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.
The Pundit Review Radio Podcast RSS feed can be found here.
What is Pundit Review Radio?
On Boston’s Talk Station WRKO since 2005, Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to the radio every Sunday evening from 8-10pm on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.
Bruce McQuain from Blackfive joined us once again for Someone You Should Know, our weekly tribute to the troops. Bruce spent 28 years in the U.S. Army and he is a veteran of the Vietnam war. He brings a perspective and understanding to these stories that we could never match.
This week Bruce told us about Second Lt. Nicholas Eslinger,
“As I was pulling security, I saw out of the corner of my eye in the back left corner of the open lot a hand come over the wall with some sort of a projectile,” he said.
Based on recent attacks, Eslinger knew it was a grenade.
“The grenade landed, I’d say six to eight feet to my right front," Eslinger said. “I was on a knee at the time, and it landed and started to roll into the middle of our formation towards the far wall where our soldiers were positioned.”
Eslinger has thought about that moment several times and he remembers his only thought was that if he didn’t do anything, the grenade was going to hit his troops.
By the time the grenade hit the ground, Eslinger was already moving.
“As it hit and continued to roll, I dove right on my right side, and the grenade rolled into me kind of simultaneously as I landed. It was pinned in between, kind of, my right torso and the ground,” he said.
Once he was on top of the grenade, he braced for it to go off.
“There was no preparation,” he said. “It was complete adrenaline and focus on covering that thing so that if it went off, it wasn’t going to hit my RTO or my medic or my SAW gunner that was right around me.”
But after a split second, the grenade had still not gone off — much to Eslinger’s relief.
“My right hand was already off my weapon, reaching for the grenade,” he said. “I quickly grabbed it and from kind of just laying on my side there kind of just did a side throw towards the wall it came from."
Eslinger had just enough time to get the grenade out of his hand and yell “grenade!”
The Someone You Should Know radio collaboration began as an extension of Matt Burden’s series at Blackfive. Bruce does an incredible job with the series every week. The Pundit Review Radio Podcast RSS feed can be found here.
What is Pundit Review Radio?
On Boston’s Talk Station WRKO since 2005, Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to the radio every Sunday evening from 8-10pm on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.
I can’t believe that it has been one year since our friend and frequent guest host Dean Barnett passed away after a lifelong battle with Cystic Fibrosis. I love this picture of Dean and this is exactly how I remember him, laughing, having a great time and making everyone around him feel great.
Dean spoke and wrote eloquently about his illness, especially in this pamphlet that has such a classic Dean title, The Plucky, Smart Kid With The Fatal Disease: A life with Cystic Fibrosis
As I grew sicker, I had what for me was an extremely comforting insight. I came to view serious and progressive illness as an ever constricting circle with oneself at the center. The interior of the circle represents the contents of one’s life. As the circle gets smaller, things that were inside get forced out. Some of these things are dearly missed; others that were once thought precious get forced to the exterior and turn out to go surprisingly unlamented.
At the innermost point of the circle are the things that really matter: family, faith, love. These things stay with you until the day you die. At the very end, because the circle has shrunk down to its center, they’re all you have left. But as we approach that end, we finally realize that all along, they were what mattered most. As a consequence, life often remains beautiful and worthwhile right up until the end.
There have been so many stories in the past year where I have thought, damn, I really wish Dean were here to have at it on this topic. His passing has left a huge hole in the political blogosphere. I truly feel fortunate to have had the chance to get to know him both personally and professionally. Dean was a great man, a good friend and an inspiration to countless others who are battling the terrible disease. He is in my thoughts and prayers today, as is his wonderful wife Kirstan.
The weekend after Dean passed away, on November 2, 2008, we did a tribute to him on the radio show. This segment starts with a great piece that Producer Rob put together. It is a series of clips and quips from Dean’s appearances on the show. It is so great to hear his voice again (Chowdah!) and especially to remember his incredible sense of hiumor, prescient political analysis and all around spirit and energy. Following Rob’s tribute, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol joined us to remember his friend and colleague. Having relistened to this a few times yesterday, it is truly a fantastic tribute to Dean!
UPDATE: Here is my 45 minute discussion about Too Big To Fail with author Andrew Ross Sorkin
New York Times merger and acquisitions reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin has written the insiders account of what was going on in board rooms and the highest levels of government during the worst of the Wall Street meltdown.
He was supposed to be my guest tonight on WRKO’s Pundit Review Radio but we are bumped for playoff baseball because of the rainout last night. I hope to have him on next weekend because I very much enjoyed the book. Here’s my review.
The access Sorkin has is truly impressive, as is the level of detail in the book. Just how connected Sorkin is became evident at the book’s release party, which included Wall Street’s A-List CEOs and dealmakers. Business Insider’s John Carney wrote,
The party was thrown last night at the Monkey Bar in midtown Manhattan, hosted by Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter. It was overflowing with Wall Street’s biggest movers and shakers. More than one person remarked that it reminded them of Blackstone chief Steve Schwarzman’s over-the-top birthday party in early 2007. It sure seemed like it is okay for Wall Street to party again.
I couldn’t help but think of a line at the very end of the book, on the final page in fact. Talking about Wall Street a year later, Sorkin observed,
Still missing in the current system is a genuine sense of humility.
Given how connected he is, nobody would know better than him.
The book is written in short bursts of detail about a specific aspect of the crisis, a few pages on Lehman folllowed by a few about Paulson, Geithner and Bernanke, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, etc. Each change requires the reader to refocus, think about the big picture and interconnectedness of the problem itself. I’ve read reviews where they found it distracting, I found it just the opposite.
Given his beat at the NY Times, I expected Sorkin to have a gold-plated Wall Street rolodex. What surprised me, and was truly impressive, was the level of detail he had about the frantic meetings that were happening at the highest levels of government. The reader gets a real sense of the problems facing Paulson, Geithner and Bernanke. Given how fast things were happening, and how things ultimately turned out, it is hard for me to be too critical of them. No question, mistakes were made, but I came away feeling that this trio were true public servants doing everything they possibly could to prevent catastrophy.
The Wall Street crowd is a different story entirely. Everyone cites greed as the driving factor behind the meltdown. I got the sense reading the book that the real emotion driving this train was jealousy. Jealously of Goldman Sachs profit machine. Bear, Lehman, Morgan and Merrill all adopted riskier and riskier positions trying to play catch up. They leveraged their balance sheets 30-1. When Sorkin writes about Merrill making $2.6 B in profit “trading its own book” in 2002, making risky investments with the firms money rather than client money, the implication was clear. Short term gains would lead to long term pain.
Not many Wall Street players come away looking very good. However, Sorkin has such detail on the collapse of Lehman Brothers that even Dick Fuld becomes a somewhat sympathetic figure. The one man who deserves calling out for his behavior under pressure was John Mack of Morgan Stanley. With the future of his firm very much in doubt, literally days left perhaps, he received a call from NY Fed president Geithner and Fed Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke. The governments message was blunt, “Market’s can’t open Monday without a resolution of Morgan Stanley.” They were basically ordering Mack to sell the firm to JP Morgan immediately. Mack’s reply was impressive. I made a notation in the margin, “stud”,
“Let me ask you a question: Do you think this is good public policy? There are thirty-five thousand jobs that have been lost in this city between AIG, Lehman, Bear Sterns, and just layoffs. And you’re telling me that the right thing to do is to take forty-five thousand to fifty-thousand people, put them in play, and to have twenty thousand jobs disappear? I don’t see how that’s good public policy.”
For a moment there was silence on the phone. “It’s about soundness,” Geithner said impassively.
Mack closed by saying, “Well, look. I have the utmost respect for the three of you and what you’re doing. You are patriots, and no one in our country can thank you enough for that. But I won’t do it. I just won’t do it. I won’t do it to the forty-five thousand people who work here.”
With that, he hung up the phone.
By contrast, there is John Thain. Moments after the CEOs of the Big 9 firms were told they would be accepting TARP money whether they wanted to or not, Thain raised his hand with a question about how this would impact executive compensation.
The book is loaded with anecdotes and behind the scenes detail. One of best was a classic example of Harry Reid being a partisan jerk. Upon hearing Paulson’s dire request for immediate approval, as in days, for $700 billion dollars, Reid spoke up and said,
“It takes me forty-eight hours to get Republicans to agree to flush the toilets around here.” “Harry,” Mitch McConnell (R: Kentucky), who was deeply frightened by Paulson and Bernanke’s presentation, interjected, ” I think we need to do this, we should try to do this, and we can do this.”
Glad there were some grown-ups in the room representing Congress.
Too Big To Fail really gives the reader a sense of the players, their personalities and the rational behind their decsion making. Sorkin does a great job of describing the stress and tension that these firms, these people, were under.
One final note that demonstrates Sorkin knows how to play hardball himself, were the repeated digs at CNBC blowhard Charlie Gasperino, who also happens to have an insiders account on the way to book stores. I very much enjoyed those digs.
Bruce McQuain from Blackfive joined us once again for Someone You Should Know, our weekly tribute to the troops. Bruce spent 28 years in the U.S. Army and he is a veteran of the Vietnam war. He brings a perspective and understanding to these stories that we could never match.
This week Bruce told us about the Purple Heart and Staff Sgt. Brandon Camacho, who has five of them. From the NY Daily News account,
Purple Hearts are awarded to soldiers wounded or killed in combat. It is the oldest of U.S. military decorations and was established by Gen. George Washington with an order from his upstate Newburgh headquarters on Aug. 7, 1782.
Washington wrote: “Let it be known that he who wears the military order of the Purple Heart has given of his blood in the defense of his homeland and shall forever be revered by his fellow countrymen.”
So, by Gen. Washington’s standards, Camacho has earned reverence five times over.
The Someone You Should Know radio collaboration began as an extension of Matt Burden’s series at Blackfive. Bruce does an incredible job with the series every week. The Pundit Review Radio Podcast RSS feed can be found here.
What is Pundit Review Radio?
On Boston’s Talk Station WRKO since 2005, Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to the radio every Sunday evening from 8-10pm on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.
For all the grief Massachusetts Republicans get, they do have three excellent people and candidates running for statewide office right now. Scott Brown, who we spoke with last week, is seeking to take the Kennedy seat in the U.S. Senate. In the governors race, we have Charlie Baker and Christy Mihos vying for the right to take on Deval Patrick.
Christy is always a treat to talk to and one of the nicest and most generous people you will ever meet. He’s been a champion of reforming state government for a long time. He has ticked off a lot of people on Beacon Hill over the years, and that is one of the most attractive things about his candidacy!
During the interview, a caller went after Christy for specifics on how he would reduce the size of the budget. Christy responded by offering four or five specific proposals. When he finished, he asked the caller if that helped him, but the caller had hung up. Christy then gave the caller his phone number over the air and told him to call if he had any other questions about his plans. Would a politician do that? Of course not. Christy isn’t a politician, he’s a businessman, reformer and outsider. He’s a breath of fresh air in the cesspool that is often Massachusetts politics.
You can learn more about his campaign here.
The Pundit Review Radio Podcast RSS feed can be found here.
What is Pundit Review Radio?
On Boston’s Talk Station WRKO since 2005, Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to the radio every Sunday evening from 8-10pm on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.
Bruce McQuain from Blackfive joined us once again for Someone You Should Know, our weekly tribute to the troops. Bruce spent 28 years in the U.S. Army and he is a veteran of the Vietnam war. He brings a perspective and understanding to these stories that we could never match.
This week Bruce told us about Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips, who was involved in a battle very similar to the one that claimed ten US soldiers lives over the weekend. This story comes to you from the same remote corner of Afghanistan, Nuristan Province,
Before dawn on Aug. 22, 2007, 60 to 80 Taliban extremists moved into position to launch a three-pronged attack against Ranch House. Video footage posted on an extremist website showed Taliban rehearsing over a detailed map of Ranch House’s fighting positions.
“Their plan was to overrun our forward operating base,†said Phillips, who is from Eastpoint, Fla.
When the Taliban attacked Ranch House, 22 American Soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team were living at the base. They worked side-by-side with the Afghan National Army in one of the most rugged and remote NATO bases in Afghanistan.
The Someone You Should Know radio collaboration began as an extension of Matt Burden’s series at Blackfive. Bruce does an incredible job with the series every week. The Pundit Review Radio Podcast RSS feed can be found here.
What is Pundit Review Radio?
On Boston’s Talk Station WRKO since 2005, Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to the radio every Sunday evening from 8-10pm on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.