In a column published yesterday in Beliefnet, former deputy director of the White House faith-based initiatives program David Kuo charged that the Bush administration had failed to follow through on the program because they lack real commitment to helping the poor. Kuo, a self-described “compassionate conservative” who says he’s looked to both the right and the left for leadership on poverty issues, says both parties were partially responsible for the failure: Democrats expressing knee-jerk opposition to funding faith-based groups and Republicans indifferent or hostile to funding welfare-like programs. “At the end of the day,” wrote Kuo, “both parties played to stereotype — Republicans were indifferent to the poor and the Democrats were allergic to faith.” But Kuo says such hostilities could have been easily overcome by the White House, which has consistently gotten what it wanted from Congress. Unfortunately, writes Kuo, “[The White House] never really wanted the ‘poor people stuff,'” and they didn’t need it, as lip-service alone had been politically effective to win the support of conservative Christians who saw faith-based plans as proof of Bush’s personal faith. Today, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times have picked up the story, but we’re still waiting for a report that considers all the bits of loose string news that keep popping up around F.B.I.’s: the strange definitions of faith-based social services, its use as political capital, the strange definitions of faith-based social services, accusations of an ideological agenda, the strange definitions of faith-based social services…