The New Heroism

Isaac Chotiner flags a piece of -- I believe the correct term would be "deranged egomania" -- from Michael Gerson:

Well, I worked with some very other--you know, great writers, who worked with me on [the 9/20/01] speech, worked closely with the president and Karen Hughes. But we had one day to put that speech together. The president wanted--called in the morning, wanted a draft by 7:00 o`clock that night. And so it was, you know, fairly heroic to put together a speech of that scale.

Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to write long speeches in a single twelve hour stretch, it's . . . Speechman!

Of course, people who've read Matthew Scully's article on Gerson for The Atlantic won't be surprised.

Comments

That's a fairly commonplace figure of speech (albeit an infelicitous one in the context of 9/11) for something that requires a lot of work in a short period of time.

Posted by Led | November 5, 2007 2:46 PM

Matthew-
Are you at liberty to reveal if the impression around the Atlantic offices was that Scully's piece was motivated by candor or jealousy? I thought it was a fun take-down of someone who seems to be to big for his britches yet I didn't trust the objectivity of the writer.

Posted by Preston | November 5, 2007 3:50 PM

Might I suggest a better example of "deranged egomania"?

Rudy Giuliani: "One of the key differences between me and all my opponents is I've had the safety and security of 8 million people on my shoulders. Being continually tested in crisis situations gives me the credibility and experience to control our borders."

Posted by Led | November 5, 2007 4:54 PM

I watched that interview on Hardball and thought the same thing. I also thought that Chris Matthews did a fairly good job of knocking that guy down a peg.

Posted by Just Karl | November 5, 2007 5:51 PM

"Now no sooner is a speech given than the press report swho wrote it and, often, interviews the writer. I said that I thought this deplorable and continue to believe that accountability for the speech belongs to the person who delivers it, not to the person who drafts it." -- Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Yup.

Even the parts where everyone agrees Gerson is the author, a la "the soft bigotry of low expectations," are usually dreck and most absurd to put in the mouth of George W. Bush since he, for all his faults, isn't a Christianist Stuart Smalley with David Brooks' understanding of statistics.

Posted by David B. | November 5, 2007 8:03 PM