Nothing is worth less than an indiscreet speechwriter
September 19, 2012
Ted Sorensen must have been asked a thousand times about who wrote the line from JFKโs inaugural address, โAsk not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.โ And every timeโuntil his death, 50 years after the speech was givenโhe replied with a two-word answer: โAsk not.โ
These days we know the grubby inner workings of the speechwriting process in a presidential campaign in the middle of the campaign. Why? Donโt blame Politico; blame its sources, the operatives and likely the speechwriters themselves, who are exactly as loyal to their own careers and protective of their own asses as their predecessors used to be to the leaders they served. That is, totally.
Sorensen, Horace Busby, Bill Moyers (who still wonโt give interviews about LBJ), Ray Priceโnone of these people would have considered leaking details of a campaignโs communication ruminations to the press under any circumstances. Because they knew that in the end, thatโs all this trivial bickering among speechwriters and their bosses and their candidates is: The organizational equivalent of one personโs rumination about what to say, and what not to.
And letting it out into the media during a campaign is akin to a standing before and audience and telling them everything you had considered telling them but then thought better of.
This mess isnโt just Mitt Romneyโs. Itโs ours, too.
For discretion isn’t just one quality a speechwriter should possess.
It’s the very first.
And if we don’t have it, we’re not worth much. โDM