A small number of conservative groups and 42 bishops are turning the speech into a watershed moment, while obscuring the president’s support among Catholics.

Two atheistic groups and a lawsuit call on Washington to end its sanction of religion in the military. Critics decry this as an attack on a venerable tradition. But the blend of martial and spiritual in the armed forces is largely the residue of the fight again communism in the late 1940s and 1950s. What will the Obama administration do?

Palin has activated a key component of the Republican coalition. But the progressive evangelicals are also in play.

Cultural populism has helped Republicans win many an election. Why haven’t liberals found a way to counter it?

<p>Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, has grown so accustomed to the steady drumbeat of death notices for the religious right that he can joke about it.</p>
<p><br />
&ldquo;I feel amazingly well,&rdquo; Perkins said Wednesday. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t feel like I am <a id="x8d3" title="cracking up" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/magazine/28Evangelicals-t.html?pagewanted=print">cracking up</a> or dying &ndash; and the movement isn&rsquo;t [...]