Royal Pain -- For April Fool's Day, enjoy this piece by Christopher Buckley.

Prayers Needed for Stuart Buck, his wife Farah, Ethan, and Eva. Updates here.

Bible Thumping. The news is that Kerry has attacked Bush as having "faith but has no deeds" citing James 2:14.

The Bush campaign has responded calling this a low blow. Specifically, Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said Kerry's comment "was beyond the bounds of acceptable discourse and a sad exploitation of Scripture for a political attack."

I disagree.

I think if someone, say our last President, says one thing and does something contrary to Scripture, such as going to church in the morning and then having an immoral sexual encounter with an intern in the afternoon, that's something which should be judged by the voters.

Kerry says Bush has faith but no deeds -- is that what the record shows? Last December, the President and the First Lady went to a local Baptist church and distributed presents to kids who had a parent in prison. Here's what Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson said about the event:

President and Mrs. Bush arrived at three-o'clock, Monday, December 22, at the Shiloh Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia. Now, presidents don't move anywhere without a great deal of fuss. The police were out, the roads blocked, and Secret Service were roaming around the church. And when the president arrived, he was accompanied not only by his own team, but also by a pool of reporters, forty or so members of the press. For ten minutes they popped their flashbulbs, scribbled their notes, and then were ushered out.

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 Mrs. Bush talked to the Hispanic children in Spanish.

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 working for us ever since. Then I told the president that Al's son was now a freshman at Yale. At that point the president stopped, exclaimed, "We're both Yale parents," and threw his arms around Al Lawrence - an African-American ex-offender being embraced by the president of the United States in a church basement. The ground is indeed level at the foot of the cross.

I have heard other stories of the President's charitable actions -- I have yet to hear anything of Sen. Kerry's charitable actions.

In a similar vein, perhaps we should compare charitable giving by the two candidates. Here's a Byron York story on the difficulties getting access to Kerry's tax returns.

post script: Don't even try to tell me a man who rushes back from campaigning to vote against protecting the unborn has a charitable heart.

"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."

-Mother Teresa

More: See the comments of Terry Mattingly here.

R.I.P. Peter Ustinov. I just heard this on the way to work this morning. I best remember him as Gideon in Paddy Chayefsky's Gideon; a Hallmark presentation from my childhood which I'd love to see on DVD. And he will always be the best King Herod and the wicked Nero in Quo Vadis.

"Keep off the grass."