Bush's Secret Speechwriter

A president owns his words, but he does not always know where he got them.

Such was the with George W. Bush and one of the best-remembered phrases from his September 20, 2001 speech to Congress, as I detail in my new book White House Ghosts (which got its first review today, reading it was an odd experience).

My colleague Paul Bedard sums it up nicely in his most recent edition of "Washington Whispers," the excellent news-nugget column (which you should read regularly if you don't -- it's entertaining and smart) that he writes for US News & World Report:

The ghost of Bill Clinton took center stage in President Bush's most important speech, his 9/11 address to Congress, we learn in a new book about White House ghostwriters from our own Robert Schlesinger. In White House Ghosts, he reveals to Bush and the rest of us that the prez's most memorable line was secretly suggested by a former top Clintonista and inserted without the source ever being revealed. You know the line: "Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done." How'd it get there? Bush kept on Clinton national security speechwriter John Gibson, who got it from his former boss Tom Malinowski. Gibson didn't reveal his source; it would have been junked. The irony of Bush uttering his words made Malinowski queasy. "The line I wrote that I think will probably be remembered and quoted more than any other was uttered not by Clinton but Bush."

Yes some secrets are even kept from the Bush administration.