Claim: In 2003, President and Mrs. Bush helped hand out Christmas presents to children of inmates.
Status: True.
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2004]
BreakPoint with Charles Colson Commentary #040106 - 01/06/2004 At the Foot of the Cross Angel Tree, our Prison Fellowship program for prisoners' children, is one of the great unheralded volunteer outreaches in America. Over the Christmas holidays these past few weeks, approximately 100,000 volunteers delivered Angel Tree gifts to more than 525,000 children of inmates. You didn't read about this in the newspapers, nor would I expect that you should. It's not really that newsworthy that Christians help people in need. But there are two of our volunteers, who delivered forty presents, that I think you should have read about but didn't. For reasons best known to themselves, the media ignored the fact that two of the volunteers were President and President and Mrs. Bush arrived at three-o'clock, Monday, I remember from my days with President Nixon what photo opportunities are: Get the picture and leave. So I thought the Bushes would shortly depart, but they didn't. They stayed long after the cameras were gone to greet every child, to have their picture taken with them, their mothers, and their grandmothers, to talk with them, and to ask questions. Though the press didn't report it, I noticed that both the president and Just before the president left, I introduced him to Al Lawrence, a member of our staff. I told the president that I had met Al more than twenty years ago in a prison. Jesus had got hold of Al's life, and he's been I tell you this story because it's a wonderful Christmas story, and you probably haven't heard it. With all those reporters who crowded into that basement, the visit resulted in almost universal media silence. I suppose there are many explanations for this, but I'll offer mine. The president is a Christian who really cares for "the least of these," who does this not for photo ops, but because he's genuine. That is something But surely Christians ought to be rejoicing that the most powerful man in the world and his wife, a couple of days before Christmas, had a wonderful visit with the most powerless people in our society. After all, that echoes the Christmas message, doesn't it? The most powerful came to be with the least powerful to give us hope. |
Origins: So often the stories about various politicians have nothing to them, but that is not the case here. Although not a great deal of information is available, what little we've been able to discover fits the account given above.
On
We can't tell from what little information is available how long President and
A cynical way of looking at this Christmas visit would be to attribute the President's extra involvement to a desire to draw attention to a pet
Last updated: 13 August 2007
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