Paul Weyrich--when a moralist lies, are the lies moral?

By Lee Russ

Monday, January 30, 2006 at 01:47 PM

Paul Weyrich.  Formerly of the heritage Foundation, currently of the Free Congress Foundation.  Widely recognized as one of the moral leaders of the those people known on the right as "people of Christian values," and known by most of the rest of us as the "lunatic right fringe."

Which perspective is closer?  Well, Paul Weyrich is the author of the quote: "We are different from previous generations of conservatives. We are no longer working to preserve the status quo. We are radicals, working to overturn the present power structure of this country."

And moral leader Weyrich just 'fessed up to some behavior that he had unequivocally denied only a short time before.

According to the Toronto Star, Weyrich now admits that he he asked an associate to write an e-mail to right-wing American groups warning them not to talk to Canadian journalists before the election for fear of scaring voters and damaging Stephen Harper's chances of winning the Canadian election, and that he had been in contact with Calgary lawyer Gerald Chipeur by e-mail a few days before the election and "discussed the projections."

Last week?  Well, that was last week, you know.  He told the Canadian press that the widely distributed message was merely the product of an overzealous staff member of the research group. And Chipeur?  Weyrich simply didn't know him.

And why exactly would Weyrich be warning American conservatives not to talk to the Candian press?  Well, in plain English because he knows the Canadian press agrees with me that Weyrich and friends are lunatic fringe.  In Weyrich's words, though, that comes down to this: "He directed staff member Bob Thompson to 'tell American conservatives what the media up north intended to do and request that folks not conduct interviews until after the Canadian elections.'"  What the Canadian media was up to, according to what Chipeur had told the Free Congress folks, was trying to link Harper with "scary" American groups."

So in Weyrich's mind, I would imagine, his lies were moral--simply necessary lies to overcome the evil resistance to all that Weyrich sees as right and good.

Sounds a lot like what I imagine the White House crowd telling each other every time they concoct another "defense" to an inconvenient truth.  And what every other lying SOB has told himself every time he thought it advantageous to lie.

Moral my butt.  It's all about war--political, social, cultural and, these days, military war. Maybe John McCain was right when he once described Weyrich as a "self-serving son of a bitch." (in McCain's memoir, Worth the Fighting For).