Deal Hudson
Mary Matalin Prepares to Publish Deal Hudson, Defends His Honor to PW
Deal Hudson, the self-described "theocon" who served as chairman of the RNC's 2004 Catholic Outreach initiative before a sex scandal involving one of his students at Fordham University forced him to resign, has written a book called Onwards, Christian Soldiers. The book is coming out in March from Threshold Editions, the conservative imprint of Simon & Schuster run by GOP strategist Mary Matalin.
Dermot McEvoy at Publisher's Weekly wanted to know how Ms. Matalin felt about Mr. Hudson, whose righteous lifelong efforts in the name of Christian morality were ever so slightly tarnished when the student he got involved with with at Fordham brought a sexual abuse suit against him.
Exclusive: Deal Hudson
That is, until the National Catholic Reporter discovered that he'd taken advantage of a troubled 18-year-old student at Fordham, and been forced out of his tenured professorship there. The campaign dropped him, shocked, shocked that a moral leader would violate so many commandments at the same time. Crisis forced him out as publisher a bit later, after other, similar stories emerged, according to the Washington Times, but kept him on to run something called the Morley Institute for Church and Culture.
And maybe the White House wasn't that outraged after all. We've been faxed an invitation to the American Patriot Dinner at the Union League Club here on April 13. The dinner is a benefit for Crisis and for the Morley Institute, hosted by Pataki friend William Plunkett, among others.
And the headline speaker at the event is a Bush cabinet member, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson. So the Bushies are now basically raising money to pay Hudson's salary. Which is characteristically loyal. And we're glad to see how high forgiveness ranks as a value. read more »
Over to you, Joe Feuerherd.
