But while values evangelicalism claims to advocate national unity and inclusion through shared values, school-voucher programs cut exactly the other way, promoting difference and nonengagement.

Reporters initially railed against Mr. Fleischer's engaging nonengagement, but briefing by briefing, he has worn them down.

The alternative, nonengagement, is not an option: it is Mr. Milosevic and his associates who have raised the price of nonintervention to a level we cannot accept.

While campaign insiders say that "nonengagement" has been their strategy from the first, a spokesman for Mr. Morgenthau's campaign, George Arzt, said he did not agree with the "Rose Garden" characterization.