The Bush management style: "your predecessor is just down the hall"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Imagine you're in a new job. You want a vote of confidence from your boss, and you get it...because the guy who did the job before you is right down the hall, and the minute you screw up, you are TOAST.

BRAVO, Mr. President, BRAVO.

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?

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



"White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett (far left) watches as national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice and President Bush look over the State of the Union speech being held by Michael Gerson"

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."

Because the changes have not yet been announced, White House officials refused to comment on the record about them. But insiders think Gerson will stay on in an elevated role involving policy and message. Such a move is not as strange as it sounds. Bush has always turned to Gerson on policy matters: in addition to speechwriter his title was also policy adviser.

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.

[Demit]

1. Bush favors a simple but polished conversational tone?

He wants his points to flow logically from one to another?

How on earth do they come up with this stuff? I'd love to have seen the writer's face as he was typing that part.

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

2. peggy noonan - whatever happened to her?

[napi21]

4. The bitch appears on CNN once in a while.

Usually on Hardball. Once is too often for me!!!!

[napi21]

3. Too damn bad the writer can't make the deliverer do any better.

No matter how well a speech is written, it's effectiveness is still in the hands...or mouth...of the deliverer. I'm sure these writers are also told to make sure to use the fewest multisylable words as possible. President's toungue ya know....