From the Washington Post, a review of Barton Swaim’s new book on “What it’s like to write speeches for a rude, rambling and disgraced politician“:
You don’t need to be a speechwriter to realize that the phrase “I won’t begin in any particular spot” is a wretched way to start a public address. Yet those were the opening words of one of the more remarkable political spectacles in recent years: Mark Sanford’s rambling and teary news conference of June 24, 2009, in which South Carolina’s then-governor confessed that rather than hiking the Appalachian Trail, he’d been hooking up with his Argentine mistress…
No, Swaim didn’t write that speech, but now he has authored something just as revealing and unusual: a political memoir that traffics in neither score-settling nor self-importance but that shares, in spare, delightful prose, what the author saw and learned. “The Speechwriter” feels like “Veep” meets “All the King’s Men” — an entertaining and engrossing book not just about the absurdities of working in the press shop of a Southern governor but also about the meaning of words in public life…
The term “speechwriter” is misleading. Swaim spent much time crafting news releases, penning thank-you missives, and drafting scathing statements and scathing op-eds about whatever the legislature was pushing. “We did a lot of scathing,” he recalls. He also wrote “surrogate letters,” i.e., letters to the editor ostensibly from supporters but actually written by the governor’s staff. “There was something slightly but definitely dishonest” about them, Swaim admits, but they were also an art form: Start off with some generic sass (“Which constitution is Senator So-and-so reading?”), and then make an argument that doesn’t reflect too much insight, or otherwise editors would see through the ruse….
“The Speechwriter” will become a classic on political communication because it goes beyond the contortions of public statements to explore how politicians speak to their staffers when no cameras are around. In this case, the governor demeaned and humiliated them at every turn, usually as a way of coping with anxiety or working through ideas. “Being belittled was part of the job,” explains Swaim, who often drove to work nervous to the point of vomiting, bracing for whatever mood might grip the boss. When the governor noticed that a whiteboard hadn’t been updated with his latest goals, he collapsed “into a fit of angry inarticulacy.” And in a petty breach of office etiquette, Sanford sliced off a piece of a subordinate’s birthday cake and took it into his office, before they’d even celebrated. Later, Swaim recalls, staffers sang “Happy Birthday” to their colleague while gathered around a cake with a corner missing.
It wasn’t malice. Worse, it was indifference. “The governor wasn’t trying to hurt you,” Swaim concluded. “For him to try to hurt you would have required him to acknowledge your significance.” His attitude fostered perverse camaraderie among staffers, but also undercut any loyalty. He was the same with state lawmakers. The governor barely remembered their names, and that enraged them. He didn’t care…
And, of course, the capper: “Despite impeachment calls, [Sanford] served out his second term and now represents South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District after winning a 2013 special election.” IOKIYAR uber alles!
Open Thread: Rambling the Appalachian TrailPost + Comments (84)