Sex rears its ugly head one more . . . for the GOP

Don't you just love this. Those sanctimonious, pious family men in the White House always seem to have sex on their minds if not in practice. I'm sorry. This is really evil of me, but I so much enjoy this.

Bush Campaign Adviser Quits as Sexual Misconduct Case Is Recalled
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Published: August 19, 2004


Neal W. Hudson, the publisher of the conservative Roman Catholic journal Crisis and the architect of a Republican effort to court Catholic voters, says he is resigning as an adviser to the Bush campaign because of a Catholic newspaper's investigation into accusations of sexual misconduct involving a female student at a college where he once taught.

Advertisement


"No one regrets my past mistakes more than I do," Mr. Hudson wrote in a column posted yesterday on the online edition of National Review announcing his resignation.

"At the time, I dealt with this in an upright manner, and the matter was satisfactorily resolved long ago," he wrote, without specifying the accusations. Mr. Hudson, 54, said he had been happily married to his current wife for 17 years. Called for comment, he declined.

Mr. Hudson did not name the publication. Others who said they had been contacted by a newspaper doing an investigation said it was The National Catholic Reporter.

Thomas Roberts, editor of The National Catholic Reporter, declined to comment.

At Fordham University, a Jesuit school in New York where Mr. Hudson taught from 1989 to 1995, a university spokeswoman confirmed that the episode had led to Mr. Hudson's resignation. The spokeswoman, Elizabeth Schmalz, said: "Fordham followed its policy rigorously in this matter and initiated an investigation upon receipt of the student complaint. The professor later surrendered his tenure at Fordham." A person involved with the university's investigation said that a freshman in one of Mr. Hudson's classes reported to the university that, after she had become drunk at a bar, Mr. Hudson made sexual advances toward her. After a period of weeks, she charged him with sexual harassment. The accusations were made near the end of a school year, and Mr. Hudson left academia.

Mr. Hudson, a former Southern Baptist who converted to Catholicism at the age of 34, has been an influential adviser to President Bush and a close friend of the White House political strategist Karl Rove since the late 1990's. Mr. Hudson first caught Mr. Rove's attention by publishing a study in Crisis in 1998 arguing that Republican candidates could make inroads among traditionally Democratic-leaning Catholic voters by focusing on regular churchgoers, a strategy that dovetailed with Mr. Bush's emphasis on "compassionate conservatism."

Mr. Hudson signed on as an adviser to Mr. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign. For the last four years, he has been a prominent participant in a weekly conference call held by the Republican National Committee each Thursday with influential Catholic supporters.