Paul Weyrich

From Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington:

Newly disclosed Bush-era White House visitor records suggest leading conservative Christian leaders may have had a significant voice in President Bush’s administration, and many seem to have had the ear of the president himself. The White House produced these records in response to CREW’s request for the visitor records of nine individuals beginning in January 1, 2001.

Only one record indicates a visit after October 4, 2006, the date of CREW’s request. The data is summarized below.

• For the period April 2001 through June 2006, Focus on the Family Founder and Chairman Emeritus James Dobson visited the White House 24 times; 10 of those visits were to President Bush.

• Andrea Lafferty, Executive Director of the Traditional Values Coalition, made an astonishing 50 visits to the White House starting on February 1, 2001, and continuing through March 16, 2008. Six of those visits were to President Bush.

• Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America, made 43 visits to the White House between May 2001 and August 2006. Four of those visits were to President Bush.

• Gary Bauer, President of American Values, made 10 visits to the White House, starting with a January 6, 2003 visit to Vice President Cheney and ending with a July 20, 2006 visit to President Bush.

• The late Jerry Falwell, of Jerry Falwell Ministries, made eight visits to the White House between May 2001 and September 2004. Three of those visits were to President Bush.

• Tony Perkins, President of Family Research Council, visited the White House 14 times between February 2001 and June 2006, including two visits to President Bush.

• Louis Sheldon, Chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, made 19 visits to the White House between March 2001 and September 2006, including two visits to President Bush.

• The late Paul Weyrich, the Founder of Free Congress foundation, made 17 visits to the White House between May 2001 and July 2005, including six visits to President Bush and one to Karl Rove.

• Donald Wildmon, Founder of the American Family Association, made three visits to the White House between July 2001 and March 2003, including one visit to President Bush. 

I seem to remember a time, not all that long ago, when any effort by Democrats or liberals to try to forge unified a approach with Republican neocons and right-wing leaders on how to deal with the issue of terrorism would have been shot down amid screams from the Right that they had no intention of working with a bunch of America-hating, terrorist-appeasing traitors. 

But times have changed and now it looks like Gary Bauer, who has recently been fancying himself something of a national security expert, has taken it upon himself to round up a bunch of other Religious Right leaders and magnanimously offer to meet with President-Elect Barack Obama so they can share their suggestions:

Gary L. Bauer, president of American Values, and 12 other conservative leaders are seeking to work with President-elect Barack Obama on a unified agenda designed to produce an enduring national consensus in support of policies designed to defeat Islamist terrorism.

In a letter sent today to President-elect Obama, the conservative leaders write: "In a heartfelt spirit of cooperation, we are eager to work with you and your administration to identify, advocate, and implement an innovative and robust agenda designed to achieve a lasting victory over the violent Islamists committed to killing Americans on a mass scale."

In addition to Mr. Bauer, signatories include: Donald E. Wildmon, Chairman, American Family Association; Chuck Donovan, Executive Vice President, Family Research Council; Paul Weyrich, Chairman, Free Congress Foundation; Jonathan Falwell, Pastor, Thomas Road Baptist Church; Janet Parshall, Nationally-Syndicated Talk Show Host; Tom Minnery, Senior Vice President of Government and Public Policy, Focus on the Family; Rod D. Martin, Chairman, TheVanguard.Org; Chris Brown, Executive Vice President, National Federation of Republican Assemblies; Bishop Harry Jackson, Chairman, High Impact Leadership Coalition; John Hagee, National Chairman, Christians United for Israel; Colin Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring; and Phil Burress, Chairman, Citizens for Community Values Action.

The letter concludes: "It is imperative that Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, join together, first, to recognize the threat and, second, to forge a national policy embraced by a broad coalition. We stand ready to work with you to advance a policy agenda designed to challenge radical Islam wherever it jeopardizes the interests of America and her allies."

Commenting on the letter, Mr. Bauer remarked, "In the spirit of President Truman's efforts to unite the nation against Soviet communism, it is time to forge the enduring national consensus that will be needed to sustain an unshakable, long-term commitment to prevailing over Islamist terrorism. Many conservatives are eager to work with President-elect Obama in advancing the objective of defeating Islamist aggression. I hope he will embrace this effort to build a unified policy premised on the recognition of radical Islam as a distinct, immediate, and fundamental threat to our nation."

While Obama is all for working with those who disagree with him and forging consensus, I fail to see what he could possibly learn from meeting with a gaggle of socially conservative, militantly anti-Islamic right-wing leaders such as Bauer, Hagee, Falwell, Weyrich, and Wildmon other than that he should hurry up and bomb Iran.

But more importantly, just when did the Religious Right decide that they were now experts on national security and foreign policy? 

Do you suppose that President Bush would have agreed to meet with People For, Americans United, NARAL, the NAACP, the Alliance for Justice, the ACLU, and others if we'd wanted to share our views about an issue like this ... or any other issue, for that matter?  I kind of doubt it.

Earlier this year, right-wing luminary Paul Weyrich announced that, if John McCain secured the Republican presidential nomination, he’d be voting for a third party candidate:

Paul M. Weyrich, national chairman of Sixty Votes Coalition PAC, says if the November choice is between Hillary Clinton and McCain, he would then look for a third party candidate whom he could back. This is no small matter. Weyrich has only one vote like the rest of us, but many conservatives would at least take his views into consideration when making up their own minds before casting their ballots.

 "I will not vote for him [McCain]," Weyrich told this column in an interview. "I can't" ... Weyrich could live with other prospective GOP nominees — in a couple of cases, hopefully gaining some concessions to the conservative position. But McCain — never.

It was no surprise that Weyrich refused to support McCain, considering that the two have a long history of mutual animosity:

Weyrich told National Journal earlier this year that he questioned whether McCain had the temperament to be commander in chief because he was too hot-headed.

McCain has been equally scathing. "Weyrich possesses the attributes of a Dickensian villain," he wrote in his 2002 book, Worth the Fighting For. "Corpulent and dyspeptic, his mouth set in a perpetual sneer as if life in general were an unpleasant experience, he is the embodiment of the caricature often used to unfairly malign all religious conservatives." McCain added: "I like to think I know a pompous, self-serving son of a bitch when I see one."

But, of course, like just about every other right-wing leader who once declared McCain utterly unacceptable, Weyrich has changed his tune:

They only started speaking again after nineteen years.  Both have been quite open in saying why they held one another in “minimum high regard.” Their animosity toward each other is well known in national political circles.

But Paul Weyrich, one of the godfathers of the modern conservative movement, put all of that aside last week when he strongly endorsed John McCain for President.

And how did this come about? Because McCain once again realized it suited his political interest to grovel:

After he nailed down the Republican nomination, Weyrich [said], the Arizonan “came to my office to see me.  We talked things over and he asked for my support.”

Apparently McCain decided that what his campaign desperately needed was the support of at least one more “corpulent and dyspeptic … pompous, self-serving son of a bitch.”

The Supreme Court’s decision upholding Indiana’s partisan voter-ID law, like other recent cases with conservative outcomes, received generous praise from the Right. “This victory continues conservatives’ good run of Supreme Court decisions dating back to last term,” wrote Human Events columnist Sean Trende, who called the case evidence that John Roberts’s appointment as Chief Justice “mark[ed] a sea change” in pulling the court “rightward.”

Paul Weyrich praised the Court and called objections to the law—which closes access to the ballot box for many otherwise eligible voters, primarily minorities and the elderly, in pursuit of the phantom threat of voter fraud—“overblown and sensational,” adding, “We do not compel people to vote.” (As Weyrich said in 1980, “I don't want everybody to vote. … [O]ur leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”)

And Gary Bauer boldly asserted that “all citizens have photo I.D.s, and the only people who don’t are illegal aliens, who are, by definition, not allowed to vote. The only ones disenfranchised by the photo I.D. requirement are those who should not be voting anyway.”

Of course, by the time Bauer sent that remarkable claim out to his e-mail list, the AP was already reporting on some of these people he said “should not be voting”:

About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow sister because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph. …

The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn't get one but came to the precinct anyway.

"One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, 'I don't want to go do that,'" Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.

They weren't given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back within the 10 days allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. "You have to remember that some of these ladies don't walk well. They're in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts."