John Podhoretz and Michael Waldman
Ashamed of Speechwriters?
By Michael Waldman
Posted Monday, Aug. 14, 2000, at 5:18 PM ETJohn,
I look forward to spending the week with you virtually (and, on occasion, literally at various convention events). So far this week, I have learned that "online journalism" really means queuing for credentials and buses. I am also trying hard, very hard, to soak up Los Angeles. So far I have been to a beach party in Malibu, where it was rumored that the young girl who was the inspiration for Barbie, now fully grown, was actually in attendance. (When I reported this to my 5-year-old daughter, I could tell she was thinking: But Daddy, Malibu Barbie is just a doll). And I had dinner at Spago, where the pizza was markedly superior to the frozen version.
I, too, was struck by the apparent fact that Gore is writing at least a good deal of the speech himself. I believe it. I think it could be a very good thing for him. Apart from its PR value, it could lead to a more forceful and personally felt speech.
Rick Hertzberg, who was Jimmy Carter's chief speechwriter, once noted that all Great Men--or people who aspire to Greatness--are delighted to have a chief of staff. (It implies you have a staff.) Ditto a press secretary. A speechwriter, well ... if you're so smart, why do you need one? But there's no shame in it. Presidents have always had help. Washington's farewell address was drafted by Alexander Hamilton. Even Lincoln, revolutionary stylist that he was, rewrote the peroration of his first inaugural from a suggestion by William Seward. FDR copied out his first inaugural by hand from a typed draft by Raymond Moley. We've only had one president who was a professional speechwriter: Dwight Eisenhower wrote for Douglas MacArthur. (MacArthur on Ike: "Best clerk I ever had.")
Having said all that, I do think it's a good thing if the candidate writes his own speeches, or works on them so intently that they become his own. My views have been colored by writing for Clinton. We always went back to his early speeches as a candidate, especially the one at the DLC in 1991, which he essentially ad-libbed. He loved to write, rewrite, and extemporize. He's a good pen-to-paper writer, but often is better dictating passages and revising in rehearsal. Gore, I gather, tends to sit down at the keyboard, whether working solo or with others. His eulogy for his father, which he obviously wrote himself, was very well done. He has two gifted writers--our mutual friend Eli Attie, and Bob Shrum, who wrote great convention addresses for McGovern in 1972 and Kennedy in 1980. I hope he makes good use of them.
In the meantime, I'm looking forward a great deal to Clinton's speech tonight. He won't take on his usual goal of announcing bushels of new policies, and can be a bit more partisan and biting than he often is. It will be interesting, too, to see the different reactions--the crowd (usually rapturous); the press (usually scornful); the public (usually, as measured by polls at least, positive--at which point the press decides that Clinton gave a good speech after all). It should be fun.
Ashamed of Speechwriters?
By Michael Waldman
Posted Monday, Aug. 14, 2000, at 5:18 PM ETJohn Podhoretz served as a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan. He's now a twice-weekly columnist for the New York Post
and a contributing editor to the Weekly Standard
. Michael Waldman, former director of speechwriting for President Clinton, is the author of the forthcoming POTUS Speaks: Finding the Words That Defined the Clinton Presidency
(click here to buy it). Reader Comments from The Fray:
[Reaction to Monday's entry]
Perhaps the reason Gore wants it to be known that he is writing his own speech is that he wants to focus on the content rather than presentation. (Yes, I know that would be revolutionary and possibly seditious.)
As a minor official who has written speeches for others, for myself and occasionally read speeches written by others, I believe the best person to write a speech is the person who best knows what needs to be said (not necessarily the same thing as who knows the most). Gore is trying to say that he is his own man, not mouthing the words others have prepared, and if the result is less felicitous and ear-catching than the work of true professionals, does that really matter?
--David
(To reply, click
here.)
Er, a defendant has a right to a lawyer to defend him because the power of the state is being directed against him. A politician has no right to a speechwriter because the politician is trying to seize the power of the state (at least part of it) and people deserve to know what he/she thinks. We've already got too many courtroom analogies in politics anyway--but just because most politicians ought to be on trial nowadays doesn't mean that they are, in all respects, entitled to the protections that defendants get. Presumption of innocence, for example, exists because the state has the burden of proving someone guilty. But in elections, politicians have the burden of showing themselves worthy. Few in recent experience have met this burden.
--Daniel Webster
(To reply, click
here.)
It's not true that only Lincoln could write his own speeches. So could Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and jumping ahead and across the pond, Churchill and many others. And the issue is not just speeches. Some statesmen have actually been able to craft state papers and diplomatic correspondence themselves.
This is not to say that important documents--and that can include political speeches--should never be collaborative works. Of course they should be. Washington frequently relied on Madison and Hamilton, among others, in his writings. (Of, course, they also were statesmen, not mere scribblers).
The common lament is that modern presidents have too much to do; so overwhelmed are they that they could never write their own speeches or correspondence. This is baloney. Lincoln managed to run a nation at war with a million-man army in the field while managing to write most of his own stuff with the help of a few trusted cabinet members and his two secretaries. And Churchill managed to run a nation at war with bombs falling over his own head, while dictating elaborate memos to colleagues, letters to FDR and other foreign counterparts and speeches to parliament, among other documents. Much of what consumes the modern president's time is a constant stream of photo ops, political meetings and appearances and fundraising
--Publius
(To reply, click
here.)
Anyone who attempts to justify his or her profession by likening it to being a lawyer, as John Podhoretz does, is surely treading in murky ethical waters.
--Jeff Brunswick
(To reply, click
here.)
[Reaction to Tuesday's entry]
As all of us who follow politics--including Mr. Podhoretz--know very very well indeed, the same arguments made by Bentsen, Rubin, Tyson, Blinder, Summers, Panetta and company had been previously made to Reagan and Bush by senior Reagan and Bush administration officials like Stockman, Feldstein, Darman, and Shultz. They were correct during the Clinton Administration. They had been correct during the Bush Administration. And they had been correct during the Reagan Administration.
The difference is that--unlike his two predecessors--Clinton had the brains to understand these arguments and the guts to follow through on them.
--Brad DeLong
(To reply, click
here.)
[Reaction to Wednesday's entry]
As a native Los Angeleno, a barbie worshiper, bleached blonde, and a chronic surfer I say to Mr. John Podhoretz:
Welcome to L.A. Now Go Home.
--Candi F.
(To reply, click
here.)
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Reader Comments from The Fray:
[Reaction to Monday's entry]
Perhaps the reason Gore wants it to be known that he is writing his own speech is that he wants to focus on the content rather than presentation. (Yes, I know that would be revolutionary and possibly seditious.)
As a minor official who has written speeches for others, for myself and occasionally read speeches written by others, I believe the best person to write a speech is the person who best knows what needs to be said (not necessarily the same thing as who knows the most). Gore is trying to say that he is his own man, not mouthing the words others have prepared, and if the result is less felicitous and ear-catching than the work of true professionals, does that really matter?
--David
(To reply, click here.)
Er, a defendant has a right to a lawyer to defend him because the power of the state is being directed against him. A politician has no right to a speechwriter because the politician is trying to seize the power of the state (at least part of it) and people deserve to know what he/she thinks. We've already got too many courtroom analogies in politics anyway--but just because most politicians ought to be on trial nowadays doesn't mean that they are, in all respects, entitled to the protections that defendants get. Presumption of innocence, for example, exists because the state has the burden of proving someone guilty. But in elections, politicians have the burden of showing themselves worthy. Few in recent experience have met this burden.
--Daniel Webster
(To reply, click here.)
It's not true that only Lincoln could write his own speeches. So could Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and jumping ahead and across the pond, Churchill and many others. And the issue is not just speeches. Some statesmen have actually been able to craft state papers and diplomatic correspondence themselves.
This is not to say that important documents--and that can include political speeches--should never be collaborative works. Of course they should be. Washington frequently relied on Madison and Hamilton, among others, in his writings. (Of, course, they also were statesmen, not mere scribblers).
The common lament is that modern presidents have too much to do; so overwhelmed are they that they could never write their own speeches or correspondence. This is baloney. Lincoln managed to run a nation at war with a million-man army in the field while managing to write most of his own stuff with the help of a few trusted cabinet members and his two secretaries. And Churchill managed to run a nation at war with bombs falling over his own head, while dictating elaborate memos to colleagues, letters to FDR and other foreign counterparts and speeches to parliament, among other documents. Much of what consumes the modern president's time is a constant stream of photo ops, political meetings and appearances and fundraising
--Publius
(To reply, click here.)
Anyone who attempts to justify his or her profession by likening it to being a lawyer, as John Podhoretz does, is surely treading in murky ethical waters.
--Jeff Brunswick
(To reply, click here.)
[Reaction to Tuesday's entry]
As all of us who follow politics--including Mr. Podhoretz--know very very well indeed, the same arguments made by Bentsen, Rubin, Tyson, Blinder, Summers, Panetta and company had been previously made to Reagan and Bush by senior Reagan and Bush administration officials like Stockman, Feldstein, Darman, and Shultz. They were correct during the Clinton Administration. They had been correct during the Bush Administration. And they had been correct during the Reagan Administration.
The difference is that--unlike his two predecessors--Clinton had the brains to understand these arguments and the guts to follow through on them.
--Brad DeLong
(To reply, click here.)
[Reaction to Wednesday's entry]
As a native Los Angeleno, a barbie worshiper, bleached blonde, and a chronic surfer I say to Mr. John Podhoretz:
Welcome to L.A. Now Go Home.
--Candi F.
(To reply, click here.)