Who writes *'s speeches? The bit 'untamed fire of freedom' is a doozy.

[Deja Q]

:puke:

Thx.

[jean]

1. here you go - serious info and a do-it-yourself speechwriting site

Bush Gets a New Voice for Second Term

Michael Gerson, the chief speechwriter during the president’s first term, is expected to be replaced by William McGurn of The Wall Street Journal. How will the change impact the White House message?

WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Tamara Lipper
Newsweek
Updated: 1:56 p.m. ET Jan. 5, 2005

Jan. 5 - President Bush will start his second term with many of his closest and longtime aides by his side including chief of staff Andrew Card, senior adviser Karl Rove and Communications Director Dan Bartlett. Although the visual picture will largely look the same after Jan. 20, Bush's words may sound very different. Michael Gerson, Bush's chief speechwriter, who has helped craft nearly every one of Bush's speeches during his first term, is leaving his job. Gerson is expected to move into the policy arena and be replaced as head speechwriter by Wall Street Journal editorial-page writer William McGurn. Gerson's job change cements the breakup of Bush's speechwriting team that included deputies John McConnell and Matthew Scully.

Gerson is one of the best-known presidential speechwriters, on par with Ronald Reagan's Peggy Noonan or John Kennedy's Theodore Sorenson. One sign that he was no ordinary speechwriter is the fact that instead of being housed, as speechwriters usually are, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Gerson shared an office suite with Bartlett on the second floor of the West Wing. A Christian evangelical and a former theology student, Gerson shares his boss's brand of compassionate conservatism. His trademark has been the religious language and Biblical references that populate Bush's speeches. To those who believe the president uses his speeches to send signals to conservative evangelicals, Gerson is the master of the code. He was a major proponent of Bush directly confronting America's shameful history of slavery on a visit to Senegal's Goree Island in 2003. With the House of Slaves as his backdrop, Bush delivered one of Gerson's most memorable speeches that included the passage, "In America, enslaved Africans learned the story of the exodus from Egypt and set their own hearts on a promised land of freedom. Enslaved Africans discovered a suffering Savior and found he was more like themselves than their masters."

Bush's speeches will not only be missing Gerson's religious undertones. His move will radically alter the speechwriting process. Gerson, McConnell and Scully came together during Bush's 2000 campaign. Since their earliest days in the White House the three men sat in one room writing together entire speech texts from the opening "Thank you" to the closing "God bless America.” Bush even nicknamed the speechwriters "triune," a word that means three in one and also refers to the trinity. Scully, who left the White House late last summer, had wanted to leave earlier but was persuaded to stay on through the election to keep the team intact. According to a former administration official, the president has grown so familiar with the Gerson-headed speechwriting process he demands all of his prepared texts mirror that style, organization and tone.

snip (short paragraph)

Gerson's replacement, McGurn, is described by a friend as a first-rate writer and a familiar name in the Bush White House. Twice in the first term, White House officials had attempted to hire McGurn. This time around McGurn met with the president and was persuaded to come on board. White House watchers anticipate the speechwriting shop will revert to a more traditional format with McGurn overseeing the work of about half a dozen speechwriters. A source familiar with the workings of the speechwriting office predicts that by being around Bush, McGurn will quickly become familiar with the president's corporate style of speechwriting. As an editor, Bush is said to be very focused on organization. He wants his points to flow logically from one to another and favors a simple but polished conversational tone. McGurn will also benefit from having speechwriter John McConnell as a holdover. A source says White House officials have prepared Bush to adjust his expectations to the speechwriters’ changing of the guard, but on important occasions it is good to know Gerson will be just down the hall.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6790433/

- - - - -

The George W Bush Speechwriter
http://www.actofme.co.uk/bush_speech/bushspeechwriter.html

Write a speech for GWB and listen to him read it

[latteromden]

5. That speechwriter is far too amusing. (n/t)

[BrklynLiberal]

2. Born again Christian W met while being born again. His name is

Michael J. Gerson. He is the one who always makes sure to put all the biblical references and Fundie Christian code words into the speeches.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24634-2004Sep15.html

"Some political analysts think there is a shrewd calculation behind these ambiguities. By using such phrases as the "culture of life," Bush signals to evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics that he is with them, while he avoids taking explicit stands that might alienate other voters or alarm foreign leaders. Bush and his chief speechwriter, Michael J. Gerson, are "very gifted at crafting references that religious insiders will understand and outsiders may not," said the Rev. Jim Wallis, editor of the evangelical journal Sojourners."

[grasswire]

7. Gerson previously worked for...

...mega-fundie Charles Colson.

[bobweaver]

3. A million monkeys sitting at a million typewriters

[fooj]

4. I think you'll find this interesting! It's in DU Editorials !!!

http://mediamatters.org/items/200501240006


Looks like he has lots of help!!! Check out who's who in the zoo!

[rainbow4321]

6. Molly Ivans: Bush revises history in Inaugural Address

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=18429


AUSTIN, Texas -- A substantial nit to pick with President Bush's second Inaugural Address and some questions about his theme. "From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the maker of heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave."

Oh dear. It took us almost 100 years to get rid of slavery right here in the Land of the Free, it took us another 100 years to get rid of legal discrimination based on race and gender, and how long it will take us to achieve equal opportunity for all in this country no one can say. At least we're working at it. Or we were.

The Bush theme of what someone else christened "evangelical democracy" is rather like the "From the day of our founding ..." passage -- actually, it's more complicated than that. I, too, am happy to proselytize for freedom and democracy, but I don't think we can export it by force and I don't think we can expect the world to accept our noble intentions.

Nor is democracy necessarily the cure for terrorism. As a British journalist pointed out, if Britain had been following the Bush plan, it would have nuked us years ago for being the largest single source of money for the Irish Republican Army. Reality is so often much more complicated than George W. Bush thinks it is.