Blog from the Capital

Associated Baptist Press

Towey’s sometimes-pugnacious rhetoric in defense of the plan has frustrated its critics. For instance, during his departure press conference, Towey twice called those critical of the initiative “secular extremists,” echoing a charge he has made in the past.

One critic of the faith-based plan, Holly Hollman of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, said that sort of rhetoric is unnecessary. “On several occasions, the BJC voiced its concerns to him and sought ways to work together more constructively,” she said. “Unfortunately, Towey never seemed to recognize that people of faith criticized the initiative precisely because of their faith. The initiative diminishes the role of religion by threatening the independence of houses of worship, funding religious discrimination and blurring the line between church and state that protects religious freedom.”

Towey is a good man--he is perhaps one of the only people in government, Democrat or Republican, who passionately cares about the fact that there are very few ways to track whether programs that receive federal funds actually accomplish anything, making it impossible to tell whether an organization like Head Start, for instance, is meeting the educational goals set out for it or whether faith-based programs are as effective as secular ones.

But Towey also chose to mouth the Bush administration's fiction that government discriminated against faith-based groups until George W. Bush came to save them. And he stayed in his position long after it was clear to most observers that the faith-based office was little more than a political showpiece for the White House. On that score, it may turn out to be very difficult to replace him.

[W]ith critics complaining that Bush has blurred the line between church and state, the Bush administration still faces the political reality that Congress never has fully supported the president's 2000 campaign promise to "rally the armies of compassion."

"The wall between church and state is still standing," Towey said Tuesday, with the implicit judgment that this is proper. "But faith-based groups have been welcomed into the public square."