These poor, dumb racists have latched on to a celebrity shyster who has no conservative principles and worst of all, no understanding of international affairs.

No self-reflection is even considered by neoconservatives or their strongest pro-war allies, evangelical Christians. In 2002-2003 I was in the center of both groups during the buildup to the Iraq War, as the media relations director for the Committee of the Liberation of Iraq (CLI) and as an evangelical Christian active in small groups, community outreach, and engagement with other "gospel-centered" evangelicals who were earnestly seeking to share the gospel with a world that desperately needed to know God's love and mercy.

It never occurred to me that there were any contradictions in being a war propagandist, a missional Christian, and a fierce opponent of big government. I reported for duty at the CLI office on Pennsylvania Avenue, scheduling interviews for my boss, Randy Scheunemann and other members of the Committee such as Christopher Hitchens, our left-wing pro-war star. I spoke to The Weekly Standard magazine editor Bill Kristol daily, who had conceived the CLI with Scheunemann and Bruce Jackson of Lockheed Corporation. Following a New York Times story announcing the formation of the CLI, the media frenzy never slowed.

Scheunemann was the public relations mastermind and one of the most influential behind the scenes operators in Washington during the winter of 2002-2003. Many of the talking points ("We will be greeted as liberators," "Sadaam has used chemical weapons on his own people," "Rogue state rollback") came right out of our office. A former aide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to Majority Leader Trent Lott, Scheunemann proudly displayed a signed letter and framed photograph from President Clinton on his office wall, thanking him for his drafting of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, the stated goal of which was regime change. A frequent visitor to our office was Ahmad Chalabi, the American educated Iraqi dissident who provided much of the information that was passed directly to the Department of Defense and the White House through our office.

Scheunemann and I attended a meeting with a White House staffer at the Old Executive Office Building where we were assured that we operated with the blessing of the White House. Each day we recruited a Democrat or left-leaning opinion maker was cause for celebration. Of course it was bi-partisan with the likes of Democratic Senators such as Joseph Lieberman and Evan Bayh, as well as labor boss Jimmy Hoffa, former Senator Bob Kerrey along with reliable Republicans Newt Gingrich and John McCain, who later hired Scheunemann as his foreign policy advisor for his 2008 Presidential campaign.

Hitchens was all in, and our most frequently requested TV guest. He loved going against the anti-war liberals and told me on one occasion that he only wanted to do interviews where he had to take on at least two anti-war guests. In a live forum opposing William Galston at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Hitchens made a case for toppling Saddam in response to the killing of thousands of seals when Sadaam set fire to the oil fields during the Gulf War. "The mass slaughter of seals must be avenged!" By the time Galston stood up to read his paper, no one was listening.