Scully, Gerson and McConnell

Updated on 8/26/07


Former White House speechwriter Matthew Scully has written a 10-page essay denouncing his old boss, Michael Gerson. Frustratingly and foolishly, the article lies behind a subscriber firewall, which means I haven't yet read it. So instead of commenting on it, here's an archive of background material:

• Michael Kinsley, "Ghost Wars," Slate, August 24, 2007.
• Ben Domenech, "Passive Instruments and Fine China," This Is an Adventure [Blog], August 13, 2007.
  
• Bruce Reed, "Honor Among Scribes," Slate, August 11, 2007.
• Timothy Noah, "Is Mike Gerson a Glory Hog?," Slate, August 11, 2007.
• Peter Baker, "Bush's Muse Stands Accused," Washington Post, August 11, 2007.
• Peter Wehner, "The World According to Matthew Scully," National Review Online, August 10, 2007.
  

For more on Scully, see:

• Matthew Scully, "The Harriet Miers I Know," New York Times, October 14, 2005.
• Matthew Scully, "Building a Better State of the Union Address," New York Times, February 2, 2005.
• Ryan Lizza, "Food Fight," New Republic, June 17, 2002.
  

For more on Gerson, see:

• His columns in the Washington Post.
• His forthcoming book, Heroic Conservatism: Why Republicans Need to Embrace America's Ideals (and Why They Deserve to Fail if They Don't).

• Michael Gerson, "The View from the Top," Newsweek, August 21-28, 2006.
• Collin Hansen, "How Then Shall We Politick?," ChristianityToday.com, August 1, 2006.
  
• Linda Wertheimer, "A Final Word with President's Faithful Speechwriter," National Public Radio, June 21, 2006.
  
• Jeffrey Goldberg, "The Believer," New Yorker, February 13, 2006.
• Carl M. Cannon, “Soul of a Conservative,” National Journal, May 14, 2005.
• Tamara Lipper, "Bush Gets a New Voice for Second Term," Newsweek.com, January 5, 2005.
• Alan Cooperman, "Bush's References to God Defended by Speechwriter," Washington Post, December 12, 2004.
• Mike Allen, "For Bush's Speechwriter, Job Grows Beyond Words," Washington Post, October 11, 2002.
  
• Gregg Zoroya, “He Puts Words in Bush’s Mouth,” USA Today, April 14, 2001.

And for John McConnell, who rounded out the White House speechwriting team and is still hard at work in the OEOB, see:

• Rick Olivo, “Writing Speeches for Cheney,” Budgeteer News (Duluth, MI), August 3, 2001.

For more on Gerson's successor, William McGurn, see:

• Elisabeth Bumiller, “Summing Up the Union, and in the Boss’s Words,” New York Times, January 30, 2006.

Update (12/1/07): According to the Washington Post, McConnell "has shared similar grievances with colleagues." Likewise, in a review of Gerson's new book, David Frum writes,

I worked closely with Gerson and Scully, and I know both men well, as I do the third member of that once-intimate band, John McConnell. I witnessed the events Scully chronicled, and I can attest to the accuracy of Scully’s account.

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The Daily Digest

In Washington, white shirts and dark suites are de rigueur, but rarely do you see the three-piece ensemble—especially in mid-August. The exception is Bob Novak, who a few days ago revealed his reasoning: "It looked better on television to see a vest than a big old belly."

Bruce Bartlett welcomes William Kristol and Kathryn Lopez to the conservatives-in-praise-of-Hillary club.

Meet the First Ladies Club: Jeri Thompson (courtesy of the Post), Judith Giuliani (Vanity Fair), Elizabeth Edwards (the Post), and Michelle Obama (the Times).

"A unique chapter in White House history came to a conclusion last week," writes Fred Barnes. "Call it the Wehner era, as in Peter Wehner, the director of the office of strategic initiatives. The title is misleading. Wehner ran a one-man think tank inside the White House (with a few young research assistants) that brought scholars and thinkers to talk to President Bush and that e-mailed ideas and information to several hundred journalists and writers and intellectuals and policy entrepreneurs. His missives became known as Wehnergrams [link added], but there will be no more of them. Friday, August 3, was his last day at the White House."

But Wehner is no shrinking violet. Now using the byline of senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center (like Rick Santorum), he has already penned a defense of his former boss, chief White House speechwriter Michael Gerson, whom Gerson's colleague, Matthew Scully, pillories in this month's Atlantic.

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The Compassionate Conservatism of George W. Bush

As synopsized by his former chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson:

[F]rom the earliest days of the nomination contest, he set out policies—a federal role in improving education, humane immigration reform, Medicare prescription drug coverage—that borrowed more from Roman Catholic social thought than from Friedrich Hayek.

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