OldSpeak

Waging War Against the Barbarians: An Interview with Gary Bauer

By John W. Whitehead
April 27, 2004

Editor's Note: After almost two decades at the epicenter of nearly every “moral crisis” evangelical Christianity faced, conservative leader Gary Bauer decided to try and wield the greatest influence possible as the country’s president in 2000. As a two-term Reagan staffer, founder of the Family Research Council, and a former executive of the Council for National Policy, Bauer expected to garner conservative Christian support for the Republican nomination but found very quickly that much of the Christian leadership was already drifting towards George W. Bush. Undaunted, Bauer continued to campaign until disaster struck.

Years before Howard Dean’s primal screams threw his election credibility into question, Bauer saw his campaign written off in a similar fashion when he tripped and fell through a blue curtain at the end of a platform while trying to flip a pancake at a media photo-op in New Hampshire. Far more damaging to his family values-based platform, though, were rumors that Bauer had engaged in marital infidelity with a female staffer. Bauer subsequently withdrew his candidacy, throwing his support for the Republican nomination to John McCain.

While Bauer may have suffered a personal defeat in the 2000 elections, his aborted run still resulted in a victory for his constituency. Having finally surmounted the adultery allegations, which were never proven, Bauer now holds enormous sway in Washington conservative circles, and thus in national politics, as president of American Values and head of the Campaign for Working Families. In his current role as a senior figure in the grassroots conservative movement, he serves as a good cop to Ralph Reed’s more insidious political insider.

As a former contender for the White House, Bauer has been critical of Bush’s action in the abortion area and has accused him of showing “ingratitude” towards Christian leaders. Concurrently, Bauer, whose sincere and candid manner has earned him significant credibility among certain circles, has also played a key role in many of the president’s successes in the evangelical Christian community. The campaign against “judicial activism” and strong support for Israeli sovereignty, in addition to bans on stem cell research, partial-birth abortion, and same-sex marriage were all pushed by the influential political lobbyist.

John W. Whitehead first encountered Gary Bauer at a meeting on Capitol Hill in the mid-1980s when the young Rutherford Institute founder noticed that the equally youthful Reagan staffer had copies of Whitehead’s books in his executive office. The two talked at length about many of the issues they were trying to impact. Nearly 20 years later, the president of American Values continues to display a steadfast commitment to the core beliefs that he fought for and saw fulfilled politically under Ronald Reagan. Today, Bauer is a loyal defender of the current president, and strongly emphasizes the need for Christian involvement on Capitol Hill. At the same time, he stresses that Christians must be careful to “separate the cause of Christ from the political aspirations that people have in both political parties.” In this frank conversation with Whitehead, Bauer strikes a consistent balance between his need to influence national politics and follow his personal beliefs.

***

John Whitehead: At the 1999 Christian Coalition Road to Victory Conference, you were introduced by your wife, Carol, who referred to the rumors about your infidelity as a “campaign of lies and innuendos” that had made your lives a “living hell.” Do you have any idea how those rumors began and who advanced them? How important was your faith in dealing with that situation? Did it make you cynical about politics?

 

Gary Bauer: There were some individuals in my campaign who I believe intentionally started those rumors. The fortunate thing was that, over time, the truth wins out and that over time people saw there wasn’t anything to them. In fact, I challenged reporters in a press conference to bring out any bit of evidence that would actually show any of this stuff to be true and, of course, nobody could. But I must say that as long as I have been involved in politics—and I know how hard-boiled it can be—it nonetheless surprised me that an underdog candidate like myself would have to face that sort of thing. Faith was incredibly important for our family in dealing with it. We brought a couple of our kids who were in college home. We took my son out of school for a day and the whole family held a joint press conference to deal with the issue. It was a very unpleasant thing to do. However, on the other hand, I think it showed the media a family that would stand together. Clearly, that said something about us.

JWW: Do you think it was strange that the Christian Right, which took part in spreading these rumors—including some who even worked for you in the campaign—would undermine their own candidate? Is that a flaw in the whole Christian Right mentality?

GB: One of the reasons my campaign didn’t do as well as I hoped is that a lot of the Christian Right leaders signed on very early to support George Bush. This is true, even though he did not offer any public support on things that people in the Christian Right cared a great deal about.

JWW: This is the current president we are talking about?

GB: Yes. Many Christian leaders were saying very early on that he was the best we could do. Thus, I was frustrated not so much about that brief period of the campaign where I had to deal with this distraction. I was disappointed that, as a movement, there wasn’t more political wisdom in how to leverage ourselves and get the kind of commitments that I think we should be trying to get for those of us who are working within the Republican Party.

JWW: There is much cynicism, especially from those on the Left who believe that the Christian Right is composed of a group of power-hungry evangelicals trying to take over America and force their values down everyone’s throat. This is a perception that at times comes through very loudly. However, the person that such evangelicals claim to emulate does not come off like that at all. Indeed, Christ said very clearly that his kingdom wasn’t of this world. Jesus was apolitical. How do you justify your actions as a Christian in light of all this and being involved in the Christian Right and something as corrupt as politics?

GB: We have to be very careful to separate the cause of Christ from the political aspirations that people have in both political parties. Christ is not a Republican precinct chairman, nor is he a Democratic leader. And I think we, who are Christians in public life, have to be careful that we not do anything that somehow ends up harming the cause of Christ by connecting it too closely to a particular political agenda.

JWW: Should the movement then be called the Christian Right?

GB: Most in the movement would prefer that it not be called the Christian Right. Having said that, I think that all through our history men and women of faith have been active, concerned citizens. The fact of the matter is that today in the United States the biggest determinant of how one votes is the frequency of church attendance—that is, people who attend church frequently are much more likely to vote Republican, regardless of their income level.

JWW: Why do you think that is true?

GB: It’s because you can take marginal tax rates and farm policy issues, all those things, and put them aside. There is a group of issues that serious Christians see as essentially moral issues that are fought out in the political arena. At the top of that list is the sanctity of life. And now, in recent months, the definition of marriage has also risen to that level. By and large, it is Republicans who are willing through the use of government to restrict abortion. They also tend to view marriage as being the union of a man and a woman. On the other hand, it is the national Democratic Party and its liberal allies that tend to promote abortion-on-demand. They also tend to be sympathetic to the idea of marriage being redefined so that it can be anything, everything and eventually nothing. Added to this is the issue of religious liberty in our culture. For example, should the words “Under God” be in the Pledge of Allegiance? Should a high school student be able to thank God in her graduation speech? Generally, the Republican Party is associated with placing judges on the courts that are more expansive in defining religious liberty. The Democrats are generally associated with wanting judges that will restrict the sphere in which faith can be lived. I believe that these developments have, over the last 30 years, driven more and more men and women of faith into the Republican Party.

JWW: But aren’t you and those of the Christian Right in danger of politicizing your religion and creating divisions among people? Isn’t the role of the Christian to lead people to God? How can you lead people to God when you are totally alienating them with your political views? If so, would it be better to not be involved in politics at all?

GB: No, it would be horrendous for the country and for our Christian witness. There are still some things that have such a moral force to them that for a Christian citizen to be AWOL would be inexcusable. Look at our history. The fact that many Christians looked the other way during segregation is a matter of shame. Christians should not only have spoken about it in their churches, they also should have supported candidates that understood that this was an issue of justice. If you look at Germany in the 1930s, there are several Christian models there. One is the Christian that was willing to hide Jews, even at risk of their own death. And there were Christian churches—much to our shame and embarrassment—that welcomed the swastika into the church and displayed it next to the cross. Then there were Christians that just threw up their hands and said, “This doesn’t have anything to do with me at all.” Of those three models, it is the Christians willing to risk their lives that we should follow. Presumably, those Christians were voting—as long as they had the ability to vote—against the Nazis and trying to explain that this was an unacceptable alternative for Germany. Thus, I believe there are some issues that are so keenly moral that we would be remiss to not be involved in them.

JWW: Yes, there were swastikas in churches in Germany. But don’t we run the same risk by waving and placing flags in churches in this country? By doing so, don’t we completely identify the church with the state and so-called Republican establishment?

GB: I don’t believe flags in churches are a problem, as long as at that same time the church is calling America to a higher standard in how we act in the world and our culture. However, if having a flag in the church means America is always right and you don’t question what happens and it even trumps my faith and what my God teaches, then it would be a problem.

JWW: It can be a danger. This is because there are many churches that combine patriotism and flag waving. And, on the surface, it seems these things appear to be synonymous with their faith.

GB: This is ironic. In the height of the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. was banned from public schools by segregationists who didn’t want his message being presented to children. Today, King would have to be kept out of most public schools because his message was inevitably drenched in the Gospel. King based his whole argument about equality and the civil rights movement on the idea that as a matter of God’s creation we are all brothers and sisters. Therefore, many of the arguments being made today against people of faith in public places would have had to be made against Martin Luther King at the same time.

JWW: People forget that he was the Reverend Martin Luther King.

GB: Right.

JWW: In a recent interview I did with syndicated columnist Cal Thomas, he indicated that he didn’t see much of an impact by the Christian Right in terms of the political structure. I responded by saying that the Christian Right elected Bush. Cal, in his characteristic way, remarked that it was the Supreme Court that elected George Bush. Do you agree with commentators like Cal who argue that the Christian Right really hasn’t made much headway?

GB: A variety of Christian and conservative organizations have risen and fallen. This is the natural order of things in politics. However, the biggest shift in politics in the last 30 years has been the movement of Southern evangelicals and Midwestern Catholics from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. On a number of issues, that shift has benefited the Republican Party by making them a competitive national party. It has also resulted in there being a voice from a moral standpoint in office on a number of these issues. Whether in the long term we win or not remains to be seen.

JWW: Are you saying that the impact we are now seeing may not be totally attributable to the Christian Right but instead may simply be a cultural shift in how people think politically?

GB: I believe the reason George Bush was elected was because many people who attend church on Sunday ended up at the voting booth on Tuesday. The biggest proportion of the Republican coalition consists of such people. If Bush is re-elected and gets a chance to make a U. S. Supreme Court appointment or two, that could have a profound impact on many of these issues. The appointees that Republican presidents have put on the Federal Communications Commission have made it more likely, as we have seen in recent months, that we will be regulating indecency on the air.

JWW: Was that the result of appointments or Janet Jackson’s breast stunt at the Super Bowl halftime show?

GB: Even without the Super Bowl fiasco, if the appointees had been liberals or purely libertarians, they probably would have just weathered the storm and we wouldn’t have seen much action. However, the fact that some of these appointees do come from a traditional world view resulted in some action on these things. Moreover, if it weren’t for those Republicans elected to Congress by people of faith in the last 20 years, same sex marriage would probably already be the law of the land. So I do think these things end up making a difference at the end of the day.

JWW: You’ve mentioned a number of issues—moral issues such as sanctity of life, definition of marriage, children having trouble mentioning God in school as well as the general moral decay we see in the country. From a Judeo-Christian standpoint, one could say that it looks like the culture is collapsing morally. Obviously, the numerous churches that dot the American landscape have failed to impact the culture in moral terms. Thus, is the Christian Right trying to do politically what the churches have failed to do spiritually? And since there has been such a cultural shift, is the Christian Right going to be able to force people to be moral, so to speak?

GB: We need both. We need the church to be salt and light in our culture. Obviously, the church has a lot of work to do. For example, the divorce rate among Christians now mirrors the society-at-large. There are many things at which the church is failing. They need to redouble their efforts.

JWW: If what you say is true, don’t you think the money could be better spent evangelizing than donating it to Bush fundraisers?

GB: The Christian church’s responsibility is to spread the Good News. But there is also a subsidiary responsibility to be active citizens in the party of your choice. For example, consider America in the 1800s. The church could have taught that slavery was a violation of the gospel. They should have done more of that, which would have been the right thing to do. But there would have still been slavery until the law was changed to make it illegal. Today the church ought to be much more assertive and bold in teaching the sanctity of each individual life and the worth and value of each of those lives. However, there will still be abortions until the law changes. These are two areas where the church needs to do more. One is confronting the problems in the culture. Also, men and women of faith need to bring these concerns with them into the voting booth.

JWW: Several decades ago, there was a vibrant, strong pro-life movement. People were concerned, and they were vocal and active. Today the pro-life movement has essentially evaporated and collapsed. Isn’t it more important to protest and picket against abortion than to picket for George Bush? Wouldn’t it be better to be protesting in front of an abortion clinic than to be in front of the Republican campaign headquarters cheering for Bush?

GB: We should do both.

JWW: But can people really do both? It doesn’t seem they can.

GB: Well, I don’t know. I think the problem is that we have a lot of people that are not doing anything. They are not active citizens. They are also not outside abortion clinics. I feel very strongly that this is a core issue.

JWW: It is the core issue.

GB: Yes. If we can’t get that right, then it is very unlikely that we will get anything else right.

JWW: Some people will say that since they donated to the campaign and voted for George Bush that they did do their duty. But did they?

GB: No. Clearly not. To the extent that Christians get involved in politics and look just like everybody else, this is a problem. In such a case, we will not transform politics. In fact, you could make a case that politics will transform us. To the extent that we are active Christian citizens, we ought to be speaking truth to power. That means we should be a lot less satisfied with what either political party serves up to us because we come from a faith perspective. We ought to have very high expectations of the politicians we support, and we shouldn’t be easily bought off by autographed photos or invitations to black tie events.

JWW: Jesus was a radical. Do you think Jesus would have voted at all? Would he have been a part of the political party? Christ was an itinerant preacher whose main goal was to bring people to God.

GB: The problem with that analogy is that Jesus would not have been anything that any of us are. He wouldn’t have been a banker. He wouldn’t have been a lawyer. He was Jesus. No, he probably wouldn’t have been involved in politics. But that doesn’t by itself tell us anything about how we are to be molded and inspired and directed by our faith in whatever role in life God places us. In a free society, we have an obligation to be faithful citizens that try to bring our faith to bear on the pressing issues facing our country.

JWW: There is a perception that George W. Bush is an evangelical Christian. Is there any way of knowing that for sure?

GB: Over the years, the thing I have found most difficult in Washington, D.C. is to correctly discern what is in somebody’s heart. I think all of us have to take a leap of faith in making those judgments. The only thing I can look at is what a person does when in office. I have been very happy with what President Bush has done on some of the issues related to life and to marriage. I am also happy with Bush’s ability to see the present war in moral terms. It really is a struggle between good and evil. But there are other times that Bush has disappointed me. What’s in his heart is between him and his God.

JWW: You wrote a July 28, 2000 column for Belief net titled “Message to George Bush—Don’t be Clintonesque on Abortion.” Are you satisfied with President Bush’s record on abortion? He is, after all, the first Republican president since Gerald Ford to not mention abortion in his State of the Union Address. Has he done anything really positive to stop babies from being aborted?

GB: I wanted him to do a lot more than has been done. But look at Bush’s speech, for example, when he signed the Partial Birth Abortion Bill. That is an incredibly positive speech on the abortion issue. However, I wish he would do more things like go to Crisis Pregnancy Centers. But I must say that I was very disappointed that the abortion issue was left out of the State of the Union Address.

JWW: You also wrote a column on November 14, 2002 in which you accused Bush of “ingratitude” toward Christian leaders. Has he done anything since then to change your mind?

GB: The White House is of two minds when it comes to the so-called Christian Right. They desperately want the vote from the folks. However, they seem to get very nervous about the possibility of being too closely connected to the Christian Right, which I find somewhat frustrating. But it is important to remember that these are politicians. They make their own judgments about these things. I wish the Republican Party would be much more bold and confident in making the argument on the moral issues. I believe that when you look at the Republican agenda, things like the sanctity of life and marriage between a man and a woman are the least controversial things the Republicans are associated with. They are probably the most positive things electorally for them, compared to some of the other things on their agenda that are much more divisive.

JWW: You are quite a vocal supporter of President Bush’s proposed gay marriage ban, even though you seem to agree that it probably won’t pass. If so, why do you think Bush’s announcement is important? Wasn’t that a political move to gain the support of the Christian Right?

GB: It would have been bizarre for a president who describes himself as a Christian and a conservative to have dodged the gay marriage issue. How would the White House have possibly explained that? I hope that it wasn’t just for votes. I am hoping that President Bush carefully thought about the issue and decided that he did not want history to record that when the institution of marriage in America was under severe attack he did nothing. However, it will be important to see if Bush is willing to join the debate and not just talk about it to the National Association of Evangelicals or, for that matter, send direct mail letters on gay marriage aimed at Christian households. Bush needs to raise the issue in the presidential debates and show confidence in supporting the notion that marriage is between a man and a woman. If he does that, it will be the best thing for the country and it also will help him politically.

JWW: Hasn’t the gay marriage issue been so politicized now that the moral component of the issue has been lost?

GB: It is a moral issue, and the law is a moral tool. We didn’t wake up one morning and decide we were going to make gay marriage an issue. We woke up one morning and found a handful of judges and elected officials completely out of control and on the verge of redefining one of the most central institutions of our culture through acts of civil disobedience, judicial activism and all sorts of other underhanded tactics. Thus, there had to be a moral response, which is happening in the churches today. But there also had to be a legal response to it.

JWW: You call marriage a sacred institution and say that protecting it against the legalization of gay marriage is essential to the continued strength of our society. You’ve even gone so far as to call this a “momentous” issue and part of an ongoing “attempt to strip our Judeo-Christian roots out of every nook and cranny of American life.” But is gay marriage really a greater threat to the institution of marriage than the skyrocketing divorce rate, domestic abuse, infidelity or the increasing economic pressures that young couples with children face? Shouldn’t those who are really concerned about the institution of marriage be concerned more with those problems?

GB: There are other very important things. The church has been remiss in dealing with issues like divorce and related questions. However, being concerned about those things and believing that we need to do more on them does not relieve us from also confronting this attack on marriage that is taking place as we speak. If we don’t stand up against this, if we allow the courts to force on the country the idea that marriage can now be between two men, we are not only in the middle of a moral crisis, we are in the middle of a self- government crisis. There is no state in the union where a majority of the people supports gay marriage. If the most profound things in the country are going to be left up to unelected judges, I think we are headed for deep, deep trouble down the road. In addition, legally if marriage is not between a man and a woman, I don’t see how in the world we say to the guy that shows up with two women he wants to marry that he can’t have the right to do that also. In all the arguments that are being made—non-discrimination, who are we to judge the love between people, etc.—those arguments apply to every other conceivable human arrangement that is likely to assert its rights in the next few years. Thus, again, we had better do both. We have to be more serious about divorce, about out-of-wedlock pregnancy, about infidelity and so forth. And we also have to confront head-on the issue that is presently on the table in a very dramatic way.

JWW: There is the argument that the gay marriage movement is simply part of a tremendous cultural shift. Thus, politics and laws are not going to stop such a cultural shift. For example, when people wanted to drink, Prohibition did not stop it. Even a constitutional amendment against drinking alcohol did not stop it. There are certain things, once the shift has taken place, that are not going to be stopped. For example, take primetime television. Most people, even Christians, watch primetime television shows. The leading character on the original Survivor show was a gay man. Gays permeate the entertainment industry. Thus, with what you are advocating, are we going to end up with a Prohibition-type problem? That is, a tremendous cultural revolution against so-called traditional values because Christians or the government may try to force some kind of standard on people who do not want it and who will not obey it?

GB: You are right. The culture has been increasingly decadent. It is astonishing what we as Christian parents tolerate our children being exposed to because we don’t even have the courage to hit the off button on the television set.

JWW: Or the fact that parents don’t turn the television off because they like what they are seeing.

GB: Right. But that by itself doesn’t tell us what we ought to be doing about the status of the law in America. The law will determine the definition of marriage. If we stood aside and allowed the law to be changed by judicial fiat so that men could marry men, the consequences for the church will be extraordinary. Once the law says that men can marry men and that opposition to men marrying men is bigotry, then serious questions will be raised about whether we Christians will even have the right to use the public airways to express our view on marriage. And I believe there will ultimately be questions about what can be taught from the pulpit about that issue.

JWW: Are you talking about culture wars?

GB: Absolutely. The reason the gay rights movement wants to redefine marriage is they want society to endorse and subsidize the choice they have made. They want society to say that sexual relationships between two men or two women are of no moral or other consequence compared to the love between a husband and a wife. If we enshrine that in the law, the implications for people of faith throughout this country are almost impossible to imagine.

JWW: What kind of consequences are you talking about?

GB: It will eventually limit our religious liberty and our ability to participate in the public arena. It certainly will affect what children are taught in school.

JWW: The undergirding theme politically and culturally in America is that there is a marketplace of ideas and everybody has a right to be in that marketplace and speak their mind. This includes Christians. And Christians should be there. However, should the Christian say that no one else has a right to be in that marketplace?

GB: No one is saying that the marketplace should be limited. But at the end of the day, the ideas that are in the marketplace are going to be limited once certain ideas are embraced. No country is neutral on these things. At the end of the day, citizens make a judgment. They will make a judgment about the definition of marriage, and we have every right to argue in the public arena that the definition of marriage should be the same definition that’s prevailed for several thousand years.

JWW: Without being called a bigot?

GB: Without being called a bigot. Absolutely.

JWW: We all want an equal place in the marketplace. But are you saying that the gays are not asking for equality, but power?

GB: The radical gay rights movement wants to redefine normalcy in America. They want the law to be a battering ram that they can use to isolate those of us who are of religious belief. In short, while they are coming out of the closet, they want us to go into the closet.

JWW: On your America Values website, you state: “There is a tremendous debate raging in America over the true nature of Islam. Some have called it a ‘religion of peace,’ while others warn that it breeds hatred and contempt for Christians and Jews.” You then provide a list of links to articles that overwhelmingly confirm the latter. Aren’t you being somewhat coy about your position on the nature of Islam? Also, when you say that some have called Islam a religion of peace, surely you realize that one of those “some” is President Bush himself. In fact, shortly after 9/11, the President went on to say that “acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith” and that “the face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace” Do you think there is a religious war going on now between Christians and Jews and certain parts of the Islamic faith?

GB: Yes. We have to take our enemy at his word. The fact is that all over the world there are dozens and dozens of terrorist organizations that, as they plot to kill us, say to us very directly they are doing so because they believe their God requires it.

JWW: Are you saying that Islam is the enemy?

GB: I am saying that those who would fall into this category of Islamic terrorists are clearly a religiously-motivated enemy that believes the infidel must be killed. The infidels are Christians and Jews and anybody else who does not follow Mohammed. There are millions of Muslims who do not embrace those teachings. We ought to also note that these Islamic terrorists have killed many Muslims who do not embrace the same vision of their faith. But make no mistake about it. These terrorists are motivated by their religion, and they are very clear that they intend to win this clash of civilization.

JWW: In addition, since 9/11 Bush has often colored his statements about the war on terror with end-times rhetoric. As Bob Woodward reported in his book, Bush at War, “The President was casting his mission and that of the country in the grand vision of God’s Master Plan” in which Bush promised, in his own words, “to export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of this great country and rid the world of evil.” Don’t you think it’s dangerous to use a theology like that to guide our foreign policy?

GB: Over the years, Americans are most comfortable with involvement in the world when they believe they are confronting an evil that has to be defeated. I don’t think it was any mistake that Ronald Reagan made his famous speech calling the Soviet Union the focus of evil in the modern world to an audience of evangelicals in Florida. The White House knew that was an audience that would be most comfortable with that kind of approach to foreign policy. It is one of the reasons that the Kissinger-type approach that says foreign policy should just be the implementation of shifting alliances—your friend one day is your enemy the next, whatever suits your national interest, etc.—does not make Americans feel comfortable. They want to be sure that if their sons and daughters are being asked to sacrifice their lives it is for something that has a moral base to it. I believe the President is accurate when he says that in the wake of 9/11 we are facing an enemy who by any rational definition is in fact evil.

JWW: Let’s talk a moment about the war in Iraq. No weapons of mass destruction have been found. President Bush’s policies are now the focus of 9/11hearings. There is a growing distrust of the Bush White House, which seems less than forthcoming with facts and truth. How is the Bush Administration doing? Is Bush starting to resemble Bill Clinton’s last several years in office?

GB: The Bush Administration is certainly on the defensive right now, which is unfortunate. Of course, the big story at present has been Richard A. Clarke’s book, Against All Enemies. However, under analysis, Clarke’s argument just doesn’t hold up. For example, Clarke makes the point that in the aftermath of 9/11, the President was fixated on Iraq. This was true even though there was no evidence of Iraqi involvement in 9/11. However, in the first few weeks after 9/11, nobody knew who had been involved. And even now we don’t have everything nailed down. In fact, the President initially went after Al-Qaida and Afghanistan. He did not begin by going after Iraq. The critics are motivated by many different things, including politics, partisanship of settling old scores, etc. By and large, the President has done an extraordinarily good job in confronting the world post-9/11.

JWW: Do you believe this, even with the fact that on a daily basis American soldiers and Iraqi civilians are being killed? Does it look like it is better or worse now in Iraq?

GB: We have to count on the Iraqi people to tell us that because they are now free people. They actually are being polled just like Americans are, and a poll out just this week showed that most Iraqis feel they are better off. An overwhelming majority feel they will be even better off a year from now than they are at present. We have liberated a people that lived under almost unimaginable circumstances for over 30 years. Even though Americans are used to great issues being decided in 30 minutes on television, big undertakings like this take time. Unfortunately, there are still thugs in Iraq willing to kill anybody and everybody, including their fellow citizens, in order to prevent them from entering the free world successfully.

JWW: We now know that Saddam Hussein was a paper tiger. They found him hiding in a hole like a rat. It was evident to many that Hussein was not what the Bush Administration was making him out to be. In fact, there were many conservative Christians who were against us going to war against Iraq. Was it really in America’s best interests to become embroiled in the Iraqi war?

GB: I believe it was. It’s always in America’s best interest to follow through when a national breaks its treaty commitments. Saddam Hussein had agreed after the first Gulf War to a series of inspections at regular intervals. He was also to file reports with the United States and the United Nations on what steps he was taking to destroy the weapons of mass destruction that we knew he did have in the first Gulf War. He repeatedly violated those agreements. He repeatedly fired at U.S. aircraft that were part of an agreed-upon monitoring force attempting to keep track of what was going on in Iraq. If we didn’t hold him to those agreements, we would have made the world a more dangerous place. We did the right thing. There is a lot of amnesia going on. We have already forgotten that Iraq was paying $30,000 to the families for every suicide bomber that struck Israel. We have now found out that they were skimming off billions of dollars from the oil-for-food program, and we still don’t know where a lot of that money is. I believe we will eventually find out that it was making its way not only into the pockets of some European and Russian politicians but also into the coffers of the very group that we are battling right now around the world.

JWW: You have been associated with the Christian Zionist movement, which has as one of its goals the ousting of the Palestinians and the Jewish return to Zion. Considering the violent nature of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, should Christians really take sides? We must remember that Jesus was a Good Samaritan. He reached out to whoever was there, no matter their race. Do we want to physically remove the Palestinians? Is that the Christian thing to do?

GB: Quite the contrary; the suggestion is the other way around. It has been suggested that the Jews will have to be moved out of Judea and Samaria. The word “Jew” comes from Judea, and Jews have been in Judea and Samaria for thousands of years. Our Scriptures are replete with the evidence of that. Moreover, theologically I do believe that God made a covenant relationship with the Jewish people and that Covenant included the land of modern-day Israel.

JWW: There is great moral decay. Jobs are being sent overseas by the Bush Administration. There is economic decay. Our major social programs may all be broke within several decades. All these things are happening under Bush’s watch. What is it that would make us want to re-elect George W. Bush?

GB: There are clearly problems. You have mentioned some of them. However, the President has been in office during an extraordinarily difficult time. He took office when the country was already in an economic meltdown because of the technology bubble. On top of that, we had the incredibly negative impact of the 9/11 attack. In reaction to that, he had the courage to seek tax cuts that would stimulate the economy. And the country, in spite of the issue of the slow growth of job creation, is in the middle of an economic recovery. I believe, by the end of this year, it will be fairly clear that we are producing jobs at the kind of level we would expect in an economic recovery. Just as important, if not more important, George Bush rallied the nation in the wake of an unbelievable attack. In the face of incredible resistance from around the world and here in the United States, Bush has methodically gone after terrorists around the globe. He has made it clear that as long as he is in office he will continue to do that.

JWW: Bush is not a great president in your way of thinking—or is he?

GB: I think we are too close to him to make that decision right now. I think it is conceivable that history will judge him as a great president.

JWW: You worked under Reagan.

GB: Yes.

JWW: How would you compare George Bush to Ronald Reagan?

GB: On that one, I am probably the wrong guy to ask because Ronald Reagan was the man that inspired me to get into politics.

JWW: Would you say that Reagan was a better president?

GB: Well, I am a Reagan loyalist.

JWW: Was Reagan the last great president?

GB: Yes, I certainly believe that.

JWW: As you look out over the political landscape and gaze in your crystal ball of the future, where do you see this country heading?

GB: The country is at a real crossroads. I think we are in two wars. One is this war being waged against us by the Islamic terrorists. The barbarian is at the gate. The jury is out on whether we as a free people are going to be able to summon the courage to do all the things necessary to win that war. But we are also fighting the barbarian in the human heart. We are in the process of rejecting what the founding fathers said about the fact that only a virtuous people can remain free. Moreover, if we lose either of those wars—the war against the barbarian at the gate or the war against the barbarian in the human heart—we will eventually lose our liberty.

DISCLAIMER: THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN OLDSPEAK ARE NOT NECESSARILY THOSE OF THE RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE.