When Reagan was outspoken about his faith it was usually for a purpose, but never for getting votes.

Reagan thought that school prayer was important because it was crucial to begin each day reminding students that their inalienable rights came to them from their Creator and not from government bureaucrats.

In [Ronald] Reagan's view, the American Founders had anchored their experiment in Judeo-Christian beliefs; the Bolsheviks deliberately established an antithetical model. Those founders of communism divorced their "faith" from God.

If our presidents, or potential presidents, don't know this or don't articulate [an America ideal], that's a blown opportunity. The president can teach as well as lead.

It is quite sad, to me, that that ideal, that vision and understanding [of American founding ], doesn't seem to be a part of the current political season.

In part, it's almost surely a failure of modern education, whether K through 12 or higher education, or really both. Barack Obama went to Ivy League institutions like Columbia, which are reputed to be among America's top colleges. And yet, this very recent product of those American institutions is not publicly articulating an appreciation of the American founding or the founders and their vision for America.

A surprise to others, but not to me, since I've watched this closely for eight years now, is how George W. Bush has internalized the founders' belief that all human beings are endowed by their Creator with a certain inherent yearning for freedom. In turn, Bush has applied this to his vision for the Middle East, believing that a democratic transformation in that region is possible, given that inherent desire for liberty within all hearts, including the hearts of Arab Muslims. People disagree with that, which is fine, but that's the Bush vision.