Axis of idiocy
Gilbert Cranberg: Those White House Speech Writers
from Nieman Watchdog
Now and then I hear George W. Bush praised for the eloquence of his remarks in a prepared speech. I do not usually want to embarrass or disillusion the listener by explaining the facts of life about White House speechmaking. However, anyone who reads Matthew Scully’s tell-all takeout in the September Atlantic on his days manufacturing phrases for the president, will have disillusionment to spare. It’s a scathing tale that oozes resentment with every word. Among the mildest: “extravagant falsehood.”
That’s Scully’s description of chief White House speech writer Michael Gerson’s way of hogging the limelight and giving his colleagues scant or no credit. As Scully vehemently tells it, he, Gerson and John McConnell were close collaborators but Gerson was a shameless self-promoter who, in interviews and profiles, hid their contributions. And oh, did I mention plagiarism? Scully does not use the dread word but he unmistakably accuses Gerson of recycling work Scully did for the Wall Street Journal.
Scully cites as an example of Gerson’s style the oft-quoted “axis of evil” reference to Iran, Iraq and North Korea in Bush’s 2002 State of the Union speech. Although Scully says Gerson implied to the New Yorker that the words were his, they were, Scully writes, a team effort built around the germ of an idea volunteered by a former speech writer.
Set aside for a moment the spectacle of four grown men to compose three words, and consider the content: it’s mystifying why anyone would want credit for it. The phrase seemed dumb at the time and is even dumber in retrospect. Axis in the context of international affairs means alliance, partnership or coalition. The only thing Iraq and Iran had in common was that they detested each other. Germany, Italy and Japan were the Axis powers in World War II because they fought on the same side; Iraq and Iran fought AGAINST each other. Their murderous eight-year war ended in 1988 and cost a million casualties. North Korea seems to have been dragged into the speech to form a non-existent parallel with the true axis. Those who wrote the speech basically lumped together three disparate regimes to create a zippy passage that made no intrinsic sense.
Worse than its playing with words was the speech’s playing with facts. Referring to Iraq in the address, Bush declared, “This is a regime that agreed to international inspectors – then kicked out the inspectors.” Hans Blix, chief U.N. arms inspector, wrote that it was Richard Butler, head of the United Nations Special Commission, who had ordered the inspectors out before the expected 1998 bombing of Iraq by the U.S. and Britain. The Washington Post reported the same thing.
(Continued here.)
from Nieman Watchdog
Now and then I hear George W. Bush praised for the eloquence of his remarks in a prepared speech. I do not usually want to embarrass or disillusion the listener by explaining the facts of life about White House speechmaking. However, anyone who reads Matthew Scully’s tell-all takeout in the September Atlantic on his days manufacturing phrases for the president, will have disillusionment to spare. It’s a scathing tale that oozes resentment with every word. Among the mildest: “extravagant falsehood.”
That’s Scully’s description of chief White House speech writer Michael Gerson’s way of hogging the limelight and giving his colleagues scant or no credit. As Scully vehemently tells it, he, Gerson and John McConnell were close collaborators but Gerson was a shameless self-promoter who, in interviews and profiles, hid their contributions. And oh, did I mention plagiarism? Scully does not use the dread word but he unmistakably accuses Gerson of recycling work Scully did for the Wall Street Journal.
Scully cites as an example of Gerson’s style the oft-quoted “axis of evil” reference to Iran, Iraq and North Korea in Bush’s 2002 State of the Union speech. Although Scully says Gerson implied to the New Yorker that the words were his, they were, Scully writes, a team effort built around the germ of an idea volunteered by a former speech writer.
Set aside for a moment the spectacle of four grown men to compose three words, and consider the content: it’s mystifying why anyone would want credit for it. The phrase seemed dumb at the time and is even dumber in retrospect. Axis in the context of international affairs means alliance, partnership or coalition. The only thing Iraq and Iran had in common was that they detested each other. Germany, Italy and Japan were the Axis powers in World War II because they fought on the same side; Iraq and Iran fought AGAINST each other. Their murderous eight-year war ended in 1988 and cost a million casualties. North Korea seems to have been dragged into the speech to form a non-existent parallel with the true axis. Those who wrote the speech basically lumped together three disparate regimes to create a zippy passage that made no intrinsic sense.
Worse than its playing with words was the speech’s playing with facts. Referring to Iraq in the address, Bush declared, “This is a regime that agreed to international inspectors – then kicked out the inspectors.” Hans Blix, chief U.N. arms inspector, wrote that it was Richard Butler, head of the United Nations Special Commission, who had ordered the inspectors out before the expected 1998 bombing of Iraq by the U.S. and Britain. The Washington Post reported the same thing.
(Continued here.)
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