Silent witnesses

Politics: Recent Democratic rhetoric about faith falls away when the candidates begin talking to core supporters | Lynn Vincent

Reporters have since 2005 turned out a steady diet of articles and broadcast segments highlighting the religious faith of Democratic presidential candidates for 2008.

A July 7 New York Times story trained a soft-focus lens on the religion of Hillary Clinton. Her Methodist faith, the story said, has guided the Democratic presidential front-runner "as she sought to repair her marriage, forgiven some critics who once vilified her, and struggled in the world of bare-knuckle politics to fulfill the biblical commandment to love thy neighbor."

The July 15 edition of The Christian Science Monitor featured a close-up photo of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in prayer. The accompanying article noted that Obama often "speaks of the church as an abiding force in American public life" and "takes very seriously the numerous passages in the Bible that talk not only about poverty, but of people of faith taking God's words and extending them beyond the four walls of the church."