The Bush administration doesn't have a faith-based initiative; it is a faith-based initiative. When President Bush rushed back to the White House from his Crawford, Texas, ranch to show his urgency to sign the congressional bill on Terri Schiavo, who died Thursday at 41, he demonstrated his faith in the infallibility of his political strategy. Just months earlier in the 2004 presidential election he had proven its efficacy. By joining the flag to the cross, Bush's campaign linked the war on terrorism to the culture war. Under these banners Bush marched as the crusader king against barbarian hordes without and within.

… In unprecedented numbers evangelical Protestants and conservative "faithful" Catholics flocked to the polls to vote for him. Ballot initiatives in 11 swing states against gay marriage helped magnetize these constituencies. By a simple symbolic gesture in the Schiavo case he would become the transcendent holy warrior again, suddenly lifted by "values" from the slough of despond he had found himself in over his Social Security privatization scheme. It never dawned on him or his Cardinal Richelieu (Karl Rove) that the polls, like the heavens, would come crashing in on him.

Bush believes that he won his reelection in great part on "values" and that all he needs to do to refresh his power is to invoke them. But in signing a private bill by Congress that could not stand constitutional scrutiny for the sake of gratifying a faction of the Republican base, he has exposed and inverted the raw politics of the culture war. Instead of being blinded by the light of his shining faith, the public was repelled by what it saw as crass exploitation.

After a week of damage, the White House was quietly leaking to the press that Bush had not wanted to return from Crawford after all. His effort to distance himself from the corrosive Schiavo issue had the effect of depicting him as ambivalent and indecisive -- the negative image he had sought to project of John Kerry.

… In the beginning of his involvement in the Schiavo case, Bush acted on faith that it was a political gift. Why not? The politics of "values" had always enabled him to gain the offensive. For Reagan it had been morning again in America. Now it would be deathwatch in America. But Bush miscalculated the public response and lost control. Bush isn't using the religious right; it is using him.

The culture war has imploded inside the Republican Party. The religious fanatics and political freebooters who have flocked to the Schiavo deathwatch can never lose, no matter how extreme their pronouncements. Schiavo has given the religious right an invaluable lever with which to pressure Bush and the Republicans, who can never fully satisfy its demands if they are to sustain a national majority. The inviolability of marriage, states' rights, limited government, respect for the law -- these conservative principles must be cast aside in the struggle for power. Moreover, the Catholic right, a minority within both the American church and the religious right, has used this event to flex its muscles at evangelical Protestants as never before.

The battle over Schiavo is only proximately about Schiavo. The more spectacularly ghoulish the antics surrounding the Florida hospice, the more threatening the message being sent to Bush. A bigger prize looms. The shadow of political blackmail hangs over Bush's Supreme Court nominations. Bush's appointment of justices who meet the approval of the religious right, even if he had intended to appoint them all along, must be interpreted as its triumph in the Schiavo struggle. If he flouts its will, there will be hell for Republicans to pay. Bush has set himself up for appearing terrorized.

Mrs. Schiavo's death is a moral poverty and a legal tragedy. This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change. The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today. Today we grieve, we pray, and we hope to God this fate never befalls another. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Schindlers and with Terri Schiavo's friends in this time of deep sorrow.

Remember the old song about sure things, such as rain in Indianapolis in the summer?

I told you about Ohio being the turning point for Bush.

I've said Terri Schiavo will be a martyr for busting the filibuster. Well, today Hugh Hewitt said something about owing it to Terri to change the filibuster rules so "we" can get good judges in place.

I tell ya, Bush is going to get a third term.

Republicans like to point out that you have to stand for something, or you'll fall for anything. The leadership, at least, of the Republican Party has abandoned the principles of small government and federalism that it used to stand for. Trampling traditional limits on governmental power in an earnest desire to do good in high-profile cases has been a hallmark of a certain sort of liberalism, and it's the sort of thing that I thought conservatives eschewed. If I were in charge of making the decision, I might well put the tube back and turn Terri Schiavo over to her family. But I'm not, and the Florida courts are, and they seem to have done a conscientious job. Maybe they came to the right decision, and maybe they didn't; this is a hard case. But respecting the courts' role in the system, and not rushing to overturn all the rules because we don't like the outcome, seems to me to be part of being a member of civilized society rather than a mob. I thought conservatives knew this. Before things are over, they may wish they hadn't forgotten.

Danforth is an Episcopal minister who presided at Ronald Reagan's funeral and knelt in prayer and listened to "Onward Christian Soldiers" with Clarence Thomas during the justice's contentious confirmation hearings, but he has never been a favorite of the religious right. As the Washington Post noted in a 2004 profile, Danforth "voted against abortion rights but shied away from a leadership role in the movement." As a senator, he opposed school prayer, opposed the death penalty, and was what his former chief of staff called "an extremely aggressive advocate of the separation of church and state."

Still, Bush considered Danforth as a vice presidential candidate and then turned to him to represent the United States in the United Nations after John Negroponte left for Iraq last year. For such a prominent Republican with such a long relationship with the Bush family to speak out on the GOP's mind-meld with the religious right -- in the New York Times, no less -- has got to sting.

It's not just the Republicans' intervention in the Schiavo case that's bothering Danforth. It's a series of initiatives, including the Republicans' support for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and their opposition to stem cell research. "Standing alone, each of these initiatives has its advocates, within the Republican Party and beyond," Danforth writes. "But the distinct elements do not stand alone. Rather they are parts of a larger package, an agenda of positions common to conservative Christians and the dominant wing of the Republican Party."

During the 18 years I served in the Senate, Republicans often disagreed with each other. But there was much that held us together. We believed in limited government, in keeping light the burden of taxation and regulation. We encouraged the private sector, so that a free economy might thrive. We believed that judges should interpret the law, not legislate. We were internationalists who supported an engaged foreign policy, a strong national defense and free trade. These were principles shared by virtually all Republicans.

But in recent times, we Republicans have allowed this shared agenda to become secondary to the agenda of Christian conservatives. As a senator, I worried every day about the size of the federal deficit. I did not spend a single minute worrying about the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. Today it seems to be the other way around.

The historic principles of the Republican Party offer America its best hope for a prosperous and secure future. Our current fixation on a religious agenda has turned us in the wrong direction. It is time for Republicans to rediscover our roots.

"I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good... Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism."

"Our goal must be simple. We must have a Christian nation built on God's law, on the Ten Commandments. No apologies."

"When I, or people like me, are running the country, you'd better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we'll execute you. I mean every word of it. I will make it part of my mission to see to it that they are tried and executed."

"There is going to be war, [and Christians may be called to] take up the sword to overthrow the tyrannical regime that oppresses them."