The Gerson Article

Yesterday I mentioned The Atlantic's forthcoming Michael Gerson story, and now the print issue is in subscribers' hands and the article's been placed free online for non-subscribers. Check it out. The piece is by Matthew Scully, who worked for Gerson is the speechwriting shop.

It's a fun read for the bitchy insider dish, but it does raise some serious questions. Gerson, according to Scully, built up his glowing media coverage primarily by lying to reporters, notably including The Washington Post's Bob Woodward, but also a broader crew. Now, of course, instead of whatever fate one might expect from a key aide to a disastrously failed president, Gerson is a certified member of the Establishment, penning columns for the Post from a perch at the Council on Foreign Relations. Is that really the sort of person the Post opinion pages want to be employing? (I mean, it probably is, but it shouldn't be).

UPDATE: Not free! I lied. You should really consider subscribing -- at $2.45 an issue (and the issues are long) The Atlantic is, when you think about it, astoundingly cheap and full of great content.

Comments

"Gerson, according to Scully, built up his glowing media coverage primarily by lying to reporters, notably including The Washington Post's Bob Woodward,"

I must have a crystal ball. I've always known this. It was the way Woodward talked about Gerson and hinted about him. It was clear to me Gerson was a source for Woodwards books.

You can read any Woodward book and guess pretty accurately who leaked to him and who refused to talk to him by the way he portrays them.

Posted by DonB | August 9, 2007 12:15 PM

>Is that really the sort of person the Post opinion pages want to be employing?

Sadly, yes.

This has been another edition of depressingly simple answers to rhetorical questions.

Posted by bartkid | August 9, 2007 12:29 PM

The article says subscribers-only in a tag after a few paragraphs.

Posted by Chris | August 9, 2007 12:29 PM

After all the blog mini-hype, color me unimpressed with that whole piece. Yeah, Gerson was probably a jerk to work with, and I don't doubt the veracity of any of the evidence, but, to use a technical phrase, who fucking cares? Scully makes it appear that the two victims are himself and John MacDonald (who goes notably unquoted throughout the piece). Of course, the real victim in Scully's piece is the President George W. Bush, who inspired such greatness in deed and action after 9/11, and who's greatness was taken up by Mike Gerson for his own selfish gain.

Spare me. The article reads like a mixture of bitterness that Scully has no Washington Post column to show for his time as speech writer, and hagiography to that great wartime leader, George W. Bush, who thought the thoughts that Mike Gerson could only take credit for writing down.

Seems like one of those classic "So and so is a jerk, who stole credit from his hardworking and talented colleague, who by the way was me and I'm looking for work if you feel like throwing some my way" articles that leave no one looking better at the end.

Posted by Ben | August 9, 2007 12:37 PM

I thought it was fun in its extreme bitchiness, but Scully's continued man-crush on Bush makes me want to throw up a little in my mouth.

Posted by Teresa | August 9, 2007 12:40 PM

Matt- Your employer's policy of letting you read the first couple pages of the article then suddenly shutting the rest behind a firewall is a really annoying trick. It makes me want to subscribe to the Atlantic less.

Posted by Patrick | August 9, 2007 12:42 PM

Can any non-subscribers read the whole article? This one can't.

Posted by M.O. | August 9, 2007 12:53 PM

The article is really damning.

Posted by JJ | August 9, 2007 12:55 PM

makes me want to throw up a little in my mouth

Makes you want to? That seems like an odd thing to want to do.

Posted by Ryan | August 9, 2007 12:58 PM

Seems like one of those classic "So and so is a jerk, who stole credit from his hardworking and talented colleague, who by the way was me and I'm looking for work if you feel like throwing some my way" articles that leave no one looking better at the end.

Yeah, no value in that. Better not to take a hammer to the clay feet.

The article drops out of "open to everyone" after page 1 for me.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 9, 2007 1:01 PM

free online for non-subscribers

Perhaps that should read "free online for non-subscribers who happen to be employed by the Atlantic."

Posted by Al | August 9, 2007 1:06 PM

In the Democratic Socialist Paradise, we'll all be employed by the Atlantic. Yglesias just jumped the gun.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 9, 2007 1:08 PM

Huh. I was able to print the whole thing earlier.

Don't worry, though - the article was fairly lame. It's not exactly shocking to learn that political speeches are produced by collaborative efforts and that political actors can be shameless self-promoters.

Posted by Gabriel | August 9, 2007 1:11 PM

Just to add, since my first comment didn't hit on what Matt is getting at in his post, the article doesn't mention one real breach of ethics or professional mores that would force the Washington Post to reconsider its employment of Gerson.

There's the time when Gerson went to Starbucks to pretend to write the SOTU speech in front of a Nightline cameraman, while Scully and MacDonald actually wrote the speech in the West Wing, but that's hardly lying--simply a little TV dramatization for self-aggrandizing purposes. And the most damning accusation (lying to Bob Woodward) is simply Gerson changing Bush's line to assorted staff ("We're at war.") to a personal exhortation ("Mike, we're at war.") This is not the most blatant lie that has been told to Bob Woodward in the course of his career.

Gerson doesn't come off looking good, but follow any D.C. alpha-male journalist around for a while (Tim Russert, David Broder, even Richard Cohen, I'd dare say), and you'd likely find just as many distortions in the cause of self-promotion. Nothing close a firing offense, I think.

Posted by Ben | August 9, 2007 1:24 PM

In the Democratic Socialist Paradise, we'll all be employed by the Atlantic.

Could be. They way they are snapping up bloggers (Sullivan, then Yglesias, then Douthat, soon to be McArdle...), they seem to be on that path.

Posted by Al | August 9, 2007 1:26 PM

(Sullivan, then Yglesias, then Douthat, soon to be McArdle...)

Wow. So MY's to be the house Dem, I guess.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 9, 2007 1:28 PM

It's an extraordinary thing to see ex-Bushies fighting for credit -- there's so little to go around, which I suppose makes them fight all the more fiercely.

Posted by alkali | August 9, 2007 1:28 PM

"Is that really the sort of person the Post opinion pages want to be employing?"

More to the point, is that really the sort of person the Council on Foreign Relations should want to employ?

Posted by Signs Sans Signifieds | August 9, 2007 1:30 PM

employment by Council on Foreign Relations...

I guess at least one of the three skills is required, but combinations are obviously a plus

-- command of barely penetrable double-speak

-- ability to substitute nicely sounding slogan for logical thinking

-- ability to disregard inconvenient facts and to create convenient ones

I suspect that all graduates of Bush's speachwriting shop hit trifecta.

Posted by piotr | August 9, 2007 2:02 PM

I actually tried subscribing some time ago, specifically to get immediate online access for an article you recommended. Even though my Amex went through just fine, I never got the access, and when I called the customer service number on the website, they couldn't help me with online content, and referred me to a voice mail box that was full (twice!).

So I cancelled my subscription, which is unfortunate. If they get that figured out, let me know -- I'd love to subscribe.

Posted by Also Matt | August 9, 2007 2:15 PM

They way they are snapping up bloggers (Sullivan, then Yglesias, then Douthat, soon to be McArdle...)

That's unfortunate. My attempts to ignore the vapid and inane Megan McArdle just became that much more difficult.

Posted by Gabriel | August 9, 2007 2:15 PM

So MY's to be the house Dem, I guess

You mean, besides Sullivan and Fallows?

Posted by Al | August 9, 2007 2:37 PM

Gerson doesn't come off looking good, but follow any D.C. alpha-male journalist around for a while (Tim Russert, David Broder, even Richard Cohen, I'd dare say), and you'd likely find just as many distortions in the cause of self-promotion. Nothing close a firing offense, I think.

Posted by Ben | August 9, 2007 1:24 PM

*Even* Cohen? He's not only a wh*re, but a particularly shameless one.

Posted by Barry | August 9, 2007 3:01 PM

"Could be. They way they are snapping up bloggers (Sullivan, then Yglesias, then Douthat, soon to be McArdle...), they seem to be on that path."

Posted by Al

Watching McArdle 'blossom' into her destined career as right-wing BS artist is sort of like an elementary school biology project, where one gets the eggs of some creature and puts them in a terrarium, in September. Then, over the year, the kids can see how the adult form comes about.

In Megan's case, one generally encounters them full-grown, in their full flower of corruption. One wonders, for example, how the various highly corrupt, shameless suckers-up-to-power who populate our mass media ever came about. Here, we get to watch.

Posted by Barry | August 9, 2007 3:15 PM

I'm with Teresa - the cult-like adoration his staff have for Bush is something I'll just never understand. Bush's reality-distortion field has a pretty wide range, apparently. In any case, a deliciously bitchy article. Best quotes:

The truth of the matter is that of the three of us, John [McConnell] is by far the man most like Bush himself in his personal rectitude and goodness of heart, and these qualities shine through in all our best work for the president.

Above all, we shared a respect and affectionate regard for George W., the straight-up guy we’d come to know in Austin. Though our rhetoric did have a way of overdoing the drama sometimes, none of that was ever to be confused with the personal qualities of the man we served, who in the opinion of those who worked there was the actual conscience of the White House. I have never encountered a politician less impressed with himself. There was no surer way to get a laugh out of Bush than with some personally grandiose sentiment, or even an excessive use of “I.” He paused once during the rehearsal of a speech when we’d gone overboard with the global-freedom-agenda rhetoric: “What is this stuff? I sound like Spartacus or someone.” A similarly overwrought speech inspired him to rise and read it aloud with the exaggerated solemnity of Edward Everett Hale or some other 19th-century orator, to laughter all around. Modesty is a very becoming quality in people of his standing. There are CEOs and Washington bureau chiefs who carry themselves with a greater sense of their own importance than this president of the United States ever has.

As it happens, that title line in the joint-session speech—“We have found our mission and our moment”—was inspired by my observation of the contributor’s conduct in the days after 9/11, by the way he carried himself and the things he said to us. He was not a “president stiff and small,” as Mike described him in Newsweek, and the clear, manful, and gracious tone that comes across in all of those post-9/11 speeches was not some invention of the speechwriters.

Six years later, with all that has gone wrong in Iraq, I know one is now supposed to sigh with regret at how mistaken we all were about Bush in those days, how foolish of us to think the man had greatness in him. As Jonathan Rauch reflected a year ago in these pages, Americans “thought they saw a Churchill,” but all that’s gone and now we know better. And yet I think I recognize greatness when it steps before me, and the sight of George W. Bush in those days left an impression that has never worn off.

It was apparent when he stood on the ruins of the World Trade Center, and again in his “I’m a loving guy” moment in the Oval Office. And we speechwriters saw his qualities of character just as vividly when the cameras were withdrawn. In hundreds of pre-9/11 speeches, we had been straining for the unforgettable turn of phrase, the noble sentiment, the heroic gesture. Now, nobility and heroism were actually on display, and it turned out he could do it without us.

The National Cathedral and joint-session speeches marked a clean break in our rhetoric, a casting-off of the fine china and the stuff of Starbucks. No more stilted generational summonses, no more made-up “callings.” Here, finally, was the real thing—a real calling with real heroism—and the words we found for all of this could have been written for that man and no other.

Some of the most moving lines in the joint-session address were just slightly polished versions of what Bush himself had told us: “Tonight we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom. Our grief has turned to anger, and anger to resolution … We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.” As John, Karl, and I watched from the side of the House floor that night, it was a case of presidential speechwriting working exactly as it should, with the words spoken by the very man who inspired them.

Posted by Erika Froh | August 9, 2007 3:17 PM

That right-wing rag? I'll stick with Harper's.

Posted by tps12 | August 9, 2007 4:37 PM

Sold - my first issue is on its way.

Posted by cms | August 9, 2007 4:44 PM

the cult-like adoration his staff have for Bush is something I'll just never understand

That stuck in my craw too, the idea that Gerson is a vain asshole but Bush is modest and down-to-earth. Having camaraderie with your fellow insiders is not the same as being down to earth.

I looked at Matthew Scully's website today. He's a curious character: a pro-animal rights conservative, among other things. He wrote a heartfelt defense of Harriet Miers as a Supreme Court candidate. Maybe he's attuned to animals but an idiot when it comes to humans?

Posted by JBJ | August 9, 2007 4:57 PM

>So MY's to be the house Dem, I guess

You mean, besides Sullivan and Fallows?

Umm, Fallows is an interesting writer but is scarcely a blogger, and almost never on political (or often even American) issues.

Sullivan isn't a Dem, he's a Tory who'd like to be American. He is anti-Bush and disgusted with the pro-Bush Republicans, but that doesn't make him a Dem. Plus, Sullivan has arrived at his anti-Bush state with impeccable Republican and pro-Bush credentials. Seven years ago Sullivan helped destroy the credibility of The New Republic with Democrats by writing TRB pieces supporting Bush in the recount, and five years ago he accused anti-war protestors of comprising a fifth column for Al-Qaeda.

Posted by Warren Terra | August 9, 2007 5:05 PM

You should really consider subscribing -- at $2.45 an issue (and the issues are long) The Atlantic is, when you think about it, astoundingly cheap and full of great content.

I actually subscribed to the Atlantic for quite a while but let my subscription lapse several years ago. I'll agree that each issue is pretty dang hefty. I find it amazing that they get enough ad revenue to put out so many pages. This isn't a decorating or "men's" magazine with obvious marketing tie-ins.

Is it bad form to crack on a magazine in a free forum provided by that magazine? Well, where else can you do it?

I used to really like the Atlantic, but then I slowly came to realize that it is really mostly just a bunch of banal centrist conventional wisdom commentary masquerading and deep insight. Some of the longer articles (specifically those by William Langewiesche) are excellent, but these are relatively rare--perhaps 3 or 4 per year. And there really is an incredibly classist assumption underlying much of the commentary. How many times is the Atlantic going to run an article about how hard it is to get your kid into an Ivy League school or some such thing. The percentage of the population who attend such schools is vanishingly small (though it makes up a large proportion of Atlantic writers and their social peers, thus the blind spot).

What really rubbed me the wrong way, though, and got me to let my subscription lapse, was the horrid cheerleading of the Iraq war that took place in the Atlantic. I guess the execrable Michael Kelly was still at the helm in those days (and I hope I don't get banned or deleted for speaking ill of the dead), so this should be no surprise, and the magazine was not completely in the bag for Bush, so I suppose I should be thankful.

The last straw, actually, was when "humorist" PJ O'Rourke came on board as a regular columnist. His right-wing perspective was not nearly so irksome as the shallowness (really just playground taunting) of his commentary. If you can dig it up, look for his post on global warming from about five years back when he quoted passages from a scientific report currently in the news at that time and essentially said "yeah, right, scientists are so stupid" after every sentence or so. Deep.

The New Yorker, Harpers, and New York Review of Books are much better magazines. Sorry, Matt.

Posted by Rob Mac | August 9, 2007 5:42 PM

I agree with Rob Mac somewhat. I still subscribe, but only for the longer articles and about half of the back of the magazine (the culture/literature section).

The short pieces tend to run from the inane to the insane, with Joshua Green's recent enthusiasm for content-free "Centrism" being a memorable fairly recent example.

I especially agree on the classism. Corby Kummer in particular writes about lifestyle issues that apparently wrack his very soul but are not even of peripheral interest to 99.9% of people in this or any country, and writes these pieces in a tone that appears to assume every reader is just like him. I remember in particular last summer, when Mr. Kummer wrote about some ridiculous triviality for the wealthy in the second person and furthermore denigrated people of moderate means, at the same time as the Atlantic was publishing some excellent essays by Sandra Tsing-Loh on the very subject of middle-class narcissism.

Posted by Warren Terra | August 9, 2007 5:58 PM

Sullivan isn't a Dem

Indeed, he has written (and I quote) "I could never be a Democrat". He's currently fallen out of love with the GOP but he'll end up back there, have no fear.

Posted by Ryan | August 10, 2007 9:42 AM

It's not clear to me that Fallows is a Democrat, either. Fallows is sane, and that suggests that for at least the last six years he has preferred the Democrats, but "sane" and "Democrat" are not quite the same.

Sullivan's a schmib moving libertarian (though, seriously, who knows?), Douthat is a natural law conservative, McArdle's a straight schmib, and Fallows and Ambinder are not well-defined. MY looks like the only Dem/person "left of center." It's not really a big deal, and as suggested above, it seems to be in keeping with the Atlantic tradition. If he starts to feel too house Dem-y, he can shift.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 10, 2007 10:01 AM

"Schmib"?

Posted by Ryan | August 10, 2007 11:31 AM

Spare me. The article reads like a mixture of bitterness that Scully has no Washington Post column to show for his time as speech writer...
Posted by Ben | August 9, 2007 12:37 PM

No, this article was necessary. Lies should be called out. If his career was damaged by Gerson's lies, and no one was going to out Gerson, then I'm glad Scully did it himself. How would you like it if someone claimed every bit of your work product as their own?

I subscribe to the Atlantic and read this last night. I couldn't believe how devastating it was. Gerson's a jerk.

Posted by Nick | August 10, 2007 11:32 AM

Schmibertarian. Sometimes, I believe out of deference to Insty's preeminent position, called glibertarians.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 10, 2007 11:44 AM

Ah, thanks.

Posted by Ryan | August 10, 2007 12:06 PM

What a piece.

The only thing that leaves doubt about its accuracy is the author's disturbing PETAesque crusade for animal "rights." Those who behave with such devotion to animals instead of oh, say, human beings, always should questionable people.

Posted by chris_chichester | August 11, 2007 5:03 AM