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Wead Helps Keep the Faith in Politics - Doug Wead - Interview
Insight on the News, May 14, 2001 by Doug Burton
As an author, minister and presidential adviser to both the Bushes, Doug Wead literally has defined what it means to be a `compassionate conservative.'
For 16 years author, minister and political activist Doug Wead has been an adviser, off and on, both to George H. W. Bush (the father) and George W. Bush (the son). In 1988, Wead successfully helped to galvanize the religious right behind the presidential campaign of the elder Bush, surprising many in the GOP who had surmised that the vice president would receive only tepid support from evangelicals. Wead also was an active behind-the-scenes player in campaign 2000, receiving some credit for George W.'s victory in the Iowa straw polls of 1999.
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From 1989 to 1990, Wead served as White House special adviser a post in which he acted as a liaison to Protestant religious leaders and other conservative activists.
Insight: What first brought you into contact with George H.W. Bush and later with his son George W.?
Doug Wead: In the 1970s I traveled around the world with a Catholic priest, writing about world hunger. Eventually, I teamed up with entertainer Pat Boone and Dan O'Neil to cofound Mercy Corps International. The Carter White House hosted a reception for us, and then the Reagan White House did the same, with Nancy Reagan serving as honorary chair. It was through that work that I first met George and Barbara Bush.
Insight: And how did that relationship develop?
DW: Well, at first, I was just a friend -- one of many George and Barbara are famous for collecting from all walks of life. They really are very thoughtful and kind people, and they genuinely were interested in the work of Mercy Corps. Our people briefed then-vice president Bush for a trip to Sudan, and there was nothing political about it. When he learned of my evangelical religious background, everything changed. I was encouraged by his staff to send along a memorandum making some recommendations for building relationships with the evangelical wing of the Republican Party, and he responded with great intellectual curiosity and interest. A thousand pages later I was on his staff.
Insight: When did you meet George W.?
DW: The family is pretty close. If you are close to one of them, you eventually get to know them all. Essentially, I was co-opted by George W. I was working liaison groups in the campaign in 1987 when he arrived. "From now on you report to me" he said. "I'm taking you over." He just blew in like a storm -- very charismatic, decisive, energetic. It was refreshing. Most of all, he was loyal to his father, so you could count on him doing the right thing. It was refreshing to take him ideas and projects because, one, he instantly would make a decision and, two, he would decide on the basis of how it helped the candidate and not whether it benefited him or some other player in the campaign.
Insight: We recently have seen him handling the China crisis with grace and skill. How does his leadership style differ from that of his father?
DW: What's remarkable is how much alike they are. They both are men of tremendous integrity and humility. Both are given to understatement and, as a result, are under-estimated by friend and foe. Both are family men and people-oriented rather than issue-oriented. Statistics don't impress them as much as a personal illustration.
The difference is in their decision-making. George Bush, the father, is very analytical and methodical, an approach that has worked for him and against him. No one in modern history has been able to put together an alliance of the kind he did to defend Kuwait. It took time, but that was masterful, tedious work and an achievement of a kind not likely to be repeated. By the same token, his care and thoroughness led to delay in responding to the perceived economic problems of 1992 and probably cost him re-election.
George W., on the other hand, carefully surrounds himself with good people and is very decisive and instinctive. He sometimes moves so fast that the media can't seem to catch up. They are still haggling over last week's controversial decision while he is already making 'news today.
Insight: What can you tell us about the president's faith and religious commitment? What happened to him, and how did it happen?
DW: The president is very circumspect and private about his faith, so it is not my place to talk about it. But I will say that those who have suggested it somehow was contrived for political purposes are incorrect. He is saying today essentially the same things he said to me privately in 1987 when he became my boss. And he certainly was not talking then with any political purpose in mind.
George W. Bush has a deep and abiding faith, and he reads the Bible. He said it quite elegantly in his acceptance speech in Philadelphia: "I believe in forgiveness because I have received it." That having been said, the president is very well aware of the antipathy in the media and among some elements of the general public for persons of faith. He saw it and understood it well in the 1988 campaign. So any suggestion that he is religious for political purposes is totally bogus.
