re: #76 Charles

When Speechwriters Kiss and Tell

As the senior staffer who brought Matt to the White House, let me start by adding some perspective. In a memoir that takes us from Matt’s childhood in Michigan through all the morons and phonies he worked for in Washington, only Mr. Rumsfeld gets the full gush. Left unmentioned is that Matt is on Mr. Rumsfeld’s payroll, working on the former Defense Secretary’s memoirs. Not that Mr. Rumsfeld need fear. If this book is any guide, an employer will read how stupid Matt really thought he was only after he’s no longer being paid.

In the same way, Matt neglects to mention that personnel took away his West Wing cubby when they needed space for someone more important. Or that he spent the next few weeks knocking on every door in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, looking for a room sufficiently grand to display his large and ever-expanding collection of framed testimonials to himself.

Ditto for Air Force One. Yes, he was on it, but not because he was important. To the contrary, I put him on it because he was failing. At one point in the book, he admits that he “never felt the connection” he was supposed to feel with the president. Bringing him into the Oval and getting him on Air Force One was a (losing) attempt on my part to get the president to warm up to him. These are distasteful things to have to say publicly about someone who once worked for you. And I would have taken them to the grave had Matt not used these props and the snippets of conversation he picked up to paint a highly distorted view of some very good people during some very tough times.

Not entirely unexpected backlash.