It's been difficult to pin an ideological tail on the nascent Bush White House. One day the President is called a staunch conservative for nominating John Ashcroft to run the Justice Department. The next he's labelled a bleeding heart for helping prisoners' children and promoting literacy programmes.
The problem, some Bush advisers and friends say, is that conventional political definitions do not adequately explain what the President is trying to do. His actions have less to do with Left versus Right, they say, than with his embrace of many of the ideas contained in the movement known as "communitarianism", which places the importance of society ahead of the unfettered rights of the individual. The so-called "libertarian" approach espoused by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had the opposite emphasis.
"Communitarianism," or "civil society" thinking, has many interpretations, but at its centre is a notion that years of celebrating individual freedom have weakened the bonds of community and that the rights of the individual must be balanced against the interests of society as a whole. Inherent in the philosophy is a return to values and morality, which, this school of thought believes, can best be fostered by community organisations.
Many of Mr Bush's early proposals fit this approach. This week, he moved to make it easier for the government to fund religious groups that cater to the poor and disadvantaged. He also gave a boost to AmeriCorps, the national service programme that sends volunteers to help community initiatives. Two weeks ago, he spoke of the need for character education in schools. Mr Bush's inaugural address, said professor Amitai Etzioni, a communitarian thinker, "was a communitarian text," full of words like "civility," "responsibility" and "community."
"It all hangs together," said Mr Stephen Goldsmith, this week assigned by Mr Bush to help lead AmeriCorps and the new community-building effort. Might the civil society or communitarian label be the element that ties Mr Bush's polices together? "I don't think it's reading too much into it," Mr Goldsmith said. "This is the President, this is what animates him."
Some of Mr Bush's ideas are objectionable to civil liberties advocates and strict constitutionalists on the Left and the Right, but they have broad support in both parties.
And some other communitarians say Mr Bush's fealty to communitarian thinking is inconsistent. While he espouses a range of community-building policies, his $1.6 trillion tax cut is, at its core, a libertarian idea, giving people back their money to limit government, they point out.
They wonder whether Mr Bush's community-minded words are mere drapery, and they suspect top Bush strategist Mr Karl Rove sees it merely as a tactic to please religious conservatives. They fear Mr Bush, who believes in changing individual "hearts" through religious salvation, is more concerned with legislating religion than instilling community values.
There is still no such thing as a card-carrying communitarian, and therefore no consensus on policies. Some favour religious solutions for communities, while others prefer secular approaches. But both sides believe Mr Bush is nudging the White House in a more communitarian, civil-society direction.