Faith-Based Boondoggle Out Of Favor But Not Out Of Action - Gets New Chief

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New Chief Oversees a Less Visible Faith Office

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post
Friday, August 25, 2006; A15

The White House announced Jay F. Hein's appointment at 6:30 p.m. on a Thursday three weeks ago, the kind of timing usually reserved for news the administration wants to bury.

Hein is the new director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, the third person since 2000 who has headed President Bush's effort to help religious groups win public funding to counsel addicts, mentor prisoners' children and provide other social services. Before he took up his duties this week, the position had been vacant for more than two months.

To some supporters of the president's "faith-based initiative," those circumstances are a stark indicator of how low one of Bush's signature programs has fallen in the priorities of his second-term, wartime administration.

"It's part of a continuing story of ambivalence. It's hard to look at the evidence and see any real passion for the initiative from the White House," said J. David Kuo, a former deputy director of the White House's faith-based office.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/24/AR2006082401371_pf.html