Focus on the Family hired Tim Goeglein as their "man in Washington" after he was exposed as a serial plagiarist

I’d never heard of Tim Goeglein until Focus on the Family broadcast a three-part series titled Seeing President Bush in a New Light on June 8, 9, and 10, 2009, with Mr. Goeglein as the guest. The broadcasts are no longer available online, but if you contact Focus on the Family and mention the title and dates of the programs, you should be able to purchase the recordings. I listened to the programs, where Mr. Goeglein was praising Mr. Bush to the skies, and my reaction to much of what I was hearing was "What a pack of lies! Who is this guy?"

A quick search on Tim Goeglein found that he was hired in March 2009 as vice-president for external relations for Focus on the Family Action, the lobbying arm of the organization--which is to say, he acts as Focus on the Family’s "man in Washington." Mr. Goeglein spent 10 years as press secretary to U.S. Senator Dan Coats (Republican--Indiana); when Sen. Coats retired, Mr. Goeglein spent two years with Gary Bauer’s Campaign for Working Families. Mr. Goeglein joined the administration of President George W. Bush in 2001, and served as a special assistant to Mr. Bush and deputy director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, i.e., he was the liaison between the administration and religious groups--on the opposite end of the phone from his current position with Focus on the Family.

Mr. Goeglein left the Bush administration in March 2008. And why did he leave? He was exposed as a serial plagiarist. Mr. Goeglein contributed occasional guest columns to the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, one of his hometown newspapers. A blogger named Nancy Nall discovered an instance of plagiarism in one of Mr. Goeglein’s columns, and posted it, under the title Copycat, on her blog on February 29, 2008. The item had barely been posted when readers began finding other instances of plagiarism by Mr. Goeglein. On March 3 Ms. Nall wrote an article for Slate magazine detailing how fast the evidence against Mr. Goeglein had accumulated. The News-Sentinel ran an article on March 1 saying that 20 of Mr. Goeglein’s 38 columns contained examples of plagiarism. Within two days, the number of known examples of his columns containing plagiarized material had risen to 27. Mr. Goeglein offered his resignation to the Bush administration, and the resignation was accepted.

Tim Goeglein was hired by Focus on the Family a year after being exposed as a serial plagiarist, which doesn’t say much for the organization’s ethical standards. If you read the article about Mr. Goeglein’s hiring in the Focus on the Family publication Citizen Link, you will find no mention that he left the Bush White House in disgrace. The fact that a man of such character as Mr. Goeglein can get hired by Focus on the Family may give some people hope; any readers who have had a hard time finding work because of a history of plagiarism might want to try Focus on the Family.

As for George W. Bush: In addition to being a war criminal according to the standard laid down at Nuremberg, the execution of Terri Schiavo should have been enough to dispel any belief that Mr. Bush is a Christian. If that isn’t enough, there’s the interview he gave to ABC News Nightline in December 2008, which was reported in print by Associated Press:

Asked about creation and evolution, Bush said: "I think you can have both. I think evolution can ? you're getting me way out of my lane here. I'm just a simple president. But it's, I think that God created the earth, created the world; I think the creation of the world is so mysterious it requires something as large as an almighty and I don't think it's incompatible with the scientific proof that there is evolution."

...Interviewer Cynthia McFadden asked Bush if the Bible was literally true.

"You know. Probably not. ... No, I'm not a literalist, but I think you can learn a lot from it, but I do think that the New Testament for example is ... has got ... You know, the important lesson is 'God sent a son,'" Bush said.

"It is hard for me to justify or prove the mystery of the Almighty in my life," he said. "All I can just tell you is that I got back into religion and I quit drinking shortly thereafter and I asked for help. ... I was a one-step program guy."

The president also said that he prays to the same God as those with different religious beliefs.

"I do believe there is an almighty that is broad and big enough and loving enough that can encompass a lot of people," Bush said.

If that still isn’t enough, you can refresh your memory with this recap of Mr. Bush’s observance of non-Christian religious practices during his years in the White House. You can also go to the site Bush Revealed for more detailed information.

January 23, 2015 update: Go here or here for a transcript of an excerpt from Focus on the Family's June 2009 broadcast with then-host James Dobson inteviewing Mr. Goeglein.