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In March 2003, Newsweek pronounced George W. Bush's presidency the "most resolutely 'faith based' in modern times." This judgment is plausible enough to merit serious consideration but it is self-evidently true only if modern times began on January 20, 1989, when George H. W. Bush succeeded Ronald Reagan. Unfortunately, there has been little serious examination of this judgment. Rather, a facile stereotype of a "faith-based" presidency has become conventional wisdom among Bush's friends and foes alike.

AbstractThe White House Conference on Families both exemplified the contested nature of "family policy" since the late nineteenth century and inaugurated the latest phase in the venerable invocation of "family values" as a tactic for political mobilization. In 1976 presidential candidate Jimmy Carter proposed a White House Conference on the American Family in order to shore up support among cultural conservatives, especially Roman Catholics. Four years later, after much debate within the Carter administration as well as in the country at large about what constituted a legitimate family, three sessions of a White House Conference on Families were held. Cultural moderates, feminists, gays rights activists, devout Catholics, and evangelical Protestants disagreed vehemently about policies ranging from legalized abortion to family leave. Following a long though little known tradition, women were especially active among grassroots conservatives. Ultimately conservatives mobilized much more effectively than their liberal and moderate opponents, and they quickly made restoration of family values an effective wedge issue for the new Christian right and the Republican party. In many ways, the debate over family policy in the early 21st century still echoes that of the 1970s—or the 1930s or the 1910s.

Argues that despite the claims of George W. Bush's opponents, who see his faith as heavily influencing his policies, Bush actually resides somewhere to the right of mainstream presidential religiosity. The positions of US presidents since Theodore Roosevelt on religion are delineated before characterizing Bush and finding traits similar to Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. From this, the limited information available on the Bush's faith is presented, suggesting he can be described as a moderate evangelical and advocate of a politically conservative form of social gospel. The influence of the Christian right on Bush is noted, demonstrating how he has mixed symbolic stroking, concessions, enthusiastic support, and shrewd politics where the most important religious conservative issues are concerned. Attention is given to the controversy over his "faith-based" initiative as well as to what some saw as the "international moralism" underpinning his foreign policy. In addition, the place of religion in the 2004 presidential election is briefly examined. It is contended that liberal attacks on Bush's religiosity is counterproductive, distorting an understanding of Bush's administration, the place of religion in contemporary politics, and life in the US. D. Edelman

A case of Black Panther activity at Yale in 1970 is reviewed. A history of this period by J. Taft (Mayday at Yale: A Case Study in Student Radicalism, Boulder: Westview Press, 1977) fails to provide adequate background; nor does it deal adequately with the problems of oral history in handling interview data. Taft's portraits treat people either as disruptive radicals or befuddled liberals, ignoring the complexity of the situation; radicals have irrational motives, while the academics are unfailingly rational & disinterested, both misleading portraits. Taft's uncritical faith in the law does not recognize that unfair trials took place during this period. In Panthers & Bulldogs: A Comment, David Bromwich notes both the occurrence of violence & intimidation on the part of the Panthers, & the lack of representative voting & intimidation of voters in the vote to strike. Claiming that B. Seale deserved a fair trial was considered an extreme right-wing position, despite the dangers of abandonment of law, but the judge in the Seale trial was, in fact, a liberal, & sympathetic to the issues raised. The 1960s had merit as a time when money & self were not the primary concerns. W. H. Stoddard.

It's almost obligatory these days to interpret our national temper in 1973, particularly the alleged malaise of the young, as a resurrection of something called "the fifties." Erstwhile radicals point to a new "silent generation" to justify a change of strategy and often a change of heart. Proponents of stability, eager to dismiss "the sixties" as one of those extremist binges which sometimes interrupt our cycles of "pragmatic" reform and retrenchment, cite the restoration of tranquility to affirm the genius of American politics. Nostalgia merchants and rock musicians find that the splendid sounds of yesteryear can be even more lucrative on eight-track stereo than they were at 45 rpm. Yet for all its commercial potential and ideological convenience, this currently fashionable historical parallel distorts both "the seventies" and "the fifties."