President Bush's faith-based legislation, stalled in the Senate for months, is going nowhere this year. The reason given is that the proposal, by opening up federal funds to religious groups serving the poor, would create a church-state quagmire. The real reason is a growing and unprecedented contempt for the religious values that animate many private charities.
The White House seems to understand that the favorite solution ofWestern public health elites a "condom airlift" for thecontinent would be a medical and moral disaster. It wasprecisely this approach that was roundly rejected by UgandanPresident Yoweri Museveni. Critics of the Administration's AIDSpolicy for Africa should meditate long and hard on thatalternative.
In Iraq, the ongoing lack of security is slowing US rebuilding efforts and stoking resentment of American occupation forces. But commentator Joe Loconte says that in Iraq the US is actually functioning as the world's strongest defender of Islam.