When he invited Rev. Franklin Graham-Billy Graham’s son-and a small group of other religious leaders into the Oval Office last Thursday, he pointed out three things he held especially dear: a Western-style painting called “A Charge to Keep” (named for the Methodist hymn that he borrowed for the title of his autobiography), a portrait of Abraham Lincoln and a bust of Winston Churchill. “It was kind of spontaneous on the president’s part to pick out those things,” said Chief of Staff, Andy Card, who spoke with newsmagazine reporters last week.
More than just a spontaneous gesture, it spoke to how much history and destiny are weighing on the president’s mind. Bush considers Abraham Lincoln probably America’s finest president. “Bush believes [Lincoln] had the greatest challenge of any president-to unite the country,” Card said. Bush deeply admires the Gettysburg Address-and how it had to speak to such disparate audiences. Bush has also spoken reverently about Churchill during these weeks. He has joked in the past that the bust has been “watching my every move.”
When Bush visited London over the summer, he specifically requested to see Churchill’s famous cabinet war rooms. He spent 30 minutes there, sitting in Churchill’s chair and admiring the charts and maps. Card noted the parallels between the meetings in Churchill’s war rooms after London was attacked, and Bush’s recent meetings at Camp David, where there is an “environment of a war council” down to the flip charts on easels. The similarities are not lost on Bush. “He appreciates Churchill’s resolve, his sense of humor, his lifting rhetoric, his ability to lift the people during a very challenging time,” Card said.
Bush is conscious of the historical weight of his actions-and his words. He told a larger group of clerics last Thursday in the Roosevelt Room, “I’m not interested in a Nobel Peace Prize, I’m interested in peace.” Even uttering “Nobel Prize” may seem presumptuous, but Bush is acutely aware that he is making history. The Monday night before he decided to give his best speech to date, he told his top communications adviser, Karen Hughes, “This is a defining moment. We have the opportunity to restructure the world toward freedom, and we have to get it right.” Bush is paying more attention than ever so that to the words he uses are also right. He has challenged himself-and his speechwriters-to live up to the rhetoric of Lincoln and Churchill.
That tall order goes to Michael Gerson, Bush’s chief speechwriter, and a team of other wordsmiths. Gerson is up to the task. Bush’s lovely inaugural speech was dubbed “Gersonian,” by none other than frequent Bush critic and former Carter speechwriter, Hendrik Hertzberg-now an editor at The New Yorker. Gerson also got rave reviews for Bush’s speech last Thursday night. It got some polish from a team of three other writers: Matthew Scully, who goes back with Gerson to the campaign, and John Gibson and John McConnell, speechwriters for Condoleezza Rice and Dick Cheney, respectively. McConnell came up with the line about “history’s discarded lies.”
But as Washington University professor Wayne Fields (author of “Union of Words: A History of Presidential Eloquence”) said, “Being a good writer doesn’t make you a good speech writer.” Gerson can’t make Bush sound like Churchill or Lincoln, he has to make the president sound like himself. With the great exception of Ronald Reagan, who could deliver almost any type of speech put in front of him, most president’s have to find their own style. A good speechwriter immerses him or herself in that style.
Fortunately, Gerson has access to Bush. Only JFK’s speechwriter, Ted Sorensen, seems to have had more. Like Sorensen, Gerson has an office in the West Wing. He goes to senior staff meetings. And though he doesn’t have the long friendship Sorensen had with JFK, Gerson gets an audience-sometimes several-with Bush before every big speech. (Bush called him at home one night at 9:30 with edits last week.) “Bush speaks with a prayer cadence,” Fields said. “Gerson has learned how to match the syntax to where Bush’s natural breaks are going to fall.”
More significantly, Gerson understands Bush’s religiosity. Like Bush, he is a devout Christian. He’s even a former seminary student. Much of the straightforward argument-that this new war comes down to good versus evil, us versus them-stems from the same simple argument of religious conviction. In that sense, Bush is more like Woodrow Wilson, than either Churchill or Lincoln. Wilson saw himself as a moral instructor. Bush too sees one of his main jobs as giving the public a primer on our fight against terrorism. “This is a guy who is not very complicated and not very fancy. This is his strength-and his weakness,” Fields says. Bush, Gerson, et al., hope the president’s rhetoric will make it into the annals of history alongside the president’s idols.
