Peter Wehner is a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times and a contributing editor for The Atlantic magazine. Mr. Wehner has written for numerous other publications—including Time magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Financial Times, The Weekly Standard, National Review, Commentary, National Affairs, and Christianity Today—and has appeared frequently as a commentator on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, CBS, PBS, and C-SPAN television. He was also the Pamela and Jack Egan Visiting Professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy and the School of Arts and Sciences at Duke University in 2019–2020.
Mr. Wehner served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations prior to becoming deputy director of speechwriting for President George W. Bush. In 2002, he was asked to head the Office of Strategic Initiatives, where he generated policy ideas, reached out to public intellectuals, published op-eds and essays, and provided counsel on a range of domestic and international issues. He has also served as an adviser to several presidential campaigns.
Mr. Wehner’s book The Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump (HarperCollins) was published in June 2019. He is also author of City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era (co-authored with Michael J. Gerson), Wealth and Justice: The Morality of Democratic Capitalism (co-authored with Arthur C. Brooks), and co-editor of books on foreign policy (The Latin American Policies of U.S. Allies) and national security (Promise or Peril: The Strategic Defense Initiative).
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Pete Wehner has become the conscience not only of our organization, but really of the conservative movement, holding us true to our principles, including those that it's somewhat difficult in the course of a difficult struggle to remain faithful to.
Robert P. George
PUBLICATIONS
When Faith Repairs Broken Lives
Published in Commentary Magazine on August 17, 2015
A Clarifying Moment for Conservatism
Published in Commentary Magazine on August 14, 2015
Why Civility is a Democratic Virtue
Published in Commentary Magazine on August 3, 2015
Our Morally Disoriented Times
Published in Commentary Magazine on July 30, 2015
A Glimpse Into the Culture of Death
Published in Commentary Magazine on July 20, 2015
Obama’s Worst Mistake
Published in Commentary Magazine on July 15, 2015
President Donald Trump? Just Say No
Published in New York Times on July 8, 2015
How an Act of Grace Changed the Republican Party
Published in Commentary Magazine on July 5, 2015
A Welcome Tipping Point for Republicans and the Confederate Flag
Published in Commentary Magazine on June 24, 2015
Conservatives and Climate Change
Published in National Affairs - Summer 2015 issue on June 22, 2015
Jeb Bush Makes His Case
Published in Commentary Magazine on June 18, 2015
Have You Ever Been Wrong?
Published in Commentary Magazine on June 6, 2015
Have Democrats Pulled Too Far Left?
Published in New York Times on May 27, 2015
Counting Up Obama’s Cataclysmic Foreign Policy Failures
Published in Commentary Magazine on May 26, 2015
Police Lives Matter
Published in Commentary Magazine on May 14, 2015
Sorry, Media, but Hillary is Incompetent
Published in Commentary Magazine on May 4, 2015
Hillary Clinton’s Tangle of Corruption
Published in Commentary Magazine on April 21, 2015
Take Them at Their Word
Published in The Weekly Standard - April 20, 2015 issue on April 16, 2015
The Culture Wars v. the Culture of Life
Published in Commentary Magazine on April 12, 2015
Hillary Clinton’s Campaign and the Coming Culture Wars
Published in Commentary Magazine on April 10, 2015
Why Evangelicals Should Love the Pope
Published in New York Times on April 5, 2015
Politics in an Age of Epic Transition
Published in Commentary Magazine on March 30, 2015
Conservatives and the Need for an Appealing Governing Philosophy
Published in Commentary Magazine on March 13, 2015
Government Is Not The Enemy
Published in The New York Times on March 1, 2015
God, Our Rights, and the Modern Liberal Mind
Published in Commentary Magazine on February 16, 2015
Brian Williams, His Fall from Grace, and the Need for Grace
Published in Commentary Magazine on February 11, 2015
Obama’s Words v. Reality
Published in Commentary Magazine on January 26, 2015
The Smartest Guy Ever to Be President Isn’t Quite As Smart As He Thinks
Published in Commentary Magazine on January 22, 2015
Needed: A Republican Agenda for the Middle Class
Published in Commentary Magazine on January 20, 2015
MLK and the American Founding
Published in Commentary Magazine on January 19, 2015
Conservatives in Name Only
Published in The New York Times on January 15, 2015
“What We Have Loved, Others Will Love, and We Will Teach Them How”
Published in Commentary Magazine on January 6, 2015
A Christian Defense Of Israel
Published in Commentary Magazine on December 26, 2014
The Mood of America
Published in Commentary Magazine on December 12, 2014
Putting the “Torture Report” In Historical and Moral Context
Published in Commentary Magazine on December 10, 2014
Suffering Through the Prism of Faith
Published in Patheos - Philosophical Fragments on December 5, 2014
The Media’s Irresponsible Ferguson Coverage
Published in Commentary Magazine on November 25, 2014
Should Politics Be a Proxy for Character?
Published in Commentary Magazine on October 31, 2014
Obama’s Strategy to Defeat ISIS Collides with Reality
Published in Commentary Magazine on October 14, 2014
Democrats Turn On Obama
Published in Commentary Magazine on October 13, 2014
Barack’s World
Published in Commentary Magazine on September 22, 2014
A Healing Illness
Published in The Weekly Standard on September 15, 2014
Miracle at Philadelphia
Published in Commentary Magazine on September 17, 2014
Yes, Obama Was Talking About ISIS
Published in Commentary Magazine on September 8, 2014
The White House Press Secretary Isn’t Telling the Truth. And I Can Prove It.
Published in Commentary Magazine on August 26, 2014
Why Politics Matters
Published in Commentary Magazine on August 20, 2014
Why We Dehumanize Political Opponents
Published in Commentary Magazine on August 18, 2014
Ann Coulter’s Absurd Defense
Published in Patheos.com on August 15, 2014
Ann Coulter’s Casual Cruelty
Published in Patheos.com on August 8, 2014
The Nasty, Brutish World of Richard Dawkins
Published in Commentary Magazine on August 21, 2014
“The Tide of War is Receding,” “We Don’t Do Stupid [Stuff],” and Other Myths
Published in Commentary Magazine on August 12, 2014
Why Grief Can Exist Alongside Hope
Published in Commentary Magazine on August 5, 2014
Obama’s Psychological Tapestry
Published in Commentary Magazine on June 11, 2014
The Idealism and Realism of the American Founders
Published in Commentary Magazine on July 9, 2014
The GOP’s Growing Vulnerability on Cultural Issues
Published in Commentary Magazine on July 7, 2014
The GOP and America’s Changing Demographics
Published in Commentary Magazine on June 26, 2014
A Cheerful Conservative
Published in Commentary Magazine on May 12, 2014
The Conservative Case Against Crony Capitalism
Published in Commentary Magazine on May 7, 2014
Reality Is Crushing the Obama Presidency
Published in Commentary Magazine on April 25, 2014
The GOP’s Political Reconstruction Project
Published in Commentary Magazine on April 21, 2014
Mozilla and the Prophet Isaiah
Published in Commentary Magazine on April 9, 2014
Obama’s World of Make Believe
Published in Commentary Magazine on March 20, 2014
GOP Task: From Oppositional to Governing Conservatism
Published in Commentary Magazine on March 7, 2014
“I Live in a Rather Special World”
Published in Commentary Magazine on March 6, 2014
Obama’s Journey from Arrogance to Incompetence
Published in Commentary Magazine on March 4, 2014
In Defense of Social Justice
Published in Commentary Magazine on February 18, 2014
Demographics and the GOP
Published in Commentary Magazine on February 6, 2014
Both Obama and the GOP Badly Damaged
Published in Commentary Magazine on January 31, 2014
Our Chastened President
Published in Commentary Magazine on January 23, 2014
Let Reagan Be Reagan
Published in Commentary Magazine on January 21, 2014
The Scandal of Grace
Published in Patheos - Philosophical Fragments on January 21, 2014
The War on Poverty a Half Century Later
Published in Commentary Magazine on January 8, 2014
A Conservative Vision of Government
Published in National Affairs on January 1, 2014
“We Thought That [Obama] Was Going to Be the Next Messiah”
Published in Commentary Magazine on December 19, 2013