DOUG
WEAD,
A
former
friend
and
confidante
of
the
president's,
recently
released
a
slew
of
tapes
he
secretly
recorded
of
George
W.
Bush
while
he
was
gearing
up
for
his
first
presidential
bid.
The
tapes
uniquely
capture
Bush
in
moments
of
honest
reflection
as
he
contemplated
a
host
of
issues
and
policies
as
he
was
trying
to
stake
out
his
positions
on
matters
as
divisive
as
gay
rights
and
courting
Christian
conservatives.
The
recordings
are
particularly
fascinating
because
Bush,
unaware
that
he
was
being
recorded,
was
so
utterly
candid
in
his
thoughts.
They've
been
devoured
by
the
media
and
the
public
precisely
because
of
the
honesty
they
exude.
Every
other
public
utterance
parceled
out
by
Bush,
or
any
contemporary
politician
for
that
matter,
is
dissected
for
spin
or
political
impact,
is
played
out
by
pundits
and
political
junkies
and
lobbyists
in
search
of
the
ever-elusive
"truth"
behind
the
words.
The
sincerity
of
these
recorded
statements
do
not
seem
to
require
such
studying.
Like
so
little
else
in
politics,
they
seem
to
be
faithful
at
face
value.
On
one
level,
it's
simply
captivating
to
listen
to
the
president's
early
thoughts
and
compare
his
feelings
then
to
how
history
played
out,
particularly
given
how
he
ended
up
using
gay
issues
politically
in
the
past
election.
But
more
importantly,
gay
rights
advocates
should
listen
to
Bush's
early,
more
generous,
thoughts
about
gay
rights
and
try
to
figure
out
where
we
as
a
movement
lost
the
president.
Even
more
urgently,
gay
rights
leaders
should
try
to
figure
out
just
how
much
of
Bush's
early
sentiments
on
gays
hold
true,
and
whether
his
thoughts
on
who
we
are
and
how
he
should
deal
with
us
can
be
better
exploited
in
the
future.
GEORGE
W.
BUSH
will
never
be
mistaken
for
a
gay-rights
advocate.
Early
on,
as
revealed
in
the
tapes,
Bush
was
an
opponent
of
gay
marriage.
"Gay
marriage,
I
am
against
that,"
he
said.
"Special
rights,
I
am
against
that."
It
seems
clear
that
his
mindset
was
that
at
least
some
gay
rights
were
synonymous
to
"special"
rights,
rather
than
equal
rights
or
civil
rights.
However,
the
tapes
suggest
that,
early
on
at
least,
the
president
was
not
particularly
gung-ho
to
be
anti-gay.
After
meeting
with
James
Robison,
an
influential
Texas
evangelical
minister,
Bush
was
recorded
saying,
"I
think
he
wants
me
to
attack
homosexuals."
Bush
seemed
uncomfortable
with
that
idea.
"This
is
an
issue
I
have
been
trying
to
downplay,"
Bush
went
on
to
say.
"I
think
it
is
bad
for
Republicans
to
be
kicking
gays."
His
reasoning
for
not
wanting
to
attack
gays,
however,
shows
that
Bush's
thinking
was
mired
in
religious
ideology
rather
than
progressing
along
the
lines
of
civil
rights.
"I'm
not
going
to
kick
gays,
because
I'm
a
sinner,"
Bush
said.
"How
can
I
differentiate
sin?"
Regardless
of
his
personal
opinions,
Bush
apparently
had
a
solid
grasp
of
how
the
Christian
right
viewed
homosexuals.
After
reading
an
aide's
report
from
a
convention
of
the
Christian
Coalition,
Bush
surmised,
"This
crowd
uses
gays
as
the
enemy.
It's
hard
to
distinguish
between
fear
of
the
homosexual
political
agenda
and
fear
of
homosexuals,
however."
In
retrospect,
those
words
seem
eerily
prescient,
even
cruelly
ironic.
That
understanding
of
the
deep-seated
fear
by
the
Christian
right
of
homosexuals
was
a
guiding
principle
that
Bush
used
in
the
2004
election
to
whip
this
part
of
his
constituency
into
a
voting
fervor.
Many
pundits,
rightly
or
wrongly,
have
credited
his
tactic
of
playing
on
fear
of
homosexuals
as
perhaps
the
key
reason
he
was
able
to
win
a
second
term
as
president.
IN
STUDYING
BUSH'S
comments,
it
isn't
enough
for
us
as
gays
to
dismiss
the
discrepancy
between
Bush's
apparent
beliefs
and
his
eventual
actions
as
the
calloused
and
calculating
tactics
of
a
cynical
politician.
There's
no
doubt
that
Bush
early
on
identified
the
evangelical
fear
and
loathing
of
gays
as
a
hot
political
point.
And
there
can
be
little
doubt
that
Bush
and
his
advisers
cashed
in
on
that
understanding
to
motivate
the
right-wingers
to
get
out
to
the
voting
booths
this
past
election.
But
we
also
need
to
ask
ourselves
some
hard
questions
about
our
own
mistakes.
And
we
need
to
figure
out
if
Bush
might
still
be
approachable
and
open
to
being
the
less
anti-gay
political
leader
the
tapes
suggest
he
at
one
time
wanted
to
be.
We
have
to
wonder
if
the
gay
leadership
missed
an
opportunity
to
sway
the
president
at
one
or
more
critical
junctures
as
he
developed
his
ideology
on
gay
rights.
The
tapes
also
show
that,
early
on,
Bush
was
cautious
of
courting
conservative
Christians
and
evangelicals,
because
he
was
afraid
of
alienating
more
secular
voters.
At
the
time,
he
even
hesitated
about
meetings
with
prominent
Christian
evangelical
leaders.
When
his
aides
made
such
meetings
and
appointments
for
him,
he
cautioned
that
he
wanted
those
interactions
to
be
limited,
and
not
for
public
consumption.
It's
useful
to
look
at
Bush's
starting
points,
compare
them
to
where
he
is
today,
and
ask
how
and
why
he
veered
so
strongly
in
the
direction
he
did.
In
the
beginning,
it
seems
he
was
reluctant
to
be
virulently
anti-gay,
and
he
was
reluctant
to
be
seen
as
too
closely
tied
to
the
Christian
...
