Photo: Meet Obama's faith-based initiatives appointee

[Photo: Mike Theiler/European Pressphoto Agency.]

The news:

President Barack Obama has named a 26-year-old Pentecostal minister to head the White House office that coordinates outreach to religious and community organizations.

The White House will announce formally today that Josh DuBois will head the revamped White House Office for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, created by an executive order to be signed by President Obama this morning. (ABC)

Michael Paulson wrote on article on DuBois here in July '08 and Laurie Goodstein did one on Jan. 28th.

Considering that DuBois has worked closely with Obama it's safe to presume that he shares Obama's liberal views on abortion, although I haven't been able to find anything explicit. {update - I found something:

At a recent house party in Cincinnati, 15 Catholic voters packed into a small living room. They snacked on cookies and punch as Mr. DuBois played a DVD of Sen. Obama sitting in front of a fireplace talking about the role of faith in politics. When the short video ended, Mr. DuBois led a discussion about how religious voters can come to terms with voting for a pro-choice Democrat.

“Abortion is certainly a deeply moral issue, but so is struggling to afford decent health care for your family, or straining to put food on your table,” he recalls telling the group.

Oh ... this argument sounds sadly familiar.}

I'm not encouraged by this appointment. And, on a tangent, it's amazing to me that one can write pages and pages about a "figure of faith" like DuBois and barely talk at all about what he actually believes.

It's like talking about someone recently appointed the new head of the "Government Climate Control Council" and forgetting to mention if the person believes in manmade global warming or not. Seriously - wha?!

update: Josh runs a blog on Barack Obama's website.