Free Republic

February 23, 2005 Beyond the Politics of Personal Destruction What the Bush tapes reveal about policy disputes Nick Gillespie If Ronald Reagan was the Teflon president, and Bill Clinton was the Kevlar president (and Jimmy Carter the irrevocably stained Polyester president), what 21st-century wonder material describes George W. Bush, who is surely the most underrated—and seemingly invulnerable—politician in recent memory? In a strange spasm of self-identification that doubtless speaks to some sort of childhood trauma every bit as terrifying and forgettable as the Fatima revelations, Bill Clinton used to liken himself to the diaper-wearing cartoon character Baby Huey because,...

What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul? The words should be familiar to Doug Wead, who secretly taped private conversations with George W. Bush for two years and has now released some of them. Wead is an ordained Assemblies of God minister, the kind of man with whom many people would feel comfortable sharing intimate, personal details, confident that he would not share them with others, least of all for fame or fortune. ==================================================================== Secret Tapes Say Bush Critics Smoked Wead The New York Times, still reeling from the 'JEFF GANNON...

If Ronald Reagan was the Teflon president, and Bill Clinton was the Kevlar president (and Jimmy Carter the irrevocably stained Polyester president), what 21st-century wonder material describes George W. Bush, who is surely the most underrated and seemingly invulnerable politician in recent memory? In a strange spasm of self-identification that doubtless speaks to some sort of childhood trauma every bit as terrifying and forgettable as the Fatima revelations, Bill Clinton used to liken himself to the diaper-wearing cartoon character Baby Huey because, he said, he kept getting back up every time he was knocked down. George W. Bush has the...

Preacher, peddler, and Beltway meddler Doug Wead, who selectively released furtively recorded conversations with George W. Bush, told me this morning that he has changed his mind and will turn over book profits to charity and the tapes to Bush. Yesterday, in "The Zelig of the Religious Right," I wrote this about Wead's very selective release of only a small fraction of his tapes to the New York Times: "This latest 'revelation' that George W. Bush is a flawed man of faith and prayer who is thoughtful is just more propaganda." I said that Wead would never hurt Bush, that...