Do Some Evangelical Republicans Have Impaired Vision?

Peter Wehner, former President George W. Bush’s speech writer and senior adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, opined in the New York Times on Sunday, “Why I Can No Longer Call Myself an Evangelical Republican.”

I don’t know Peter Wehner.

But it’s strange—I would have thought that the final straw for evangelical Wehner might have been his boss, President George W. Bush in England in 2003, equating Jehovah and false god Allah as the same God.

Exhibit A

Q. Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Prime Minister. Mr. President, when you talk about peace in the Middle East, you’ve often said that freedom is granted by the Almighty. Some people who share your beliefs don’t believe that Muslims worship the same Almighty. I wonder about your views on that.

And, Mr. Prime Minister, as a man also of faith, I’d like to get your reaction to that.

President Bush: I do say that freedom is the Almighty’s gift to every person. I also condition it by saying freedom is not America’s gift to the world. It’s much greater than that, of course. And I believe we worship the same God. (11/20/03)

Exhibit B

Or, as if that weren’t enough, Laura Bush’s deceit and hypocrisy from 2000-2008—keeping quiet through two presidential campaigns so her husband could be elected and reelected while misrepresenting her position on same-sex marriage and abortion:

First Lady Supportive of Gay Rights and Abortion Rights—not Michelle Obama, but Laura Bush! 

Exhibit C

Or Ken Mehlman—former White House political director, former Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign manager, and former RNC chairman 2005-2007—who paraded himself (once he left Washington, D.C.) as homosexual and led the amicus brief advocating homosexual marriage in the Obergefell vs. Hodges case, before the Supreme Court in 2015.

Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman framed the Bush/Cheney 2004 reelect on “Family Values” as they placed same-sex marriage bans on the ballots in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah.

Following the Bush re-election victory, we learned that the showcasing of “moral virtue by the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign was a ruse. Machiavellian to the core, “Political expediency placed above morality and the use of craft and deceit to maintain the authority and carry out the policies of a ruler.”

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee led the Arkansas initiative. He emailed me following the 2004 charade:

“Looking back, we all now know we were played for chumps as we led sincere efforts to pass Constitutional amendments in our states (I led one in 2004 that won by 70 percent), only to now realize that those running the White House didn’t respect or even agree with the principles involved—just knew it would drive voters to the polls and help turnout and win.”

Exhibit D

Or Cindy McCain advocating for homosexual marriage in 2010, after her husband was the Republican presidential nominee in 2008. Why didn’t she say this when her husband was campaigning for president in 2007-2008?

You see the pattern here? One thing they all have in common—like candidate Barack Hussein Obama at the Saddleback Presidential Debate in 2008—deceit, so as to be elected:

Obama: “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian—for me—for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix.”

Warren: “Forty million abortions, at what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?”

Obama: “Well, you know, I think that whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.”

It speaks to character: veracity—”habitual truthfulness.”

As to Peter Wehner, a “NeverTrumper,” he has become so obsessed with Donald Trump that, like a drunk, it has impaired his vision. Wehner cannot see the real crisis, which would be there even if Trump wasn’t, and that’s the reason The New York Times accords him that perch as a “dupe of Secularism.”

There is good news—Gideons and Rahabs are beginning to stand. {eoa}

David Lane is the founder and president of the American Renewal Project.