{"id":1533,"date":"2004-08-21T18:31:21","date_gmt":"2004-08-21T22:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2004\/08\/21\/the-real-deal-how-a-philosophy-prof"},"modified":"2004-08-21T18:31:21","modified_gmt":"2004-08-21T22:31:21","slug":"the-real-deal-how-a-philosophy-professor-with-a-checkered-past-beca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2004\/08\/21\/the-real-deal-how-a-philosophy-professor-with-a-checkered-past-beca\/","title":{"rendered":"The Real Deal: How a Philosophy Professor With a Checkered Past Became the Most Influential Catholic Layman in George W. Bush’s Washington"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

From the National Catholic Reporter<\/a>, regarding the Deal Hudson affair:<\/p>\n

This
\npast March 17, having paid tribute to the saint who drove the snakes
\nfrom Ireland, George W. Bush — first lady to his left, Irish prime
\nminister to his right — bounded off the Roosevelt Room podium. As he
\nbegan to work the crowd of Irish Americans and Gaelic-wannabees, the
\npresident noticed a familiar face, a fellow Texan, among those
\nassembled at the annual St. Patrick’s Day White House
\ngathering.”<\/p>\n

Immediately after George Bush spoke,” recalled former U.S.
\nambassador to the Vatican Ray Flynn, “the first person he greeted was
\nDeal Hudson.”<\/p>\n

Heady stuff, perhaps, to be the first among the gathered
\nCatholic glitterati to be singled out by the most powerful man in the
\nworld. But by now Hudson — publisher of the conservative Catholic
\nmonthly Crisis, Bush political operative, and one-time philosophy
\nprofessor — was accustomed to the treatment.<\/p>\n

Hudson, a 54-year-old,
\nthrice-married former Baptist minister, is a regular White House
\nvisitor, a leading Bush campaign Catholic proxy, and a widely quoted
\npartisan unafraid to use his pen to serve the Bush cause.<\/p>\n

In more than
\ntwo dozen interviews conducted by NCR over a four-and-a-half-month
\nperiod, mostly with former friends and Hudson’s ideological kin, a
\ncomplicated portrait emerged. Though few of those interviewed would
\nspeak on the record, many of them painted a far less flattering picture
\nof Hudson than his public moralizing would suggest, and several raised
\nquestions about the allegations that ended his academic career. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Also check out The Revealer<\/a>, which generally turns out good criticism of reporting at mainstream and niche press, left and right.<\/p>\n

UPDATE:
\nThe National Catholic Reporter has just posted the article that sparked
\nthe Deal Hudson affair — even before it was published. Joe Feuerherd’s
\nexpose is what religion reporting should be: tough, theologically and
\npolitically informed, empathetic, and attuned to the intersections of
\nfaith and the world. Here’s why it matters to everyone, religious or
\nnot: “The perception that [Deal] Hudson controls Catholic access to the
\nWhite House is widespread [and] largely accurate.”<\/p>\n

This isn’t attack
\njournalism. Writes Feuerherd: “In my 20 years as a writer and
\njournalist I’ve written what could fairly be termed “favorable stories”
\nabout such conservative Catholics as Cardinal John O’Connor, Opus Dei’s
\nFr. C. John McCloskey, Patrick J. Buchanan, and Jim Towey, director of
\nthe Bush Administration Office of Faith Based Initiatives. The notion
\nthat this story was somehow politically motivated is incorrect. I went
\nwhere the story led me. “<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cross posted at Command Post<\/a>.
\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the National Catholic Reporter, regarding the Deal Hudson affair: This past March 17, having paid tribute to the saint who drove the snakes from Ireland, George W. Bush — first lady to his left, Irish prime minister to his right — bounded off the Roosevelt Room podium. As he began to work the crowd […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politicks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-oJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}