I agree with you. The President of the United States is a political leader, not a religious leader. It is a very, very bad precedent for the President, any President, to characterize this as a nation of prayer.
Bush would win points with me if he said this is a nation of individual rights...a term now in disuse among politicians and intellectuals. Jimmah started calling it "human rights" and ever since, few politicians defend "individual rights".
Prayer is hardly a fundamental political concept. Rights are. But I don't think most politicians including Bush understand John Locke's ideas about natural rights anymore. The universities have done an excellent job of obliterating America's founding principles.
You obviously have problems with George Washington too.....