President Bush, center, and his wife first lady Laura Bush take a tour of the Great Wall of China from a guide identified only as Fu, Friday, Feb. 22, 2002, in Badaling, China. The Great Wall was the Bushes last stop on their weeklong tour of Asia. (AP Ph
Feb. 27 — “America is a nation guided by faith,” a fired-up President Bush told a crowd of Chinese university students during his visit to Beijing last week. “Ninety-five percent of Americans say they believe in God, and I’m one of them.” It was the closest he’d come to a public testimonial about his faith since he was campaigning in the Deep South.
He explained how, when he met President Jiang Zemin for the first time in Shanghai a few months ago, “I told him how my faith has shaped my own life, and how faith contributes to the life of my country.” This time, he lobbied Jiang to meet with Tibet’s Dalai Lama and the pope’s ambassador, the papal nuncio.
For some politicians, professing faith or going to church on Sundays is like an obligatory campaign swing: it looks good, but the heart isn’t in it. Bush’s talk of his own redemption certainly stepped up a notch in the Bible Belt during the...