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Rep. Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican who was a key House proponent of the Bush administration's war on terror and a vociferous advocate of missile defense, served 10 terms in Congress before losing to Democratic challenger Joe Sestak in the 2006 midterm elections. Sestak, a Navy veteran, was widely expected to win due in part to Weldon's close association with the Bush administration's war policies and a series of scandals that broke in mid-October regarding Weldon's cozy relations with an Italian weapons manufacturer and other foreign businesses and the FBI's investigation of his lobbyist daughter ("Navy Vet Sestak Coming Closer to Sinking Weldon in PA 7," CQPolitics.com/nytimes.com, October 13, 2006).

While a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee and former chair of the Military Research and Development Subcommittee, Weldon described himself as "the leading House supporter of a national missile defense to protect America's families and communities" in his House bio. Weldon has also been closely associated with a number of hardline policy institutes, including the neoconservative Center for Security Policy (CSP), run by former Reagan administration official Frank Gaffney, and the generally hawkish bipartisan think tank the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, whose list of consultants includes Ilan Berman of the American Foreign Policy Council, Henry Cooper of High Frontier, Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, William Schneider Jr., William Van Cleave, and James Woolsey.

Summarizing some of Weldon's views, Ari Berman wrote in an article for the Nation website that the congressman "believes there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He claims a secret Pentagon unit, Able Danger, identified 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta two years before the World Trade Center attacks and covered it up. He wrote a book last year alleging that Iran was plotting to hit the U.S. homeland" (October 25, 2006).

According to Ari Berman, Weldon's conspiratorial views were on full display in the weeks before the 2006 midterms after news broke of official investigations into his relationships with foreign businesses, including the Italian arms manufacturer Finmeccanica. According to the New York Times (October 31, 2006), the Justice Department, while refusing to comment on the Finmeccanica allegations, acknowledged that it was investigating Weldon's connections to a number of foreign firms, including whether he "used his position to steer almost $1 million in consulting contracts from a Russian energy company and other Eastern European interests to a lobbying firm headed by his daughter Karen." But it is the Finmeccanica angle that was generating much of the negative buzz in the final weeks of the midterm campaign. A frequent booster of military hardware deals for the company, Weldon's district in suburban Philadelphia, as well as his friends and family members, have benefited from the company's largesse in recent years. The company broke ground on a $27 million expansion in Philadelphia in November 2005 and employed a number of Weldon associates at its subsidiaries.

Responding to the investigation, Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, told the Times: "Doesn't the congressman have to register as a foreign agent? It's always disturbing when a member of Congress goes to bat for a particular company. It is even more alarming when the company is foreign. When it comes to national security, you want the best products, not products from companies with a relationship to a member of Congress."

In September 2006, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) included Weldon on its list of the "20 most corrupt members of Congress." Responding to the report, Weldon's spokesperson charged that CREW was a "front group for liberal Democrats who have a partisan ax to grind against Republicans" (Delaware County Times, September 21, 2006).

According to the Nation's Berman, the scandal allegations, coming so close to the midterms, "brought out the vicious, conspiratorial side of Weldon that's earned him national notoriety and prompted National Journal to ask . 'Is he crazy?'" The key element of the purported conspiracy was Weldon's claim that the Justice Department was out to get him and was spurred to action by "left wing liberal activists" and "coordinating" its investigation with the Sestak campaign. Weldon told CBS: "That is absolutely a partisan political activity on the part of the Justice Department if it occurred" (quoted in Berman).

Weldon also turned dirty in his apparent desperation to fight off his midterm opponent. According to Berman, Weldon argued that Sestak spent much of his 30-year Navy career "drinking out of your wine goblets and being waited on by your sailor servants," challenged Sestak's decision to have his 5-year-old daughter-who was diagnosed with brain cancer-treated in Washington, DC, instead of Philadelphia, and "called the cops on an 18-year-old Eagle Scout and Sestak volunteer who was taking notes at a Weldon campaign event."

On national security policy, Weldon's longtime standby was repeating the purported threat to the homeland from "rogue" state intercontinental missiles. To defend against this supposed threat, Weldon championed missile defenses, working in close collaboration with a number of major U.S. defense contractors-like TRW, Boeing, and Lockheed-whose representatives share seats with Weldon on the Center for Security Policy's National Security Advisory Council. Commenting on the relations of CSP's council members, a TRW rep told a World Policy Institute analyst: "We're a tight-knit group" (quoted in Michelle Ciarrocca and William D. Hartung, Axis of Influence, World Policy Institute, July 2002). Other current and former congressmen who have been key sponsors of missile defense and also served as members of the CSP council include former Rep. Christopher Cox (R-CA), Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), and Sen. Bob Smith (R-NH).

In May 2001, Weldon organized a press conference in Washington (in conjunction with the SAFE Foundation) that was aimed at fending off arguments about the technical infeasibility of missile defense. At the conference, which was attended by five pro-missile defense scientists hired by a Boeing public relations consultant, Weldon said: "The testimony of these top-notch scientists should put to rest any hesitations that skeptics have tried to pin on our technological capability . [T]oo often, we only hear from one side of the debate in the science community-the left side." Added Weldon, "Now the American people can hear the truth from men who actually know the scientific progress we have made. These scientific leaders can refute-chapter and verse-the Chicken Little views of the liberal scientific community" (quoted in Axis of Influence).

Earlier, in 1997, Weldon was instrumental in establishing the purportedly bipartisan Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, sometimes called the Rumsfeld Missile Commission after its chair, Donald Rumsfeld. The commission, which received funding in an amendment inserted by Weldon to the 1997 Defense Authorization Bill and was staffed by a number of hardline foreign policy elites (including Woolsey, Paul Wolfowitz, and Stephen Cambone), was heavily criticized by many observers for over-hyping the missile threat. The commission's final report, released in July 1998, contended that "rogue states" such as Iraq, North Korea, or Iran could deploy ballistic missiles within "five years of a decision to do so," contrary to the CIA's estimate that it would take at least 10-15 years (for more information, see Axis of Influence and Right Web Profile: Rumsfeld Missile Commission).

Despite heated criticism of the findings, the report appears to have had some impact. As Tom Barry of the International Relations Center reported: "Although initially challenged by the director of central intelligence, a little more than a year later, in September 1999 the CIA released a new NIE that was substantially more alarmist than its previous one. It predicted that North Korea could test a ballistic missile capable of hitting the United States 'at any time' and that Iran could test such a weapon 'in the next few years.' Commenting on the new threat assessment, Rep. Curt Weldon, a main sponsor of the Rumsfeld Commission, congratulated himself: 'It was the largest turnaround ever in the history of the [intelligence] agency.' House Majority Leader Newt Gingrich (R-GA) was similarly ecstatic, saying the commission's conclusion was the 'most important warning about our national security system since the end of the Cold War'" (Tom Barry, "The Blame Game," Right Web Analysis, October 11, 2006).

Not surprisingly, weapons contractors were among Weldon's most ardent financial backers. As the World Policy Institute reported: "During both the year 2000 and 2002 election cycles, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon were among Weldon's top 20 donors. In all, Rep. Weldon received donations totaling more than $157,000 from defense contractors during the 1999/2000 and 2001/2002 election cycles. These contributions represented roughly one out of every five dollars received by Weldon during these two election cycles. Weldon also received substantial funding from missile defense contractors and their employees working on missile defense projects near the army's missile defense command in Huntsville, Alabama."

Despite his typically hawkish views on national security, Weldon often struck an independent course, sometimes in opposition to the Republican Party and the Bush administration. Reported a Congressional Quarterly bulletin posted on the New York Times website, "According to an unofficial tally of House votes in 2006 compiled by CQPolitics.com, Weldon voted 76% of the time with his party on votes that divided the two parties: That is the 15th lowest score among House Republicans. Weldon's official 2005 'party unity' score was higher, at 85%, but still below the overall average score for House Republicans of 90%" (nytimes.com, October 13, 2006).

On North Korea, in particular, Weldon often opposed the Bush administration's hardline stance. In June 2003, after Weldon visited Pyongyang, he proposed a 10-point negotiation plan that would be initiated by a one-year nonaggression pact signed by Washington and Pyongyang (Foreign Policy In Focus, July 1, 2003). And in June 2006, reported John Feffer, Weldon and the House Armed Services Committee pushed for "an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill that would essentially launch a review (read: adult supervision) of Bush policy toward North Korea" (Foreign Policy In Focus, June 30, 2006).

In 2004, Weldon was one of six congressmen who attended a fundraising event at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington at which the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a convicted felon and owner of the right-wing Washington Times, crowned himself "savior, Messiah, Returning Lord, and True Parent." At the event, which was cosponsored by the Washington Times Foundation and the International Interreligious Federation for World Peace, Moon claimed that "Hitler and Stalin have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways, and been reborn as new persons." When news of the bizarre event made headlines, most of the congressional figures disavowed that they knew in advance the event was meant to be a coronation. Weldon's office initially denied reports that he attended the event but reversed itself after being shown photos. A Weldon spokesperson said that the congressman "had no idea that the Reverend Moon was going to be at this event . If we had known that Reverend Moon was going to attend the event, be crowned, and make an unbelievably interesting speech, the congressman likely would not have attended" (The Hill, June 22, 2004).