The Washington Post yesterday ran a report
on my review of Michael Gerson's Heroic Conservatism. The review itself is not
yet available online. The full review deals with the consequences Gerson's
approach to politics and rhetoric has had for the Bush administration. It was
the first few opening paragraphs, however, that sparked the controversy that
prompted the Post report. For the benefit of those who do not yet subscribe to
the print NR (hurry up!), I thought it might be a public service to post the
relevant passages below.
Shortly before the scheduled publication of this book, the Atlantic magazine
published a scorching article by Michael Gerson's former White House
speechwriting colleague, Matthew Scully. In painstaking detail, Scully depicted
Gerson as a man who distorted the record to magnify his own role in events.
The article convulsed Washington. And it presents any reviewer of Heroic
Conservatism with a dilemma: Should I review the book or review the man?
I worked closely with Gerson and Scully, and I know both men well, as I do the
third member of that once-intimate band, John McConnell. I witnessed the events
Scully chronicled, and I can attest to the accuracy of Scully's account.
That said, I also know that Michael Gerson is an important figure in American
life, whose ideas and values shaped the Bush administration. I anticipated that
his prescriptions for the Republican future would deserve a hearing on their own
merits, without regard to the personal foibles of their author.
And yet, on repeated rereadings of advance and final editions of Heroic
Conservatism, I find that the teller and the tale cannot be so easily separated.
A couple of stories illustrate why.
Heroic Conservatism opens with a dramatic account of a meeting in the Oval
Office on November 18, 2002. A handful of people have been toiling in secret
(Gerson calls it a "humanitarian conspiracy") to develop a plan for an ambitious
program to help Africans infected with HIV/AIDS. Not even Condoleezza Rice knows
about it: only Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, his staff, some researchers at
the National Institutes of Health, and Gerson himself. Now, on the big day, the
plan is to be unveiled to potentially hostile critics. And it is left to Gerson
to deliver the plea that carries the decision in favor of the plan.
It's an exciting and even heroic story. Only ... it's not quite true.
Among the many, many people who knew the "secret" were the two principal authors
of the AIDS plan. Jay Lefkowitz, general counsel of the Office of Management and
Budget, and Robin Cleveland, later to serve under Paul Wolfowitz at the World
Bank, had toiled for weeks on the laborious and technical task of designing and
funding the program. Nor was there any real suspense about the decision the
president would make at the November 18 meeting.
Gerson, a skilled writer, surely knows that one can shape history as much
through the facts one omits as through the facts one includes. By omitting the
TRUE protagonists from the story, he aggrandizes the role of those he includes,
starting with himself. That pattern is sustained throughout the book.
Thus, on page 59 of Heroic Conservatism, Gerson tells a story of Election Day
2000: "Election night came in Austin along with a cold and steady rain. I paced
in the campaign headquarters, then walked up Congress Street to the large,
outdoor platform that had been constructed for the victory celebration. I
expected a narrow win. But I had, folded in my pocket, the only copy of a
concession speech, which had not been shown to Karen, Karl, or the candidate,
out of superstition and awkwardness. It began: 'My fellow Americans . . . '"
Reading that passage casually, you would be led to the conclusion that the
speech that Gerson was carrying was Gerson's work. It was not. Scully and
McConnell had written it unaided.
Some corrections of these omissions seem to have been inserted at the last
minute. Comparing the early-release version of the first chapter to the final
printed versions, I notice that many appearances of the phrase "I wrote" have
been amended to "I helped to write."
But other omissions remain. And awkwardly, one of them involves me.
I was not altogether surprised to find no mention of my own White House work in
the pages of Heroic Conservatism. Scully and McConnell, who contributed vastly
more than I ever did, get only the most glancing references. But I was surprised
to find an observation from my own White House memoir reprinted almost verbatim
and without credit on pp. 36-37 of Heroic Conservatism as the author's own
invention.
FRUM (2003): "Rove had ideas that nobody else had--and that was his value to the
president. Hughes had the same ideas that everybody else had--and that was hers."
GERSON (2007): "Karl was valuable because he thought in ways that nobody else
did. Karen was valuable because she thought in ways that everyone else did,
which is often the key to being an effective communicator."
I have been assured that the passage will be attributed in future printings of
the book. It was this, however, that persuaded me that I had better set the
record straight myself.
Those who wish to fact-check my claim are advised to turn to p. 35 of The Right
Man.