Where Have I Heard That Before?

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
September 18, 2009 – 4:52 pm

Associated Press, September 17th, 2009:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that the anti-government rhetoric over President Barack Obama’s health care reform effort is concerning because it reminds her of the violent debate over gay rights that roiled San Francisco in the 1970s.

Anyone voicing hateful or violent rhetoric, she told reporters, must take responsibility for the results….

“Our country is great because people can say what they think and they believe,” she added. “But I also think that they have to take responsibility for any incitement that they may cause.”

Christian Science Monitor (and other sources), June 19th, 2009:

In what may prove a pivotal point in the post-election crisis that has shaken Iran for nearly a week, Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei took an uncompromising stand at Friday prayers.

“If there is any bloodshed, leaders of the protests will be held directly responsible,” declared Ayatollah Khamenei, speaking to an overflowing crowd of tens of thousands at Tehran University.

It may seem unfair to point out the similar rhetorical styles of Ayatalloah Khamenei, who is the religious leader of a repressive regime, and Nancy Pelosi, who is a congresswoman from San Francisco. But both use ridiculously dire warnings to paint their political opponents as not just wrong, but instigators of violence. Apparently in any country, when you can’t win by persuasion, you go with fear.

By the way, if Speaker Pelosi is concerned about “incitement,” she might want to send a memo to the DNC, whose spokesman said to government health care opponents:

[Y]ou will no longer be able to peddle your lies with impunity. Through tools like “Call ‘Em Out,” you will be met with a rain of hellfire from supporters armed with the facts and you will be held to account.

A rain of hellfire? Khamenei would be proud.

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President Obama’s Strange Priorities

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
September 18, 2009 – 10:06 am

Yesterday President Obama spoke to college students at the University of Maryland and, through Facebook, across the land.

After getting everyone ginned up about the awesomeness of his election, and their part in it, the president said:

There are still those in Washington who are resistant to change – who are more willing to defend the status quo than address the real concerns of the American people…. They’re still out there. We’re facing the same kind of resistance on another defining struggle of this generation – and that’s the issue of health insurance reform.

Health insurance reform is a defining struggle of this generation? What a bummer. That’s like Perfect Strangers being the defining television show of the 1980s.

To be fair, the president said insurance reform is “another” defining struggle, though it’s not clear what other defining struggle he’s referring to, unless it’s solipsistically back to his own election. He, himself, as the defining struggle.

In case you thought the war in Iraq or Afghanistan, or perhaps the greater cause of eroding support for terrorism – or, hell, even the war against the war in Iraq – was a defining struggle, you would not have the president’s agreement on that. The only time any of those movements was mentioned in the speech was when President Obama said the Iraq war added to our national debt.

The president’s odd prioritization – regulatory reform is more definitional than the survival of freedom here and abroad – is especially strange given that, also yesterday, President Obama presented Sergeant First Class Jared Monti’s parents with their late son’s Medal of Honor.

The president offered a lovely tribute to Sergeant Monti’s life and bravery, and vividly recalled how Sergeant Monti gave his life in what is truly the defining struggle of this generation.

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The Essence of Truth

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
September 17, 2009 – 11:45 am

The Wall Street Journal news pages are following up on a contention made in an op-ed the newspaper ran, namely that President Obama was a little loose with the facts in his big health care speech.

In an article headlined “Obama Used Faulty Anecdote in Speech to Congress,” reporter Jonathan Weisman writes:

President Barack Obama, seeking to make a case for health-insurance regulation, told a poignant story to a joint session of Congress last week. An Illinois man getting chemotherapy was dropped from his insurance plan when his insurer discovered an unreported gallstone the patient hadn’t known about.

“They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it,” the president said in the nationally televised address.

In fact, the man, Otto S. Raddatz, didn’t die because the insurance company rescinded his coverage once he became ill, an act known as recission. The efforts of his sister and the office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan got Mr. Raddatz’s policy reinstated within three weeks of his April 2005 rescission and secured a life-extending stem-cell transplant for him. Mr. Raddatz died this year, nearly four years after the insurance showdown.

Don’t worry, though. The White House says the president “got the essence of the story correct.”

No, he didn’t. The president said Raddatz died because of a delay in treatment. That didn’t happen. So why did the president think it did? Read More »

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20 World Leaders in 17 Syllables

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
September 17, 2009 – 10:27 am

Got a yen for poetry?

The Wall Street Journal reports on a haiku contest sponsored by a Pittsburgh nonprofit offering people the chance to opine on the upcoming G20 meeting in the city. The winning entry (which isn’t all that good in my opinion) will be displayed on a theater marquee near the event site.

The haiku format is typically 17 syllables, three lines (5-7-5). Some G20 haiku I liked better:

Ten billion people —
Environmental debate
Won’t feed all those mouths
— Stanley Harms

what country am I
dying of hunger and thirst
number twenty one
— Jean Kirby

Matinee idols
At the G-20 Summit…
See them in Pittsburgh!
— Tanja Cilia

I’m no Vinca, but here’s one I came up with: Read More »

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The Speechwriter as Gossipmonger

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
September 16, 2009 – 12:01 am

Latimer BookAs I mentioned last week, Matt Latimer, a former Bush Administration speechwriter, has written a book. Given his recent Washington Post op-ed, in which he hyperventilated about firing presidential speechwriters and took a crack at Karl Rove, I assumed the book’s thesis would annoy me. Turns out I was right.

An excerpt appears in October’s GQ and that should tell us all we need to know. As a former Bush staffer, you know what you’re getting when you sell your soul memoirs to GQ. And GQ fulfills its bargain by building up Matt’s profile – there at the surge, center of the economic meltdown, provider of definitive proof that “Dubya” is a moron.

Here’s the headline and tease:

ME TALK PRESIDENTIAL ONE DAY: Matt Latimer worked as one of Dubya’s speechwriters during the president’s final twenty-two months in office. He was there to help sell the surge to a skeptical public. He was there as we pretended that the fundamentals of the economy were strong. And he was there to see a president who failed to grasp his own $700 billion bailout package – even as he was pitching it to the American public on live TV. A disillusioned insider reveals for the first time just how messy things got.

“Mid-level staffer trashes former colleagues” doesn’t have the same ring.

The most unfortunate part of what follows is that Latimer lassos in two other former speechwriters – Chris Michel and Jonathan Horn – whom I know to be two of the most dedicated and egoless staffers around. He owes them an apology for connecting them in any way to this drivel.

If you want a memoir to sell, it’s got to have some inside dirt – this purports to, though the veracity of it will be forever impossible to confirm. It should also be well-written. This isn’t. Almost weirdly so. Based on the excerpt, it’s at turns juvenile, hackneyed, and unintentionally honest about how little Latimer actually knows.

But I’ll let him speak for himself.

Right at the start we get a bit of sophomoric humor Read More »

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Shut the Hell Up

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
September 15, 2009 – 10:54 am

There’s been way too much talking recently. And it just gets people in trouble and drains seconds out of our lives. We’d be better off if these people would shut the hell up:

Rep. Joe Wilson. No need to be shouting things at the president on the House floor. Thank you for apologizing. But you’re not a hero. So shut the hell up.

People who don’t like Rep. Joe Wilson. It happened, it’s over. Stop bringing it up so you can avoid talking about your terrible health care plan. Just shut the hell up.

Serena Williams. Bad call. Tough luck. Don’t tell the judge you want to shove a ball down her f-ing throat. Bad form. Just shut the hell up.

Roger Federer. You play tennis for a living and you’re worth a gazillion dollars. Too bad the other guy got a break. Shut the hell up about it.

Kanye West. You can’t go six months without embarrassing yourself in public. You just need to permanently shut the hell up.

Barack Obama calling Kanye West a jackass. You may be right, but you’re also president. Just because you’re on the cover of People doesn’t mean you should care about the same things Perez Hilton cares about. Shut the hell up about Hollywood.

Jay Leno asking Kanye what his late mother would think of his outburst. Who are you, Miss Manners? A grief counselor? That was the most awkward 10 seconds of television I’ve seen all year. Shut the hell up (except for those Headlines; I’m a sucker for the Headlines).

I’m done.

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Correcting Obama’s Facts

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
September 14, 2009 – 10:42 am

Concern was registered the other day about Republicans in 1937 “stirring up ignorance and prejudice and blind fears.” No doubt a dark chapter in American public life. I remember my great-grandparents telling me they were livid about it.

But it seems like some people never learn. Turns out President Obama may not have told the whole story in his effort to stir up fears about insurance companies during last week’s address to Congress.

Scott Harrington, a Wharton professor and scholar at AEI, fills in some of the gaps in today’s Wall Street Journal: Read More »

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It Could Happen to You

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
September 14, 2009 – 9:52 am

happenThis morning, former Clinton Administration Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman discussed an array of issues on CNBC. Asked by Erin Burnett whether taxes on health care companies to pay for reform will be passed on to consumers through higher prices for health insurance, Altman candidly replied (at about the 5:30 mark):

Well I think everyone knows that there’ll be a high percentage of pass-along on that. I don’t really think there’s a lot of secrets on it. Look, they’ve had a very difficult time figuring out how to pay for this. It still isn’t clear how the 900 billion will entirely be financed. It’s just murderously difficult to do that.

Altman’s right and honest. If only President Obama were so honest about the real costs of greater health care regulation.

Instead, we hear from the president, as we did in his weekly address, that “[I]f you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have insurance … nothing in my plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.”

In Mr. Obama’s view, a change in price doesn’t count as “change,” though it’s the change that will likely impact people the most.

Meanwhile, President Obama has decided that if he can’t persuade Americans to support him, he might as well scare them. Building on his ominous statement last Wednesday night that losing health insurance “can happen to anyone,” the president told an audience in Minneapolis:

Today, we received more disturbing news. A new report from the Treasury Department found that nearly half of all Americans under 65 will lose their health coverage at some point over the next 10 years.

In case you didn’t get the message: “We’ve got to do something because it can happen to anyone. There but for the grace of God go I. It could happen to anyone.”

Seriously? “There but for the grace of God go I”? How long before he starts wearing mourning clothes?

“We’ve heard scare tactics instead of honest debate,” the president said in Minnesota. Indeed, we have.

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Thoughts on Civility

By Jeff Nussbaum (WWW)
September 11, 2009 – 4:27 pm

Over the last 48 hours, most of the water cooler talk in our office has been about Joe Wilson’s outburst during President Obama’s address to the joint session of Congress. 

My colleague, Jeff Shesol, helped put my rage at Wilson’s rage in perspective in this recent post to Politico’s Arena.  He came across a letter in which the syndicated columnist Ray Clapper wrote to Governor Alf Landon in 1937, “…the Republican Party is so utterly bankrupt that it is unable to present any intelligent and constructive opposition.  All of the damage it is doing…is purely that which it can do by stirring up ignorance and prejudice and blind fears.”

Pretty prescient, I’d say.   See Jeff’s entire post here.

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Fighting Terror with Humor

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
September 11, 2009 – 1:30 pm

More on White House speechwriting in September 2001.

Though the period was obviously full of tension and concern, there were several lighthearted moments, too.

For instance, at one meeting – it might have been on September 12th – when the speech staff was spit-balling ideas for the president’s sure-to-come address to the nation, one of our speechwriters, a very smart and talented guy, suggested that the United States was living in an age of terror.

This became a source of regular jokes when, in his speech to Congress on September 20th, President Bush said, “Some speak of an age of terror. I know there are struggles ahead, and dangers to face. But this country will define our times, not be defined by them. As long as the United States of America is determined and strong, this will not be an age of terror; this will be an age of liberty, here and across the world.”

You also may recall that the president took to peppering his speeches with the phrase “Let’s roll” in recognition of Todd Beamer and the passengers who brought down United Flight 93.

One day there must have been a huff about a too-loose sentence, so word came down that we weren’t to use any more contractions in the president’s speeches. Without missing a beat, Mike Gerson, the head speechwriter, emailed the staff: “From now on, ‘let’s roll’ will be replaced by ‘Let us roll.’”

And one of my all-time favorite White House moments: Our team was busily scouring news sources for tales of courageous Americans, as well as examples of the generous spirit of people around the world.

One afternoon my colleague Michelle Brawer sent an email with the subject “Heartwarming Iranian Response.” The body of the email was a news story that said, “Last week, for the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution, there were no chants of ‘death to America’ at weekly Friday prayers.”

I laughed out loud when I opened that – and still get the giggles every time I read it.

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9/11/01: The Speech Train Kept Rolling

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
September 11, 2009 – 10:50 am

Quick story about the mechanics of speechwriting on September 11, 2001.

On that day I was working as a research assistant in the White House speechwriting office. Later in the week, President Bush was to re-dedicate the Old Executive Office Building as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Given the building’s history – it once housed elements of the Departments of War and of State – Secretaries Rumsfeld and Powell were slated to speak at the ceremony in addition to the president.

Standard operating procedure when the president and members of the Cabinet were speaking at the same event was for our office to get a look at the secretaries’ remarks to make sure there weren’t any conflicts or too much overlap – no need to subject the audience to multiple speeches saying the exact same thing.

September 11th was the day Rumsfeld’s and Powell’s speeches were due to our office.

Just after 9am – post-New York attacks, pre-Pentagon attack – I sent one of the most unintentionally understated emails of my government career. It was to the secretaries’ speechwriters and went something like this: “Hey, I’m sure things will be a little crazy in your offices today. Feel free to send us the EEOB dedication speeches tomorrow if that’s easier.”

I’m quite the guy, aren’t I?

Imagine my surprise when I got to work the next day and had Secretary Rumsfeld’s remarks in my inbox. Speechwriters never rest!

The event, of course, was delayed for many months.

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Obama Settles for Insurance Reform

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
September 10, 2009 – 9:10 am

Regardless of whether anyone was watching, or anyone watching was persuadable on the issue of health care, President Obama’s health care address last night will be chalked up as a victory for one reason: He lowered his expectations.

The president confirmed last night that he doesn’t want health care reform anymore; he wants health insurance regulatory reform.

Look at the key elements of the president’s “plan”:

  • It will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a preexisting condition.
  • It will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it the most. 
  • They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or in a lifetime.
  • We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses. 
  • Insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies.
  • We’ll … creat[e] a new insurance exchange – a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for health insurance at competitive prices. 
  • For those individuals and small businesses who still can’t afford the lower-priced insurance available in the exchange, we’ll provide tax credits, the size of which will be based on your need.
  • All insurance companies that want access to this new marketplace will have to abide by the consumer protections I already mentioned.
  • Individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance – just as most states require you to carry auto insurance. 
  • Businesses will be required to either offer their workers health care, or chip in to help cover the cost of their workers. 

President Obama even couched his public-option proposal (which he’s sort of for, but not all that committed to, which we knew before the speech) as an insurance reform measure: “To my progressive friends, I would remind you that for decades, the driving idea behind reform has been to end insurance company abuses and make coverage available for those without it. The public option is only a means to that end.” Read More »

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Obama’s Health Care Speech

By Mark W. Davis (WHWG)
September 10, 2009 – 7:44 am

Several quick impressions.

First, it was the best effort President Obama could possibly make.  The speech–whether you thought the argument was spot-on or deceitful–was a well-crafted, rousing St. Crispen’s Day appeal that managed to both offer an open hand to Republicans, and slap them in the face with it.

Second, Washington should not get a case of the vapors over Joe Wilson.  This was not a State of the Union or a national coming together in war or tragedy. This was a purely political event that compelled Republicans to sit still for their scolding.  So it’s not surprising that some would treat it like a Parliamentary Question Hour.  For all the talk about a “lack of civility” in Washington, a little raucousness in such set-piece events (in which Members of Congress are expected to pop up and down to applaud, like so many Whack-a-Moles), adds a Jacksonian touch. With any luck, canings and duels will come next.

Third,  the offer to stage “demonstration projects” on medical malpractice reform was a sop to Republicans that was more insulting than winning.

Fourth, the next two days are going to be fascinating.  Will this powerful speech win over Independents and conservative Democrats?  Will a majority of Americans polled still be dead-set against the president’s plan, or will this speech flip them?  Is this the tipping point toward a magnificent victory that instantly catapults President Obama to the front ranks of historical actors, or will it be his early ruin?  I have no idea.  It will be fun to watch.

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Palin and Cheney Emerge as GOP MVPs

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
September 9, 2009 – 6:24 am

In an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal, Sarah Palin goes head-to-head with President Obama on health care.

While giving a wink (and a wave) to her “death panels” coinage that came to dominate public conversation, Governor Palin steers clear of any incendiary rhetoric, instead offering a solid point-by-point rebuttal of some of the president’s claims. She does a nice job of marrying her power-to-the-people persona with a more nuanced look at policy than many expect from her:

In an interview with the New York Times in April, the president suggested that [a Medicare Advisory Council], working outside of “normal political channels,” should guide decisions regarding that “huge driver of cost . . . the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives . . . .”

Given such statements, is it any wonder that many of the sick and elderly are concerned that the Democrats’ proposals will ultimately lead to rationing of their health care by—dare I say it—death panels? Establishment voices dismissed that phrase, but it rang true for many Americans. Working through “normal political channels,” they made themselves heard, and as a result Congress will likely reject a wrong-headed proposal to authorize end-of-life counseling in this cost-cutting context. But the fact remains that the Democrats’ proposals would still empower unelected bureaucrats to make decisions affecting life or death health-care matters. Such government overreaching is what we’ve come to expect from this administration.

Furthermore, Governor Palin defuses the president’s “Their answer is do nothing” rhetoric by endorsing four concrete proposals – more concrete than anything President Obama has yet put forth: Read More »

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Defending Presidential Speeches

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
September 8, 2009 – 11:11 am

Matt Latimer is trying to sell a book and to do that he’s employed two strategies that have worked for others: (1) take an idea with a kernel of reason and pop it into something “bold” and “contrarian”; (2) and this applies to former Bush Administration staffers trying to sell books – say something negative about Karl Rove and/or George Bush.

Latimer’s execution of the second strategy isn’t worth discussing. His execution of the first is ham-handed, as Vinca suggests. There’s a credible argument to be made that, by virtue of the growth of the presidency and (as Clark points out) the proliferation of media outlets, the president is forced into too many speeches that don’t have obvious value.

But we should be careful not to assume that the only way a presidential speech has value is if it moves the policy meter. Some speeches are simply meant to let a constituency know you care.

The St. Patrick’s Day speeches Latimer cites are good examples. The three speeches traditionally (going back beyond the Bush Administration, before Karl Rove got his greasy hands on the presidency) are for the Shamrock Ceremony, in which the president and the Irish prime minister exchange gifts and pleasantries; a public Irish-American event, usually in the East Room, at which every president mentions that the architect of the White House, James Hoban, was an Irish immigrant; and a lunch on Capitol Hill attended by an Irish delegation and a bunch of members of Congress.

Do any of those speeches drive policy? No. Are they a pain in the ass to write – to try to find fresh things to say year after year? Yes. Should they be scrapped? Not necessarily. Those speeches are about camaraderie and friendship, and they probably hold more value for the prime minister of Ireland than they do for our president. Most foreign leaders like to be seen with the US president, and Ireland doesn’t often come up in political conversation (aside from Vinca’s excellent work on Northern Ireland). Read More »

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