Peter Wehner’s Greatest Hit Jobs

Peter Wehner made Mark Levin the target of his work at Commentary lately, as an extension of his zeal to cast G. W. Bush as more of a conservative than Reagan was, and  label numerous prominent conservatives as “purists” in desperate need of moderating their tone. Levin, rejecting the notion of being lectured to by a Bush grandee responded, correcting Wehner and calling attention to his aptitude for cherry-picking facts so that he can knock down prominent conservatives, and conservative causes.

Peter Wehner arrived in Washington D.C. in 1983, and never left.  He was hired by Bill Bennett as a speechwriter in 1987, very late in the Reagan Presidency, and that is how Wehner lays claim to being a Reagan alum, and somehow, in his mind, it makes him an expert in decoding the Reagan philosophy.  But Wehner went on to be part of a team of speechwriters for the second Bush presidency, alongside Michael Gerson, and stayed with the Bush administration, in a capacity that the Washington Post described as, “paid to read, to think, to prod, to brainstorm — all without accountability.”  Bill Kristol said of Wehner in 2004, “One reason Pete really is important is that he has very close relations with both Karl (Rove) and Mike (Gerson), and that’s two of the five or six most important people in the Bush White House,” and those relationships are still operating as I have pointed out in, “Magnificent Imbeciles,” and “Bush’s Mediocrity Brigade.”

So it is in that mindset that Wehner has been operating at Commentary.  He most definitely is a Bush alum, marinated in the philosophy of so-called, “compassionate conservatism,” which smears conservatism as mean, simply by the qualifier.  Understand, he is not promoting conservatism at all when he operates under the notion that it is what it is not.

In order to promote his harmful view of conservatism, Wehner needs to show exhibits of who he believes are not proper examples, and, as he and Henry Olsen have published, how conservatives of today need to heed their view, the Bush view of Reagan, which is at odds with the reality of who Reagan was.

Wehner’s type of phony idealism is what drew the ire recently of prominent Reaganites like Mark Levin, Don Devine, and Craig Shirley, just to name a few.  But there is a very long list of prominent conservatives whom Wehner has trashed so that he can sell his Bush mush philosophy of expanded government.

First of all, Wehner attacked Ronald Reagan’s record on abortion, an appalling assault on Reagan and all conservatives.  It was something that is beyond the fray, and was immediately responded to by Levin.  Keep an eye out for more of this stuff from Wehner, since, in order prop up a phony view, you have to de-legitimize and mischaracterize the governing philosophy that works.  Reagan was sold a bill of goods in California, and forever regretted signing the bill in question into law.

It won’t take you long to find fierce opposition to Senator Ted Cruz in Wehner’s writings, mostly to whine about how he single-handedly damaged the Republican Party while trying to defund Obamacare.  He was going to lose us the Senate, the story goes, when in reality, just as conservatives said, it would have no such effect on the elections.  The fact is, a year after all the establishment hand-wringing over defunding, Republicans won both Houses and control 2/3 of the state legislatures.

Though extremely cautious about bad-mouthing Senator Mike Lee, Wehner does use him to complain of his responsiveness to the so-called tea party, a huge worry for Wehner, since it is his belief that conservatism means expansion of government, not limited government.

Senator Rand Paul, is Wehner’s Anti-Reagan; Marco Rubio was warned not to mess around with Lee and Cruz and Paul, or he’d be on the naughty list; Jim DeMint and Michele Bachmann are supposed to nod and let progressive government get bigger, not be revolutionaries.  Those votes on the debt ceiling should be mere formalities, not instances upon which to draw your sword, in the Wehner world.

The surprise Wehner felt when Sarah Palin wouldn’t go away is obvious in his writings.  At first, he praised her because he thought she’d shrink back into the Alaskan wilderness, but year after year, his musings get more and more vehement, calling her angry, marginal and bitter.  She gets on his nerves, but so does another prominent female conservative, Phyllis Schlafly, whom Wehner tried to marginalize saying that she’s not convincing and should be ignored.

Wehner called Glenn Beck, “disturbed” for drawing attention to a caliphate that was brewing in the Middle East, right before it happened, and though he never criticized Rush Limbaugh directly, he absolutely made an indirect smear when he said, “I’m worried when Republicans say global warming is a hoax,” said Peter Wehner, a former aide to Mr. Bush. “It’s not scientifically true.”  Everyone knows Rush has been debunking global warming for decades, using those exact words.

According to Peter Wehner: Allen West has to watch the way he talks, Rick Santorum is too Jesus-ey, Wayne LaPierre and Dr. Ben Carson’s thought-provoking commentary about the beginnings of societal collapse should be compared to Noam Chompsky.  James Dobson runs in that vein as well in Wehner’s world, as an early and loud critic of Barack Obama, before his coronation.

But I want to pause for a moment on this point.  The rigidity against Dobson’s remarks is amazing from the perspective of six years under King Barack’s rule, because Wehner, in fact, in 2008, was completely blinded and perhaps a bit mesmerized by Barack Obama.

In a piece called, “Why Republicans Like Obama,” Wehner describes the theretofore undefinable pull that many Republicans had toward the would-be King in terms that turn your stomach.  If you really want to know Wehner’s mindset, read that article.  Then, to come slamming back to reality, read Craig Shirley’s piece titled, “Top GOP-ers: It’s Bush and Rove’s Fault.”  Both articles were written during the 2008 election cycle.  Note:  Shirley has since written another piece called, “Rise of ‘Obama Republicans,’” that shows the draw toward the Obama way by big-government Republicans as he and Levin continue to point out the rise the Progressive Republicans.

By the way, would you like to know what Dobson said that got Wehner so hot back in 2008? He said that Obama was, “deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit … his own confused theology,” of having a “fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution” and of appealing to the “lowest common denominator of morality.”

Who, after the past six years of observation and experience, can possibly argue with that?   It was the understanding of Barack Obama in 2008, of every single conservative mentioned here, that Barack Obama was an extremist ideologue of gigantic proportions, and finally, this year Wehner actually wrote, “Obama; Even Worse Than We Thought.”  What do you mean, “we,” Pete?

And so it goes.  Wehner attacks anyone who tells the truth, and replaces their message with a distorted view of conservatism.  Still very much the Bush grandee, still progressive and wrong.