Last night I had a really interesting and enjoyable conversation with former Rumsfeld and Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer, who has a highly entertaining new book about his experiences working in the administration.
This is essentially the story of a young, principled conservative who left Michigan to puruse the political junkie’s dream in Washington DC. As he rose through the ranks, all the way to the White House, this idealist saw how the sausage was made and came away greatly disappointed.
In his Human Events review, editor Jed Babbin noted,
If Matt Latimer’s new book had been released a few weeks ago, the Tea Party marchers would have hoisted him onto their shoulders and carried him — laughing and cheering — all the way up Capitol Hill.
Laughing, because Latimer’s new book,Speech-less: Tales of a White House Survivor, renews conservatives license to chuckle at ourselves. Cheering, because it lifts the burden of George W. Bush from our shoulders.
In additon to the stories in the book about Rumsfeld, Bush and Rove, we talked about the current state of the GOP, the fight between conservatives and those who are urging the party to moderate their message. We also talked about the NY-23 congressional race and what that said about the influence of the grass roots conservatives. In fact, Matt has an article on that very topic on Human Events today,
Doug Hoffman and The Canada Option
No, the special election in New York’s 23rd district is not about conservatives getting mad because they weren’t getting their way. It may be about something far more important. And the elites in the Republican Party better take note.
For the first time in recent memory, conservatives at the heart of the Republican Party’s political base — led by Fred Thompson, Sarah Palin, Steve Forbes, Jim DeMint, Dick Armey among others — openly defied the GOP leadership by supporting third-party candidate Doug Hoffman. Also putting principles first, the National Conservative Campaign Fund, spearheaded by some of the premier figures of the conservative movement, issued an endorsement as well. And Tea Partiers, according to reports, planned to put their grassroots muscles behind Hoffman by going door to door.
Make no mistake: the New York race was not a fight within the GOP, another Reagan versus Ford, but a fight against the GOP.
This was a very fun book to read and I really enjoyed the wide-ranging discussion with Matt. I hope you do too.
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