September 6, 2005

Howdy from Houston, folks.

As David Murray explained in his last submission on this site, I’m going to be giving you “The Speechwriter’s Slant” from now on, with occasional postings from David – to make sure I don’t slant too far.

Because David and I slant in opposite directions, some of you may be pleased and some of you may be perturbed by the change. Should you take exception to any of my ramblings, I hope you will take time to tell me so.

I really do want to have a dialogue with my readers.

H.L. Mencken used to answer letters from his critics with a pre-printed post card that read, “You have the right to your wrong opinion.”

I’m not like that. I don’t have that big an ego. I look forward to a free and lively exchange of ideas. Without that element of give-and-take, blogging is the equivalent to playing Cyrano de Bergerac as a one-man show -- and in an empty theatre.

I hope we can keep things interesting. I promise I’ll do my best at my end.

Cordially,

Hal Gordon

From a speechwriter’s perspective, how has President Bush handled the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina?

At best, he has fallen far short of the soaring rhetoric he displayed in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. At worst, his public statements recall Winston Churchill’s wry comment about “making the rubble bounce” -- by bombing a target already destroyed..

In a time of crisis, a leader must restore confidence as well as order. The banalities that Bush uttered in the White House Rose Garden on August 31, immediately after the storm, seemed more like a brush-off than a serious attempt to boost morale: “Right now, the days seem awfully dark for those affected. I understand that. But I’m confident that, with time, you’ll get your life back in order.”

Thanks for nothing, Mr. President.

A few days later, in Mobile, Alabama, Mr. Bush crowned banality with buffoonery by commiserating with Sen. Trent Lott on the loss of his house: “Out of the rubbles [sic] of Trent Lott’s house – he’s lost his entire house [sic] – there’s going to be a fantastic house. And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch.” [Sick!!!]

While I’m sure that we’re all sorry that Sen. Lott has lost his house – his entire house – at least Mr. Lott won’t have to bed down on the floor of the Astrodome and eat baloney sandwiches while he figures out how he’s going to rebuild his shattered life.

As a Republican who served in the Reagan White House, I could only shake my head over Bush’s dismal utterances and wonder how the Great Communicator would have rallied the nation in the same circumstances.

My guess is that Ronald Reagan would have turned Hurricane Katrina into an American Dunkirk. He would have told stirring stories about the rescue efforts. He would have saluted the heroes who saved the lives of others at the risk of their own. He would have praised the goodness and compassion of the American people in their rush to aid the victims. He would have focused on the future and wouldn’t have tried to shift the blame to state and local officials for what went wrong. As Churchill inspired the British people to the point that they actually regarded Dunkirk as a victory, Reagan would have turned our response to Katrina into a testimonial to the greatness of the American spirit.

There might even have been a little healing humor.

Over this past weekend, I found myself recalling a story that President Reagan delighted in telling Hispanic groups whenever they visited the White House. During his tenure as Governor of California, parts of the state were slammed by disastrous mudslides. While visiting one of the hardest-hit areas, Reagan called on the mayor of this little Hispanic community. As Reagan told the story, they were standing in the living room of the mayor’s house. Both were wearing hip boots, and they were knee-deep in mud. The mayor turned to Reagan, opened his arms, and with great dignity declared, “Senor Governor, mi casa es su casa" – my house is your house.

In my mind, I can see the wonderfully droll way that Reagan would have delivered the punch line to that story. I can hear the laughter that would have followed. And I can imagine what he would have said next: “Once again, fellow Americans, ‘our’ house has been destroyed. The houses that have been lost to Hurricane Katrina are our houses because we are one nation and one people. Our hearts and our hands go out to the victims of this terrible tragedy. In the weeks, months and years that lie ahead we will do out part as a nation to help our neighbors in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama rebuild their homes, their businesses and their lives. After all – isn’t that what Americans do?”

Napoleon once said that a leader is a dealer in hope. Ronald Reagan always remembered that great truth. It’s a pity that George W. Bush appears to have forgotten it.

Inquiring readers are doubtless asking why the author of this blog is represented in a tight-fitting white suit with an epee in one hand and a fencing mask in the other. Has Cyrano turned speechwriter – or is it the other way around?

Actually, it’s a bit of both. I was a varsity fencer in college, and have returned to the sport regularly and enthusiastically in the years since. I’m still at it, although these days my swordplay has less to do with foiling dastardly villains and rescuing fair damsels than in persevering my stamina and my eye-hand coordination for as long as I can.

So when Ragan Communications asked me for a photo for this site, I decided to send them one that would say a bit more about me than the usual mug shot.

If nothing else, I think the current likeness adds to my credibility. When I say that “the pen is mightier than the sword,” it will be plain from the photo that I know what I’m talking about.

The heroism with which Houston has responded to the influx of thousands of refugees from Hurricane Katrina has given me a new pride in being a Houstonian. Moreover, its remarkable blending of efficiency and compassion has given the rest of the country a model of how to respond to large-scale civil emergencies.

Initially, Houston was told to expect 2,000 hurricane victims. But then, at 3 A.M. on August 31, the city was told that over 23,000 evacuees would begin streaming into Houston that very night. Could Houston receive them?

It could -- and it did.

In just 19 hours, local government agencies, businesses and charities pulled out all the stops. Working frantically against the clock, they turned the vacant Reliant Astrodome into a mammoth refugee center, complete with beds, showers, hot food and even cable TV. As the first busloads of hungry, filthy and exhausted refugees rolled up at around 10:00 that night, Houston was ready to meet their most pressing needs.

The response of ordinary Houstonians was scarcely less awe-inspiring. Donations of clothes, toys and books poured in at such a rate to the Salvation Army, Star of Hope and other charities that after just a few days they were glutted. Star of Hope, which had filled five warehouses to bursting, finally had to ask the public to stop giving long enough to let volunteers sort through what had already been donated.

Houston’s churches marshaled swarms of Good Samaritans to minister to the evacuees. Even staid Episcopalians like myself answered the call with tent-revival enthusiasm. My own parish church, Palmer Memorial, has lately been providing as many as a thousand hot meals a night to Katrina’s victims.

In all, America’s fourth-largest city has set a real example for the rest of the nation. Houston, my hat – er, my Stetson – is off to you. The experience of the last couple of weeks has done more to turn me into a Texan than my nearly four years of residence here.

When House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) announced yesterday that there was no fat left to cut in the federal budget I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. And so I took a stroll down memory lane instead.

I thought back to an occasion early in 1987, when I had just been hired to write speeches for James C. Miller III, President Reagan’s budget director. To acquaint me as quickly as possible with his speaking style, Jim asked me to accompany him to a luncheon where he was scheduled to debate Democrat Congressman William Gray, then chairman of the House Budget Committee.

During the debate, Gray made the astonishing pronouncement that all the fat had been pared from the federal budget, and that there was nothing left to cut but “bone and marrow.”

Jim Miller’s public response was, as usual, tempered and courteous, even though Gray’s statement was indefensible. But when we got back to his office, he was seething: “Bone and marrow!” he exclaimed. “Bone and marrow! Why that ……”

Not one to waste an opportunity to ingratiate myself with my new boss, I jumped into the gap and said, “I think you’ve got a great speech there, Jim.”

“Uh?” he replied. “How so?”

“Well,” I continued, “just get the number-crunchers to come up with a list of the dozen or so most outrageous pork-barrel projects approved by the Democrat majority in Congress, reel them off one by one and then tell the audience, 'This is what Bill Gray calls ‘bone and marrow.’”

Jim, who at that time had to be one of the most sorely-tried officials in Washington, immediately brightened up. “I love it!” he chortled. “Do it!”

I did. As it turned out, much of my work for Jim at the budget office involved training a brilliant spotlight on the gross waste and misuse of taxpayer dollars. Jim had a heavy speaking schedule, and keeping up with him was exhausting. But I was very proud to work for him because he and I both believed passionately in the goal of giving the American taxpayers lean, efficient and frugal government.

At the time, I thought that goal was a holy grail for all good Republicans. I never dreamed that less than twenty years later I would behold the Orwellian spectacle of a “conservative” Republican congressional leader repeating – almost verbatim – the assertion of a liberal Democrat that there is no more fat to cut from the federal budget.

No fat left in the federal budget, Mr. DeLay? What about the $286 billion highway bill that a Republican Congress passed less than three months ago? A bill that included 6,371 special projects inserted by the members for the benefit of their home states and districts. What about such fiscal follies as $300 million bridges to islands with 50 inhabitants in Alaska? Or $350,000 for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio? Or $250,000 for sidewalk repairs in Boca Raton, Florida? Or what about the $24.5 billion that the federal government spent in 2003 – and now has no idea what the money was spent for?

Were the Democrats guilty of such profligacy, and were I back at my old job in the budget office, I would have myself a ball denouncing this blatant pork barreling and appalling lack of legislative oversight. Now I can only shake my head in dismay.

The Republican Party has lost whatever claim it had to be the party of fiscal responsibility. If the Republicans don’t come to their senses soon, they will find that in the taxpayers’ minds the symbol of their party has been transformed from the sagacious elephant to a rapacious hog.

President Bush’s speech last night from the ghost town that is now New Orleans was everything that the American people should expect from their leader in the face of an utter catastrophe.

The speech was reassuring and uplifting. It boosted public confidence that the government finally had the situation in hand. It made it clear that the immediate needs of the victims were being met, and that the government had evolved at least the broad outlines of a plan for reconstruction.

It’s a pity that Mr. Bush couldn’t have said all that a week ago. Speculation as to why he didn’t has run the gamut from indifference, to general cluelessness, to the fact that Karl Rove, “Bush’s Brain,” was unavailable during the crucial days after the storm due to a painful case of kidney stones.

In listening to Bush’s speech with my speechwriter’s ear, I found the harmonies generally pleasing, but I was struck by a couple of discordant notes.

First, Bush nominally accepted responsibility for the government’s inadequate response to the disaster, but only after he had provided himself with some artificial shrubbery for cover. “It was not a normal hurricane,” he said, “and the normal disaster relief system was not equal to it.”

True enough, but why wasn’t our disaster relief system prepared for the worst? The prospect of a major hurricane hitting New Orleans was no more a chimera than the prospect of a major earthquake hitting San Francisco, and yet local, state and federal governments all appeared to have been taken by surprise.

Second, when Bush was giving examples of American cities that had rebounded from great disasters, he mentioned the Chicago fire and the San Francisco earthquake. But, curiously, since he had been Governor of Texas and was speaking from the Gulf Coast, he made no mention of the hurricane that destroyed the city of Galveston in September of 1900. Much of the city was leveled and 6,000 people died in what is still the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

Maybe Karl Rove was in too much pain to review the final draft.

I may have been too soft on President Bush’s Jackson Square speech in my last posting. In fact, the more I thought about the speech, the more I found myself recalling Tennessee Williams' play, "A Streetcar Named Desire", which is set in New Orleans. Somehow I couldn’t shake the notion that there are some eerie similarities between Williams’ tortured, self-deluded heroine, Blanche DuBois, and Mr. Bush.

The result was that I sat down at my computer and turned out a post-Katrina adaptation of the play, which is presented here for your enjoyment.

SCENE: Late evening in Jackson Square, New Orleans, two weeks after the city was hit by Hurricane Katrina . Blanche DuBush enters wearily, toting a large suitcase. She looks around desperately for some sign of the Secret Service, her advance team or the press corps. Stella, Blanche’s sister, enters -- to Blanche’s evident relief.

STELLA: Blanche! What are you doing in Jackson Square?

BLANCHE [timidly, eyes lowered]: Oh, Stella! They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, but there was no public transportation of any kind that I could see. In fact, half the city appeared to be underwater.

STELLA: It was the hurricane, Blanche, dear.

BLANCHE [mystified]: There was a hurricane?

STELLA: Yes, of course, Blanche. It was the big story on the radio and in every one of the newspapers. You must have heard about it. Why have you come to New Orleans now that almost everyone has left?

BLANCHE [stifling a sob and dabbing her eyes with a lace hanky]: Oh, Stella, I had nowhere else to go! The old family homestead is – I do so hate to tell you this – but the old family homestead is ……. lost!

STELLA: Lost? How do you lose a plantation?

BLANCHE [whimpering]: Oh, please, Stella! Don’t look at me as if it was my fault! It wasn’t. It was a succession of calamities I had no control over – 9/11! The war in Iraq! That horribly expensive prescription drug program for the old folks that I just had to get through Congress! And then – well, I had to get re-elected, didn’t I? Do you have any idea how much in federal giveaways it takes to get re-elected? Do you, Stella?

STELLA: But Blanche, to lose the family homestead!

BLANCHE [fluttering her hands in panic]: I know, babydoll. But surely you see how helpless I was. I mean – I was practically all alone in that big, cold, sinister White House! Cut off from the world! Not a clue as to what was really going on! A witless pawn, held captive by cynical manipulators like Karl Rove! I didn’t have any choice, I tell you!

Enter Stanley Kowalski, Stella’s husband.

STANLEY: Stel-l-l-l-l-l-a! Stel-l-l-l-l-l-a! Stel-l-l-l-l-l-a! Hold it right there, Stella. Don’t you believe a word she’s saying.

STELLA: Stanley! What on earth…..?

STANLEY [to Blanche]: I got the goods on you, Miss Blanche DuBush! I went to Washington and dug up the facts. It wasn’t hard, either. No, sir, it wasn’t! I found out that the whole time you were sitting pretty in that nice, big White House you didn’t veto a single spending bill.

[Stella recoils in horror]

That’s the truth, Stella! Your sister is a political whore who can’t say “NO” to anyone. Why, there was practically a town ordinance passed against her!

BLANCHE [verging on hysteria]: No, sister! No! It isn’t true! It wasn’t my fault!

STANLEY: Save it, Blanche. I’ve got a lawyer acquaintance named John Roberts who’s going to get to the bottom of this. As soon as he’s confirmed as Chief Justice he’s going to preside over your impeachment trial.

BLANCHE [gasping]: Oh, no! He wouldn’t! John Roberts loves me! He told me so. He said he would do anything for me once I got him on the Supreme Court!

STANLEY [a loud, triumphant squawk]: Haw! You may think you know men, Blanche, but you don’t know diddly about lawyers. They’re a different animal altogether.

BLANCHE [at the end of her rope]: But I’m innocent, I tell you! I can explain everything! Meanwhile, please – possess your soul in patience!

STANLEY: It ain’t my soul I’m worried about, Blanche, it’s the size of the federal deficit. Just how are you planning to pay it off?

BLANCHE: [collapsing]: Oh, somehow … ! Something … ! Some one will come along and pick up the tab! I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

CURTAINS?

When I read the Financial Times’ report of Al Gore’s recent speech on global warming, I immediately picked up my well-thumbed copy of Winston Churchill’s speeches. Sure enough, Gore had stolen from Churchill, virtually word for word.

Speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City last Saturday, Gore warned that Hurricane Katrina was just a sample of the natural disasters that we could expect as the result of global warming. “Katrina,” he declared “is the first sip, the first taste, of a bitter cup that will be proffered to us over and over again.”

Speaking on the floor of the House of Commons after Britain’s shameful capitulation to Hitler at Munich in 1938, Churchill said: “This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year …”

How, I thought, could Gore have been so brazen – or so dumb? Surely he must have realized that the “bitter cup” phrase would be the sound bite of the speech.

Was it the speechwriter’s fault, perhaps? Did the speechwriter insert the theft from Churchill? It’s possible. But certainly Gore, who received a degree in government with honors from Harvard, should have instantly recognized the Churchill quote when he read the draft.

No, I’m inclined to think that Gore was the thief. As I considered the matter, my mind roamed back to the years that I lived in Nashville, when Gore was still a congressman. I used to lunch frequently at a charming restaurant not far from Tennessee’s imposing state capitol.

I remember how lawyers at the next table, apparently graduates of Vanderbilt Law School, would laugh out loud over some recent speech of Gore’s. “He’s been recycling his law school notes again,” said one.

Gore left Vanderbilt Law without completing his degree. Maybe he felt that he didn’t have the moral fiber to be a lawyer, and so he became a politician. Come on, Al – if we can’t believe that the words coming out of your mouth are your own, how can we believe what you say on global warming?

I’ve decided to ride out Hurricane Rita in Houston, so I don’t know when I will be able to post again.

Accordingly, I thought I’d sign off this week with a bang.

There is a new book called, “Why Business People Speak Like Idiots.” If I survive the hurricane, you may expect me to comment on this book in future postings.

For now, I would like to ask another question: Why do certain members of the clergy speak like idiots? I have in mind Rev. Dwight McKissic, pastor of the Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas.

Rev. McKissic is a member of the Texas Restoration Project, a group of clerical vigilantes. The group was organized last May with the avowed object of restoring “Bible-based morality” to America. Members of the group are currently registering their flocks to secure ratification of Proposition 2, a state constitutional amendment that Texans will be voting on in November.

The amendment would define marriage as a union of one man with one woman, and would outlaw gay unions. Texas law already prohibits gay marriage, but the members of the Texas Restoration Project are clearly leaving nothing to chance.

Judging from a speech Rev. McKissic gave in Houston on September 8, Proposition 2 is apparently just the beginning of the effort to restore “Bible-based morality” in America.

The Houston Chronicle quoted Rev. McKissic as follows: “Could it be God sent [Hurricane] Katrina to purify the sins of New Orleans? Not just New Orleans. That week there was no gambling, no prostitution, no sins [sic] in New Orleans. It became one of the purest cities in America during that time.”

Maybe Rev. McKissic thinks that another Great Flood would solve all the world's problems.

Right now, with furious wind and rain just hours away from me, I have a question of my own: Could it be that God sent Hurricane Rita to wash Houston clean of the poison that dripped from Rev. McKissic's mouth on September 8? If so, even a hurricane scarcely seems enough.

As he so often did, Oscar Wilde said it best: “I never came across anyone in whom the moral sense was dominant who was not heartless, cruel, vindictive, log-stupid and entirely lacking in the smallest sense of humanity. Moral people, as they are termed, are simple beasts. I would sooner have fifty unnatural vices than one unnatural virtue.”

Amen to that.

Gentle readers:

I’m pleased to report that I weathered Hurricane Rita with only minor inconvenience. The eye of the storm landed so far east of Houston that I didn’t even lose power. My biggest problem of the moment is the shortage of gasoline that will probably last for another day or two. So I am not making any unnecessary trips until then.

Once again, the people of Houston responded to a major challenge with patience, fortitude and generosity.

As you know from the news reports, approximately two and a half million local residents had to be evacuated. This led to horrific traffic jams on all the evacuation routes. Many people ran out of gas. Many were without water. Because the city was experiencing record-high temperatures – it was well into the 90s -- this might have produced a crisis. But Houstonians volunteered in droves to distribute water to stranded motorists.

You might think that caring for the refugees from Katrina would have strained the city’s philanthropic spirit, but it did not. Houston had plenty of heart left to meet this latest crisis.

Let’s hope that local and national leaders learn valuable lessons from both Katrina and Rita. Our next test may be another terrorist attack or an earthquake in San Francisco.

Back in August, David Murray speculated on the question, how important is it for speechwriters to like the person they write for?

David, whose politics slant in a different direction than mine, wondered how “a good fellow like [former presidential speechwriter Michael] Gerson could enthusiastically work for a bad fellow like Bush.”

He concluded that another blogger, Lisa Kadonaga (who writes the Liberal Slant), had the right idea when she said that writers, like all artists, “tend to portray what they see, rather than what is actually there.”

Kadonaga concluded that Mr. Gerson saw President Bush as a nice guy, and his feelings about his boss carried over into his work.

Since I’ve liked, or at least respected, practically everybody I’ve ever written for over the past 20 years or so, I’m not disposed to argue the point. Nor do I think it’s particularly remarkable that people will work harder for a boss they like than for one they don’t.

In the case of speechwriting, we can take this idea one step further and say that regardless of the message, audiences will respond more warmly to a speaker they like than to one who leaves them cold.

The strength of this particular phenomenon was attested to by a professor of psychology named Robert Levine in his book, “The Power of Persuasion.” Says Professor Levine:

“If you could master just one element of personal communication that is more powerful than anything … it is the quality of being likeable. I call it the magic bullet, because if your audience likes you, they’ll forgive just about everything else you do wrong. If they don’t like you, you can hit every rule right on target and it doesn’t matter.”

I think it’s time to acknowledge one of speechwriting’s dirty little secrets: If your speaker is likeable, your job is half done before you write your first word.