Doug Wead Comes Clean

This morning on CNN, Doug Wead said he was a historian. But he’s been so much more.

Johnny first heard of Doug Wead in the early 80s. Hildegard Knuckles, Johnny’s mater, met the Weadster through an Amway connection.

In the late 70s, Wead wrote a quickie book about the Iran Hostage Crisis and hooked up with high-flying Slamway distributors, Bill Childers and Dexter Yager.

Wead gained access to the Carter White House through Childers and Yager. Later, Wead wrote campaign hagiographies for Reagan and later Bush Sr. He even sponsored Lowell Weicker into the Bamway business.

Wead was a popular motivational speaker at Dexter Yager’s Jamway functions and sold a pile of books into Yager’s vast network of a distributors. Wead is a great storyteller and has an excellent sense of humor. (One of his best stories was how he won the heart of the love of his life, Gloria.) Yet while he was an entertaining speaker, his writing tended to be uninspired.

He was featured in Yager’s magazine, Dreambuilders as a Ramway success story. Then some years ago, Wead had a falling-out with Yager over the writer’s divorce from Gloria and fathering a child with another woman.

Johnny’s half-baked analysis.

Knuckles suspects that Wead got tired of toiling is relative obscurity and wanted public fame and recognition. While he’s a star in certain circles*, he’s been rubbing elbows with elites for twenty-five years and wants his own spot on the A-list. However, no matter what his intentions or responsibility for releasing the tapes, his indiscretion will cost him the one thing he needs most: access. Access to conservative politicians and, more importantly, conservative audiences.

(Doug is already throwing his publisher under the bus saying they pressured him to release the tapes. This guy doesn’t know when to STFU.)

A source who knew Wead personally speculates that the Dougmeister will “go to the Democrats” a la David Brock. Knuckles is unconvinced. But as Wead’s money inevitably dwindles, look for the release of the rest of the tapes...as well as any negative material gathered when working on the Reagan and Bush Sr. books.

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*Another board member of the Canyonville Christian Academy is Brig Hart, who is suing (among others) Wead’s old pal, Dexter Yager.

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(via Drudge)Wead’s abject regret.

“I am asking my attorney to direct any future proceeds from the book to charity and to find the best way to vet these tapes and get them back to the president to whom they belong. History can wait.”

Translation: “Waaaa! Fuck history. I want my old job back...”

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From the Washington Times: (Registration required.)

Politics Blog
Friday, February 25, 2005
Wead’s footnote of history

The truth is that Mr. Wead was hardly as close to the Bush family in recent years as was widely assumed. Despite working as a long-time top adviser for the first President Bush (the former Baptist minister was the liaison for “41” to the evangelical community), he had never been invited to the White House by George W. Bush.

But one gets the feeling that Mr. Wead found few friends in the new Bush White House because he made few of them in the first one. Several staffers who worked for the first President Bush said Mr. Wead was not highly respected, and that he tried to parlay his connection to the Bush family in a disastrous run for Congress in Arizona in 1992. The current president values loyalty, and the fact that he didn’t reach out to Mr. Wead when he gained power speaks volumes.

Mr. Wead says his only desire in writing about the Bushes is to bring honor to the family. (Emphashis added.) Obviously, in the eyes of the White House, he failed.
-- James G. Lakely, White House correspondent

The good news here is that unlike his immediate predecessor, it seems W. won’t be unleashing syncophant writers to buff his legacy.