July 9, 2007
The Ethics and Public Policy Center takes great pleasure in announcing that Peter Wehner, who is completing his White House service as Deputy Assistant to the President and as Director of the Office of Strategic Initiatives, will join EPPC next month as a Senior Fellow.
“Pete Wehner has a deep and keen intellect, a remarkable breadth of experience in the public-policy world, and boundless energy,” said EPPC President Ed Whelan. “I am delighted that he will be deploying his abundant talents on behalf of EPPC.”
Added Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, editor-in-chief of First Things and a longtime board member of EPPC: “Not many people combine Pete Wehner’s rich experience with public policy and practical politics with a command of the ideas that inform and deform both. Add to that an ability to write with verve and clarity, and you obviously have a sterling addition to the high-powered staff of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.”
“It’s great to be joining — or, more precisely, rejoining — the Ethics and Public Policy Center,” said Mr. Wehner, who worked at EPPC two decades ago. “I have great respect for all that EPPC is doing to shape the intellectual and moral landscape of America. It’s an institution that has tremendous reach and influence. Its scholarship, work, and reputation are first-rate. And I’m pleased I know so many of my future colleagues, whom I hold in such high regard.”
In addition to informing the public understanding of critical issues of domestic and foreign policy, Mr. Wehner intends to explore the future of conservatism through his work at EPPC.
Mr. Wehner has specialized in and written on political, cultural, religious, and national-security issues. He served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations prior to becoming deputy director of speechwriting for President George W. Bush in 2001. 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.
Prior to joining the Bush Administration, Wehner was executive director for policy for Empower America, a conservative public policy organization headed by William J. Bennett, Jack Kemp, and Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick. Mr. Wehner also served as a special assistant to the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy and, before that, as a speechwriter for then-Secretary of Education Bill Bennett.
A native of Dallas, Texas, Mr. Wehner grew up in Richland, Washington and is a graduate of the University of Washington. He and his wife Cindy have three children and live in McLean, Virginia.
