he endorses and finances candidates like
          George W. Bush.

          Still, Mr. Robertson says he is concerned about governmental interference in his
          charity’s promotion of fundamentalist dogma. With officials like Mr. Rove and Mr.
          Goldsmith handing out the money, under the sympathetic eye of Attorney General
          Ashcroft, he and his fellow evangelical entrepreneurs can probably rest easy. The
          same cannot be said for the rest of us taxpayers.