Bush Defends His Faith-Based Proposal

President Bush, keeping to his domestic schedule amid the first foreign policy test of his administration, gave a spirited defense Tuesday of his faith-based community service initiative.

By day’s end in Washington, Bush was monitoring the situation in China, where the Beijing government was holding 24 Americans captured after a U.S. surveillance plane made an emergency landing in China on Sunday.

But midday found him in the H. Fletcher Brown Boys’ and Girls’ Club, listening to accounts provided by a dozen mentors and educators about their efforts, with limited government assistance, to help struggling communities in Delaware.

Three times he was asked about China, and each time his response was a brief wave and no comment.

The faith-based initiative that Bush was promoting is intended to ease the way for religious and community groups to get government funding to provide a variety of social programs.

When one of the dozen participants in the forum that was organized for Bush described a program of tutoring in a church, the president perked up.

“I want you all to hear--it’s an interesting thing he just said. He said the tutorials take place in the church,” the president said, making an oblique reference to criticism that such programs might cross the line separating public education and religion.

“It means we need to focus on the child and not on the process,” he added.

At another point, Bush praised a Kiwanis Club mentoring program, saying it recognizes “that America will be changed one soul at a time.”

“Community programs or faith-based programs are just as capable about running programs as anybody else is,” the president said, adding that he views the boys’ and girls’ clubs as faith-based programs. “And so all the federal money, as far as I’m concerned, for after-school programs ought to be opened up to every program in the state of Delaware.”

When one woman greeted Bush in Spanish and he responded in Spanish, she launched into a commentary in Spanish on after-school programs and the need to teach languages. She concluded, in English, “after-school programs would help us with that.”

Bush answered: “She said, of course, support the president’s tax cut.” The audience of 200 to 300 people in the club’s gymnasium laughed.

But building support for his overall program was the centerpiece of the trip, as it has been on many of his stops in the 23 states he has now visited since taking office barely two months ago.

Bush greeted Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Thomas Carper, the state’s U.S. senators, and told his audience that the two Democrats are “smart, capable people” and added: “I just hope they do it the way I think they ought to be doing it.”