Wonder Working Hack
by digby
Bush’s former speechwriter Michael Gerson, (purveyor of the evangelical dog-whistle crapola that permeated every presidential speech for years)praised his former employer’s SOTU address on Tuesday to high heaven (ahem) and took Jim Webb to task for his lousy writing skills, incoherence and all around terrible speech. Yes he did.
The Democratic response by Virginia Sen. James Webb was also memorable, in a different way. Whenever a politician puts out to the media that he has thrown away the speechwriters’ draft and written the remarks himself (as Webb did), it is often a sign of approaching mediocrity. This was worse. Senator Webb made liberal use of clichés: the middle class is “the backbone” of the country, which is losing its “place at the table.” I am not even sure there is a literary term for a mixed metaphor that crosses two clichés. And Senator Webb’s logic was as incoherent as his language (the two are often related). No “precipitous withdrawal”—but retreat “in short order.” Fight the war on terror vigorously—except where the terrorists have chosen to fight it. It is, perhaps, a good thing that James Webb earned a job as senator. As a speechwriter he would starve.
Perhaps he’d go back to award winning literature instead. The man has too much dignity to stoop to churlish hit-pieces on Newsweek online, that’s for sure.
Blogger and professional speechwriter Dan Conley, who thought the speech was as good as everyone but Gerson did, delivers an extremely satisfying point by point rebuttal.
Gerson then throws in another analysis of Webb — paraphrasing Webb’s overall foreign policy message as “Fight the war on terror vigorously—except where the terrorists have chosen to fight it.” Yes, this comes from the man who wrote “either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” That line applied domestically as well as internationally … if you cannot support the Bush approach to the War on Terror, you are one of them, the others, the evil ones. Your phone records will be taken, your conversations tapped, your mail opened and if you support an opposing point of view, you will be attacked as a traitor or coward. That’s Gerson’s legacy.
As they say, read the whole thing.
Michael Gerson helped Bush sell some of the worst policies and most divisive ideas in American history, all covered in goo-goo Christian rhetoric that made many people think he was speaking in grand biblical terms. Yesterday, he let his real petty and mean conservative self show through. He and Bush really are soul brothers.
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