Faith-based doubts: Do we need another initiative?
Not many policy proposals from the 1990s can be trotted out a decade later in almost exactly the same form. But Barack Obama’s plan to launch his own faith-based initiative closely echoes proposals endorsed years ago by Al Gore and George W. Bush. John DiIulio, one of the godfathers of the initiative and the first director of Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (DiIulio soon concluded the office was just for political show), said Obama’s plan reminds him “of much that was best in both then–vice president Al Gore’s and then–Texas governor George W.