Stephen F. Hayes is a columnist for
The Weekly StandardThe Weekly Standard is an American neoconservative opinion magazine published 48 times per year. Its founding publisher, News Corporation, debuted the title September 18, 1995. Currently edited by founder William Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard has been described as a "redoubt of...
, a prominent
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
conservative magazine. Hayes has been selected as the official biographer for Vice President Richard Cheney.
Before joining The Weekly Standard, Hayes was a senior writer for
National JournalNational Journal is a nonpartisan American weekly magazine that reports on the current political environment and emerging political and policy trends. National Journal was first published in 1969. Times Mirror owned the magazine from 1986 to 1997, when it was purchased by David G. Bradley...
s Hotline. He also served for six years as Director of the Institute on Political Journalism at
Georgetown UniversityGeorgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
. His work has appeared in the
New York PostThe New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
, Washington Times, Salon.com,
National ReviewNational Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
, and
ReasonReason is a libertarian monthly magazine published by the Reason Foundation. The magazine has a circulation of around 60,000 and was named one of the 50 best magazines in 2003 and 2004 by the Chicago Tribune.- History :...
. He has been a commentator on CNN,
The McLaughlin GroupThe McLaughlin Group is a syndicated half-hour weekly public affairs television program in the United States, where a group of five pundits discuss current political issues in a round table format. It has been broadcast since 1982, and is currently sponsored by MetLife...
,
Fox News ChannelFox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
,
MSNBCMSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...
,
CNBCCNBC is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the U.S., owned and operated by NBCUniversal. The network and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provide live coverage of financial markets. The combined reach of CNBC and its siblings is 390 million viewers...
, and
C-SPANC-SPAN , an acronym for Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, is an American cable television network that offers coverage of federal government proceedings and other public affairs programming via its three television channels , one radio station and a group of websites that provide streaming...
.
A graduate of
Columbia University Graduate School of JournalismThe Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is one of Columbia's graduate and professional schools. It offers three degree programs: Master of Science in journalism , Master of Arts in journalism and a Ph.D. in communications...
and
DePauw UniversityDePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, USA, is a private, national liberal arts college with an enrollment of approximately 2,400 students. The school has a Methodist heritage and was originally known as Indiana Asbury University. DePauw is a member of both the Great Lakes Colleges Association...
, Hayes was born and raised in
Wauwatosa, WisconsinWauwatosa is a city in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, United States, and was incorporated on May 27, 1897. As of the 2006 census estimate, the city's population was 44,798. Wauwatosa is located immediately west of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and is a part of the Milwaukee metropolitan area...
in suburban Milwaukee County. He is a member of the
Sigma ChiSigma Chi is the largest and one of the oldest college Greek-letter secret and social fraternities in North America with 244 active chapters and more than . Sigma Chi was founded on June 28, 1855 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio when members split from Delta Kappa Epsilon...
fraternity. He lives on the Chesapeake Bay with his wife and two children.
Foreign policy writings
Hayes has "been a regular critic of the Bush administration" on issues such as overspending and
North KoreaThe Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
. He is well known for his writings postulating an operational relationship between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the
al-QaedaAl-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
terrorist organization. He wrote, for example, "there can no longer be any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq worked with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to plot against Americans." Hayes authored a book on this subject entitled: The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein has Endangered America [ISBN 0-06-074673-4]. His major source was a leaked memo from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to the U.S. Congress on 27 October 2003.
In a June 2, 2004 interview with writer
Kathryn Jean LopezKathryn Jean Lopez, is an American conservative columnist who is nationally syndicated by the United Feature Syndicate.She is also the editor of National Review Online...
, Hayes stated that his book's argument was backed up by a variety of public statements by people connected with the Defense Department, particularly by Democratic Party senior figures. He referenced Indiana Senator
Evan BayhBirch Evans "Evan" Bayh III is a lawyer, advisor and former Democratic politician who served as the junior U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1999 to 2011. He earlier served as the 46th Governor of Indiana from 1989 to 1997. Bayh is a current Fox News contributor as of March 14, 2011.Bayh first held...
's description of Iraq and al Qaeda as in a relationship of "mutual exploitation" and Connecticut Senator
Joe LiebermanJoseph Isadore "Joe" Lieberman is the senior United States Senator from Connecticut. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was the party's nominee for Vice President in the 2000 election. Currently an independent, he remains closely affiliated with the party.Born in Stamford, Connecticut,...
's comment that "There are extensive contacts between Saddam Hussein's government and al Qaeda." Hayes told Lopez, "Bin Laden has dissed Saddam several times. And I would certainly never argue that they were buddies. It was an
on-again, off-again relationshipAn on-again, off-again relationship is a form of casual relationship, usually sexual, between two people. It is where the couple concerned do not see their discontinuous affair as an ongoing or formal relationship...
based... on mutual exploitation and a common enemy." He said that he broadly accepted the Feith report, despite the inclusion of "old" and "raw" pieces of intelligence, because "most of the report tracks with what Tenet has said publicly" (the CIA director
George TenetGeorge John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University....
).
Critics of Hayes such as Salon.com have stated that the intelligence community consistently held that the relationship between Saddam and al-Qaeda was not operational, with Tenet telling 60 Minutes, "We could never verify that there was any Iraqi authority, direction and control, complicity with al-Qaeda for
9/11The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
or any operational act against America, period."
Bill Moyers dispute
In 2002, Hayes also gained some attention with a piece exposing former PBS host
Bill MoyersBill Moyers is an American journalist and public commentator. He served as White House Press Secretary in the United States President Lyndon B. Johnson Administration from 1965 to 1967. He worked as a news commentator on television for ten years. Moyers has had an extensive involvement with public...
as a journalist, activist and financier of left-leaning public affairs bias Hayes wrote, on his own shows, Moyers frequently draws on the "expertise" of the interest groups he funds through his foundation. Moyers summarized the piece famously as "replete with willful misrepresentation, deceitful juxtaposition, and outright error, with a little hypocrisy thrown in for flavor."
Stephen F. Hayes replied:
- "When I interviewed him, Moyers didn't deny, as he does now, that I was able to substantiate my source's gibe. Instead, he sought to draw a distinction between what he says on the air and the politically partisan red meat he serves up on the lecture circuit. In fact, when I asked him about the LBJ speech, he said "That's fair game, you've got it on the record there." Then he compared himself to conservative eminence and longtime Firing Line host William F. Buckley. "Bill Buckley used to make speeches all the time to Republicans and conservative audiences, even while he was conducting the longest-running show in PBS history. But did you find those things he said in his speeches in his show? Not necessarily." So much for what I "didn't" and "couldn't" substantiate."
External links