I put on a tie today. Don’t worry. No-one’s died. David Frum and the rest of Bush’s speech-writing team invited me to an off-the-record bull session to give them reflections on the administration from the outside. I’m in august company. Leon Kass and Charles Krauthammer were the two most recent guests. We met in a shrouded room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building right next to the West Wing, where Nixon used to work when he got too paranoid about people peering through the Oval Office windows. They’re a bright and breezy bunch. Frum is a smart man, although we’ve had our disagreements. Matthew Scully and Michael Gerson are particularly impressive – thoughtful, moral, serious men. I stayed after to chat with Matthew about our mutual interest in animal welfare. He’s completing a book on the subject; I’m embarking on a long essay project. Poor guy has to get up at 4 am every day to get some work done before he has to go to the office. It was also great to see my old buddy John McConnell, a prince of a man who has soldiered on in the Republican Party for years now. From Wisconsin, he’s a sharp lawyer with an even bigger fixation on Ronald Reagan than I have. All in all, I’d say that Bush and Cheney have picked well. Clinton had his troopers too: Michael Waldman and David Shipley were decent liberals and lovely writers. But it must be much more fun writing speeches for Bush. Unlike Clinton, Bush follows the script. And unlike Clinton, it seems that a good deal of the intellectual heft behind his remarks come from outside. (No snickering in the back, please.) In some ways, it felt like I was having a chat with the president’s brain. Maybe if I meet Karl Rove, I’ll see what the central lobe is like.
TWOFER: Bob Kerrey has been accused of being a war-criminal and the New School stands by him. If he’d been accused of uttering a racial slur, do you think they would have? Great point from Ron Unz on NRO. Also a deeply satisfying piece by Michael Ledeen on the Drudge-Blumenthal spat. Cuts to the chase.
The Dish 