Former White House Aide Tim Goeglein

     Tim Goeglein, my dear friend and former Capitol Hill colleague, resigned from his White House post Friday after it was revealed he had plagiarized portions of up to 20 columns over eight years for Fort Wayne's News-Sentinel.  Those of us who know, love and respect Tim are both stunned by the news and saddened by what it means for him and his family.

     True to his true character (rather than this inexplicable aberration), Tim confessed the plagiarism, asked for forgiveness from all involved, and resigned his position as Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director, Office of Public Liaison.  He had worked for then-Gov. Bush during the 2000 campaign and joined The White House staff the day President Bush was sworn into office.

     It is said character is revealed in adversity.  By that measure, in acknowledging his professional failure and immediately standing aside so as not to become an issue himself complicating the President's agenda, Tim has again shown himself to be a man of deep Christian character.  It is worth remembering here that Christians -- including visible, active people of faith in public life -- are not perfect.  But we are forgiven.

     The White House statement is below:

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

February 29, 2008

STATEMENT BY THE PRESS SECRETARY

Tim Goeglein has loyally served President Bush for over seven years and worked tirelessly on his behalf to promote the President's policies. Among his contributions, Tim helped establish the President's Faith-Based and Community Initiative, and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. He also played an important role in the confirmation of Supreme Court Justices Roberts and Alito.

Today, Tim accepted responsibility for the columns published under his name in his local newspaper, and has apologized for not upholding the standards expected by the President. The President was disappointed to learn of the matter, and he was saddened for Tim and his family. He has long appreciated Tim's service, and he knows him to be a good person who is committed to his country. President Bush accepted Tim's resignation today.

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Comments

[Chris Douglas]

I have some sympathy for Goeglin, who I believe was part of an ILF agenda. My sense of him is that he was good-natured, and ill-disposed of speaking ill of others. The situation was truly puzzling, given that he was not under any deadlines in Fort Wayne and could submit whenever he wanted. In contrast to a moment of poor judgment, this moment of poor judgment seemed to have gone on and on inexplicably.

Plagiarism doesn't imply hypocrisy in his particular case, but a reaction of "What was he thinking?"

I don't fault in him the same degree of incongruity that we see in others who have fallen. The broader issue seems to me to be more than merely random anecdotal departures from propriety, but a common and continuous theme.

Once again it reared its head in the obituary this morning of Robert Skolrood, who authored both the 1992 Colorado initiative barring protections for gay citizens and the Cincinnati initiative of 1993. (The 92 measure was reversed by the Supreme Court and the 93 initiative was reversed through democratic process.)

Skolrood, according to the obituary, "was arrested on charges of uttering obscenities and making sexual advances toward a male undercover police officer at an overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway. He denied all the charges at a trial before a federal magistrate in Roanoke, Va., but he pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor, and paid a $125 fine. According to The Roanoke Times, Magistrate Judge Glen Conrad said, 'That area has been notorious for problems of an unsavory sort,' adding that “there’s no question that you shouldn’t have been there.'"

Since the gentleman has passed away and the matter is for the public record, it seems to me that the case provides an opportunity to discuss such recurring themes without stepping on any toes.

Skolrood was likely a gay man, whether or not he acted on it through his life. By that I mean I suspect that, to borrow on the previous post about chemistry, he was of a nature to have found the chemistry love produces only with people of his same sex, a nature which he fought internally because of his religious beliefs. Others who are straight get on with their lives without reference to the gay community. Skolrood made a career of making his internal fight a external one, a public fight against any protections for gays. I believe that for people like Skolrood, to allow society to acknowledge that gays are human, with a right to be who we are, is to call into question his own choice to be who he was not, to shake the very foundation upon which he had built a life of denial.

But in the end, he could not in denial find the chemistry he sought. I believe that while he lectured the rest of the world, he himself likely lacked throughout his own life the poetry of love that God has granted us. And so in seeking it in tawdry verse late in his life, he found himself in court, humiliated, in my opinion, as have so many others before and after who made private struggles against their nature into a public campaign against the nature of everyone like them.

In my opinion, and in the opinion of many in the gay community, these are not isolated instances or exceptions to a rule. Instead, they explain a phenomenon, why a same-sex orientation that forms but a small minority of the population is disproportionately represented among anti-gay crusaders.

The discontinuity and incongruity between public advocacy and private character is a legitimate topic for discussion. Goeglin's plagiarism is not the most grievous example.