So long as the campaign was scripted, candidates had numerous occasions for the proper expressions of piety, such as speeches in church or invocations of compassionate conservatism. But when the script was torn up, we could see the degree to which their religious pronouncements influenced their conduct. For all his single-minded determination to win, Lieberman, perhaps because his God knows something of vengeance, never seemed a hypocrite. Such was not the case with Bush.

Not once during the campaign after the campaign did we see Bush display Christian virtues. His early triumphalism conveyed the exact opposite of Christ's humility. He could barely hide his inability to forgive his brother for messing up Florida. No sense of charity could be detected among his zealous supporters. He chose not to consort with the meek and the lame. Whatever his words, Bush's acts proved that we do indeed live in a post-Christian society in which agreement on what is ethical and what is not can no longer be deduced from common religious texts.

Had George W. Bush won the election on election night, we would have reason to worry that he would turn into a Republican Jimmy Carter: a man willing to allow his faith to interfere with the realpolitik his office demands. Now that the campaign after the campaign reveals a man so unmoved by any sense of Christian ethics, we face the danger of a man whose conduct will be governed by no ethical commandments at all. Americans have never been able to make up their minds whether they want their politicians guided by ethics or efficiency. Now they know that, when it comes to favorite philosophers, their new president is guided more by Machiavelli than by Jesus. For those who worry about the separation of church and state, relax: Neither President Bush, nor any of his key aides, will be able to invoke Christian piety and sound believable.

The election of 2000 showed us how bitterly ideological and self-interested our political class can be. Yet given how empty of meaning our campaigns have become, the events leading up to the December Supreme Court decision did a favor for the entire country. Finally Americans had a chance to witness why politics, in both its tactical and its philosophical sense, matters. It is too bad that they had to cast their votes before the actual campaign took place. Perhaps on some future occasion they will once again be reminded that when we choose our leaders, we also choose our way of life.

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