- Michael Gerson
-
Michael Gerson Born May 15, 1964 Occupation Presidential speechwriter, political columnist Political party Republican Spouse Dawn Gerson Michael John Gerson (born May 15, 1964) is an op-ed columnist for The Washington Post, a Policy Fellow with the ONE Campaign[1][2], and a former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.[3] He served as President George W. Bush's chief speechwriter from 2001 until June 2006, as a senior policy advisor from 2000 through June 2006, and was a member of the White House Iraq Group.[4]
Contents
Background and family
Gerson was raised in St. Louis, Missouri and he attended Wheaton College in Illinois.
He resides with his wife and their two children in Alexandria, Virginia.
Career
Prior to joining the Bush Administration, he was a senior policy advisor with The Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy research institution.[5] He also worked at various times as an aide to Indiana Senator Dan Coats and a speechwriter for the Presidential campaign of Bob Dole before briefly leaving the political world to cover it as a journalist for U.S. News & World Report.[6] Gerson also worked at one point as a ghostwriter for Charles Colson.[7]
In early 1999, Karl Rove recruited Gerson for the Bush campaign.[8]
Gerson was named by Time as one of "The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals In America". The February 7, 2005 issue listed Gerson as the ninth most influential.[5]
Speechwriter
Gerson joined the Bush campaign before 2000 as a speechwriter and went on to head the White House speechwriting team. "No one doubts that he did his job exceptionally well," wrote Ramesh Ponnuru in a 2007 article otherwise very critical of Gerson in National Review. According to Ponnuru, Bush's speechwriters had more prominence in the administration than their predecessors did under previous presidents because Bush's speeches did most of the work of defending the president's policies, since administration spokesmen and press conferences did not. On the other hand, he wrote, the speeches would announce new policies that were never implemented, making the speechwriting in some ways less influential than ever.[9]
On June 14, 2006, it was announced that Gerson was leaving the White House to pursue other writing and policy work.[10] He was replaced as Bush's chief speechwriter by The Wall Street Journal chief editor William McGurn.
Lines attributed to Gerson
Gerson proposed the use of a "smoking gun/mushroom cloud" metaphor during a September 5, 2002 meeting of the White House Iraq Group, in an effort to sell the American public on the nuclear dangers posed by Saddam Hussein. According to Newsweek columnist Michael Isikoff, "The original plan had been to place it in an upcoming presidential speech, but WHIG members fancied it so much that when the Times reporters contacted the White House to talk about their upcoming piece [about aluminum tubes], one of them leaked Gerson's phrase — and the administration would soon make maximum use of it." [11]
Gerson has said one of his favorite speeches was given at the National Cathedral on September 14, 2001, a few days after the September 11, 2001 attacks, which included the following passage: "Grief and tragedy and hatred are only for a time. Goodness, remembrance, and love have no end. And the Lord of life holds all who die, and all who mourn."[12]
Gerson coined "the soft bigotry of low expectations" and "the armies of compassion."[13] His noteworthy phrases for Bush are said to include "Axis of Evil", a phrase adapted from "axis of hatred", itself suggested by fellow speechwriter David Frum but deemed too mild.[14]
According to Matthew Scully, who worked with him for five years, Gerson is a "self-publicizing" glory hog guilty of "foolish vanity", "sheer pettiness" and "credit hounding". In Scully's account, Gerson did not come up with the language that made him famous. "Few lines of note were written by Mike ... and none at all that come to mind from the post-9/11 addresses -- not even 'axis of evil'."[15][16]
Washington Post columnist
After leaving the White House, Gerson wrote for Newsweek magazine for a time. On May 16, 2007, Gerson began his tenure as a twice-weekly columnist for the Washington Post. His columns appear on Wednesdays and Fridays.[17]
Gerson, a conservative, has repeatedly criticized other conservatives in his column and conservatives have returned the favor. One of Gerson's first columns was entitled "Letting Fear Rule", in which he compared skeptics of President Bush's immigration reform bill to nativist bigots of the 1880s[18]
At a conference at the Atlantic Ideas Fest, Gerson said that Saddam Hussein was "comparable to Pol Pot", which brought jeers from the audience.[19]
In February 2009 Gerson published an editorial criticizing Pope Benedict XVI's decision to lift the excommunication of the Holocaust-denying conservative bishop Richard Williamson.[20]
Publications
- Michael J. Gerson (2007). Heroic Conservatism: Why Republicans Need to Embrace America's Ideals (And Why They Deserve to Fail If They Don't). HarperOne. ISBN 0-06-134950-X.
- Michael J. Gerson & Peter Wehner (2010). City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era. Moody. ISBN 0802458572.
References
- ^ Pulliam Bailey, Sarah (10 November 2010). "Faithfully and Politically Present". Christianity Today. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/article_print.html?id=89975. Retrieved July 4, 2011.
- ^ "ONE Welcomes the Washington Post's Michael Gerson". http://www.one.org/c/us/pressrelease/3438. Retrieved July 4, 2011.
- ^ Naomi Schaefer Riley (2006-10-21). "Mr. Compassionate Conservatism". The Wall Street Journal. http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009135.
- ^ Isikoff, Michael; David Corn (2006-09-08). Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War. New York: Crown Publishers. ISBN 0-307-34681-1.
- ^ a b "The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America". TIME. 2005-02-07. http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101050207.
- ^ Gerson, Michael (2007-01-07). Interview with Brian Lamb. Q&A. C-SPAN. http://www.q-and-a.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1109.
- ^ Scully, Matthew, "Present at the Creation", The Atlantic Monthly, September 2007, p. 76
- ^ The Sunday Times (UK), "Barack Obama is 'extraordinary talent', says Michael Gerson", March 26, 2008
- ^ Ponnuru, Ramesh, "Gerson's World: The president's chief speechwriter turns columnist," article in National Review, July 30, 2007
- ^ "Longtime Bush Speechwriter Leaving White House". Associated Press. 2006-06-14. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/washington/14wire-gerson.html.
- ^ Hubris, page 35
- ^ Jim Rutenberg (2006-06-15). "Adviser Who Shaped Bush's Speeches Is Leaving". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/15/washington/15gerson.html.
- ^ FOX News, "Leading Bush Speechwriter Resigns," June 15, 2006
- ^ Slate account of Gerson's adoption of David Frum's verbiage
- ^ [1]
- ^ The Atlantic magazine, "Present at the Creation", September 2007
- ^ Gerson, Michael (2007-05-16). "Missionaries in Northern Virginia". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051501872.html. Retrieved 2010-05-12.
- ^ Gerson, Michael (2007-05-25). "Letting Fear Rule". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/24/AR2007052402154.html. Retrieved 2010-05-12.
- ^ Ambinder, Marc (2008-07-02). "Highlights Of The Ideas Fest". The Atlantic. http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/07/highlights_of_the_ideas_fest.php. "Gerson noted that the previous regime in Iraq was responsible for terrible human rights violations, including genocide, and he went on to say that Saddam was 'comparable to Pol Pot.' This was apparently a controversial assertion, because it provoked boos and grumbling in the audience. I would note for the record that there seemed to be no Kurds in the audience."
- ^ Gerson, M. (2009-02-09). "The Real Scandal of Religion". RealClearPolitics.com. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/02/the_real_scandal_of_religion.html. Retrieved 2009-02-11.
External links
Categories:- 1964 births
- Living people
- People from Alexandria, Virginia
- Writers from New Jersey
- Heritage Foundation
- American political writers
- United States presidential advisors
- American speechwriters
- Wheaton College (Illinois) alumni
- George W. Bush Administration personnel
- The Washington Post people
- American Christians
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