Jump to content

Michael Gerson: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
No edit summary
No edit summary
Line 12: Line 12:
}}
}}


'''Michael John Gerson''' (born May 15, 1964) is an op-ed columnist for ''[[The Washington Post]]'', a Policy Fellow with the [[ONE Campaign]],<ref>{{cite news|last=Pulliam Bailey|first=Sarah|title=Faithfully and Politically Present|url=http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/article_print.html?id=89975|accessdate=July 4, 2011|newspaper=Christianity Today|date=10 November 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=ONE Welcomes the Washington Post's Michael Gerson|url=http://www.one.org/c/us/pressrelease/3438|accessdate=July 4, 2011}}</ref> a visiting fellow with the [[Center for Public Justice]],<ref>{{cite web|title=Michael J. Gerson, Visiting Fellow|url=http://www.cpjustice.org/content/michael-j-gerson|accessdate=September 22, 2012}}</ref> and a former senior fellow at the [[Council on Foreign Relations]].<ref>{{cite news|title=Mr. Compassionate Conservatism|author=Naomi Schaefer Riley|publisher=[[The Wall Street Journal]]|date=2006-10-21|url=http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009135}}</ref> He served as President [[George W. Bush]]'s chief [[speechwriter]] from 2001 until June 2006, as a senior policy advisor from 2000 through June 2006, and was a member of the [[White House Iraq Group]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War|isbn=0-307-34681-1|authorlink=Michael Isikoff|last=Isikoff|first=Michael|author2=[[David Corn]] |publisher=Crown Publishers|location=New York|date=2006-09-08}}</ref> Gerson is considered a leading figure of the [[evangelical intelligentsia]] movement.
'''Michael John Gerson''' (born May 15, 1964) is an op-ed columnist for ''[[The Washington Post]]'', a Policy Fellow with the [[ONE Campaign]],<ref>{{cite news|last=Pulliam Bailey|first=Sarah|title=Faithfully and Politically Present|url=http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/article_print.html?id=89975|accessdate=July 4, 2011|newspaper=Christianity Today|date=10 November 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=ONE Welcomes the Washington Post's Michael Gerson|url=http://www.one.org/c/us/pressrelease/3438|accessdate=July 4, 2011}}</ref> a visiting fellow with the [[Center for Public Justice]],<ref>{{cite web|title=Michael J. Gerson, Visiting Fellow|url=http://www.cpjustice.org/content/michael-j-gerson|accessdate=September 22, 2012}}</ref> and a former senior fellow at the [[Council on Foreign Relations]].<ref>{{cite news|title=Mr. Compassionate Conservatism|author=Naomi Schaefer Riley|publisher=[[The Wall Street Journal]]|date=2006-10-21|url=http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009135}}</ref> He served as President [[George W. Bush]]'s chief [[speechwriter]] from 2001 until June 2006, as a senior policy advisor from 2000 through June 2006, and was a member of the [[White House Iraq Group]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War|isbn=0-307-34681-1|authorlink=Michael Isikoff|last=Isikoff|first=Michael|author2=[[David Corn]] |publisher=Crown Publishers|location=New York|date=2006-09-08}}</ref> Gerson is considered to be a leading figure of the [[evangelical intelligentsia]] movement.


==Background and family==
==Background and family==

Revision as of 11:59, 6 August 2014

Michael Gerson
Born
Michael John Gerson

(1964-05-15) May 15, 1964 (age 60)
Occupation(s)Presidential speechwriter, political columnist
Political partyRepublican
SpouseDawn Gerson

Michael John Gerson (born May 15, 1964) is an op-ed columnist for The Washington Post, a Policy Fellow with the ONE Campaign,[1][2] a visiting fellow with the Center for Public Justice,[3] and a former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.[4] He served as President George W. Bush's chief speechwriter from 2001 until June 2006, as a senior policy advisor from 2000 through June 2006, and was a member of the White House Iraq Group.[5] Gerson is considered to be a leading figure of the evangelical intelligentsia movement.

Background and family

Gerson was raised in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended Georgetown University for a year and then transferred to Wheaton College in Illinois.

He resides with his wife and their two children in Alexandria, Virginia.

Career

Prior to joining the Bush Administration, he was a senior policy advisor with The Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy research institution.[6] He also worked at various times as an aide to Indiana Senator Dan Coats and a speechwriter for the Presidential campaign of Bob Dole before briefly leaving the political world to cover it as a journalist for U.S. News & World Report.[7] Gerson also worked at one point as a ghostwriter for Charles Colson.[8]

In early 1999, Karl Rove recruited Gerson for the Bush campaign.[9]

Gerson was named by Time as one of "The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals In America." The February 7, 2005 issue listed Gerson as the ninth most influential.[6]

Speechwriter

Gerson joined the Bush campaign before 2000 as a speechwriter and went on to head the White House speechwriting team. "No one doubts that he did his job exceptionally well," wrote Ramesh Ponnuru in a 2007 article otherwise very critical of Gerson in National Review. According to Ponnuru, Bush's speechwriters had more prominence in the administration than their predecessors did under previous presidents because Bush's speeches did most of the work of defending the president's policies, since administration spokesmen and press conferences did not. On the other hand, he wrote, the speeches would announce new policies that were never implemented, making the speechwriting in some ways less influential than ever.[10]

On June 14, 2006, it was announced that Gerson was leaving the White House to pursue other writing and policy work.[11] He was replaced as Bush's chief speechwriter by The Wall Street Journal chief editor William McGurn.

Lines attributed to Gerson

Gerson proposed the use of a "smoking gun/mushroom cloud" metaphor during a September 5, 2002 meeting of the White House Iraq Group, in an effort to sell the American public on the nuclear dangers posed by Saddam Hussein. According to Newsweek columnist Michael Isikoff, "The original plan had been to place it in an upcoming presidential speech, but WHIG members fancied it so much that when the Times reporters contacted the White House to talk about their upcoming piece [about aluminum tubes], one of them leaked Gerson's phrase — and the administration would soon make maximum use of it." [12]

Gerson has said one of his favorite speeches was given at the National Cathedral on September 14, 2001, a few days after the September 11, 2001 attacks, which included the following passage: "Grief and tragedy and hatred are only for a time. Goodness, remembrance, and love have no end. And the Lord of life holds all who die, and all who mourn."[13]

Gerson coined "the armies of compassion."[14] His noteworthy phrases for Bush are said to include "Axis of Evil," a phrase adapted from "axis of hatred," itself suggested by fellow speechwriter David Frum but deemed too mild.[15]

Criticisms of Gerson as a speechwriter

In an article by Matthew Scully (one of Gerson's co-speechwriters) published in The Atlantic (September 2007) Gerson is criticized for seeking the limelight, taking the credit for other people's work and for creating a false image of himself.

"It was always like this, working with Mike. No good deed went unreported, and many things that never happened were reported as fact. For all of our chief speechwriter’s finer qualities, the firm adherence to factual narrative is not a strong point."[16]

Of particular note is the invention of the phrase "axis of evil." Scully claims that the phrase "axis of hatred" was coined by David Frum and forwarded to colleagues by email. The word "hatred" was changed to "evil" by some one other than Gerson and was done because "hatred" seemed the more melodramatic word at the time.[17]

Scully also had this to say about Gerson:

"My most vivid memory of Mike at Starbucks is one I have labored in vain to shake. We were working on a State of the Union address in John’s ( McConnell's) office when suddenly Mike was called away for an unspecified appointment, leaving us to “keep going.” We learned only later, from a chance conversation with his secretary, where he had gone, and it was a piece of Washington self-promotion for the ages: At the precise moment when the State of the Union address was being drafted at the White House by John and me, Mike was off pretending to craft the State of the Union in longhand for the benefit of a reporter."[17]

Washington Post columnist

After leaving the White House, Gerson wrote for Newsweek magazine for a time. On May 16, 2007, Gerson began his tenure as a twice-weekly columnist for the Washington Post. His columns appear on Wednesdays and Fridays.[18]

Gerson, a neo-conservative, has repeatedly criticized other conservatives in his column and conservatives have returned the favor. One of Gerson's first columns was entitled "Letting Fear Rule", in which he compared skeptics of President Bush's immigration reform bill to nativist bigots of the 1880s.[19]

At a conference at the Atlantic Ideas Fest, Gerson said that Saddam Hussein was "comparable to Pol Pot", which brought jeers from the audience.[20]

In February 2009, Gerson published an editorial criticizing Pope Benedict XVI's decision to lift the excommunication of the Holocaust-denying conservative bishop Richard Williamson.[21]

Publications

  • Michael J. Gerson (2007). Heroic Conservatism: Why Republicans Need to Embrace America's Ideals (And Why They Deserve to Fail If They Don't). HarperOne. ISBN 0-06-134950-X.
  • Michael J. Gerson & Peter Wehner (2010). City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era. Moody. ISBN 0-8024-5857-2.

References

  1. ^ Pulliam Bailey, Sarah (10 November 2010). "Faithfully and Politically Present". Christianity Today. Retrieved July 4, 2011.
  2. ^ "ONE Welcomes the Washington Post's Michael Gerson". Retrieved July 4, 2011.
  3. ^ "Michael J. Gerson, Visiting Fellow". Retrieved September 22, 2012.
  4. ^ Naomi Schaefer Riley (2006-10-21). "Mr. Compassionate Conservatism". The Wall Street Journal.
  5. ^ Isikoff, Michael; David Corn (2006-09-08). Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War. New York: Crown Publishers. ISBN 0-307-34681-1.
  6. ^ a b "The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America". TIME. 2005-02-07.
  7. ^ Gerson, Michael (2007-01-07). (Interview). Interviewed by Brian Lamb http://www.q-and-a.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1109. {{cite interview}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |callsign= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |program= ignored (help)
  8. ^ Scully, Matthew, "Present at the Creation," The Atlantic Monthly, September 2007, p. 76
  9. ^ The Sunday Times (UK), "Barack Obama is 'extraordinary talent', says Michael Gerson," March 26, 2008
  10. ^ Ponnuru, Ramesh, "Gerson's World: The president's chief speechwriter turns columnist," article in National Review, July 30, 2007
  11. ^ "Longtime Bush Speechwriter Leaving White House". Associated Press. 2006-06-14.
  12. ^ Hubris, page 35
  13. ^ Jim Rutenberg (2006-06-15). "Adviser Who Shaped Bush's Speeches Is Leaving". New York Times.
  14. ^ FOX News, "Leading Bush Speechwriter Resigns," June 15, 2006
  15. ^ Slate account of Gerson's adoption of David Frum's verbiage
  16. ^ Matthew Scully (2007-09-01). "Present at the Creation". The Atlantic.
  17. ^ a b [1]
  18. ^ Gerson, Michael (2007-05-16). "Missionaries in Northern Virginia". Washington Post. Retrieved 2010-05-12.
  19. ^ Gerson, Michael (2007-05-25). "Letting Fear Rule". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2010-05-12.
  20. ^ Ambinder, Marc (2008-07-02). "Highlights Of The Ideas Fest". The Atlantic. Gerson noted that the previous regime in Iraq was responsible for terrible human rights violations, including genocide, and he went on to say that Saddam was 'comparable to Pol Pot.' This was apparently a controversial assertion, because it provoked boos and grumbling in the audience. I would note for the record that there seemed to be no Kurds in the audience.
  21. ^ Gerson, M. (2009-02-09). "The Real Scandal of Religion". RealClearPolitics.com. Retrieved 2009-02-11.

Template:Persondata

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michael_Gerson&oldid=620083448"