Don't blame Bush's speechwriters

By Theodore C. Sorensen, 9/25/2003

ANY BUSH speechwriter daring to propose that the president say to the nation, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country," would be immediately told to turn in his word processor and leave by the side door. An administration committed to tax breaks for the wealthy, sweetheart contracts for Halliburton, and deregulation for corporate polluters and media giants wants speechwriters who stay on message, not dreamers who might confuse American voters with talk about service instead of greed.

Even less welcome would be a White House speechwriter suggesting that the president invoke John F. Kennedy's additional inaugural challenge in 1960: "My fellow citizens of the world, ask: `What together we can do for the freedom of man?' "

Our current president, who disdains international law and organizations, does not consider himself to be a "citizen of the world," much less a mere "fellow" among many. And, bent as he is on unilateral actions like preemptive strikes, he has no interest in doing anything "together" with anyone.

Under our Constitution, that is his choice. In that context, it is a mistake to blame Bush's talented team of White House speechwriters for the enormous, startling gap between the actual situation in post-Saddam Iraq, as reported by the media, congressional officials, foreign correspondents, and others physically on the scene (a dark, tragic picture of continuing bombings, car burnings, bandits and body bags) and the vastly different, rosier picture depicted by the president in his speeches (orderly, with an applauding, welcoming, celebrating population, decisively defeated, presumably disarmed and fully cooperating with US forces). It has been the president's deliberate decision and policy -- not that of his speechwriters -- to substitute talk, especially tough talk, for adequate force and experienced allied help in Iraq.

…Perhaps, in order to induce other countries to send their troops to serve under an exclusive American command in Iraq, the president should promise to keep quiet. Unfortunately, on Tuesday at the United Nations the president was back at it again, declaring, "Across the Middle East, people are safer" and proclaiming that the terrorists in Iraq "will be defeated." So, do not blame the speechwriters for the president's willful, wishful prevarications. Do not blame the US military for his initial unilateralism and inadequate force. And to our critics in Europe, I have this: Do not blame the American people -- they voted for Gore.