Apparently mixing religion and politics isn’t a bad thing… when it’s Democrats doing the mixing (even if just for vote-pandering).

In this campaign season, if Clinton and Barack Obama and John Edwards are any measure, there will be nothing unusual in Democrats’ talking about the God who guides them and the beliefs that sustain them. Clinton has hired Burns Strider, a congressional staffer (and evangelical Baptist from Mississippi) who is assembling a faith steering group from major denominations and sends out a weekly wrap-up, Faith, Family and Values. Edwards has been organizing conference calls with progressive religious leaders and is about to embark on a 12-city poverty tour. In the past month alone, Obama’s campaign has run six faith forums in New Hampshire, where local clergy and laypeople discuss religious engagement in politics.

But let a Republican genuinely express his faith and….

Move [Bush’s] Christian testimony from church to campaign trail and he can be easily dismissed as one of the usual suspects–religious phony, or beholden to zealots.

From the book of MSM, chapter 4, verse 13: “Thou shalt not be fair and balanced.”

Can I get an amen?