Union Bethel is a very nice church in the Central City area of New Orleans. Right between 2 housing projects. Needless to say, security was tight. There were bomb sniffing dogs checking the cars at a lot around the corner from the church. Traffic was shut down for 2 blocks in every direction at about 9 am.
The roundtable started at 9:30 or 10, in a separate area of the church. We didn't see the president arrive for that. Everyone was pretty well settled into the church by 10 for the speech that was to start at 11. The church choir sang several rousing hymns, with people clapping and singing along.
Just before 11 the roundtable participants entered from the side door near me, then the VIPs including Representative Vitter and Governor Blanco, (who got a standing ovation which I found a little disconcerting).
Since everybody was standing, I thought the president had come in, too, but he hadn't. Everyone sat back down,and someone introduced Reverand Brown, who entered from the choir area to introduce the president. The president suddenly appeared right behind him before the reverand even got to the podium. Everyone was back on their feet immediately (which un-disconcerted me).
The president's speech was very well received. He was interrupted by applause several times, especially when he spoke about his executive order eliminating discrimination against faith-based programs in the distribution of federal grant money. He got lots of "amens" when he talked about the importance of not trying to take the "faith" out of the programs to meet governmental regulations.
He introduced several local leaders of faith-based programs, one of whom just received a federal grant for her battered women's shelter that had been refused before he signed the executive order.
I think he started out trying to win people over, but it was soon obvious that he was "preaching to the choir". He went on to encourage those with successful programs to help others start similar ones. He got a standing ovation at the end, and spent about 5 minutes greeting people in the front rows. Then he was gone. :-(
Everybody still seemed happy when they left, and while we were waiting for the shuttles a pastor asked the founder of the women's shelter how she had gotten her grant and she explained to him how to go about doing that. Hmmm, wasn't that the president's idea??
O2