by Roger L. Simon
Can someone help a semi-retired mystery writer? I have written eight detective novels but have not been able to figure out definitively who wrote President Joe Biden’s speech for the night of Sept. 1, 2022.
Was it the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian John Meacham? White House chief of staff Ron Klain? Someone working undercover for Islamic Jihad anxious to create a conflagration in our country?
Crazy as it sounds, given the text, the latter doesn’t seem all that unlikely.
History needs to know who wrote such moving and “uniting” rhetoric as “MAGA Republicans have made their choice. They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live, not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies.”
And “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”
Someone needs to take a bow. After all, it is well known that Peter Robinson wrote “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall.” He has gotten much-deserved credit for that. Who is behind these enlightening and forward-looking statements of Biden’s?
We know it is obviously not the president himself since he was happy to “borrow” the words of others as far back as law school and continued to follow that tradition, after promising his dean never to lie again, by stealing the speeches of Neil Kinnock and Robert F. Kennedy, among others.
Now, in his rather extreme dotage, it is nigh impossible that Biden would write his own speeches. So who dun it?
And while we’re at it, who designed the weird, darkly-lit set behind him out of some sixties B-Roger Corman horror movie with two Marines standing ominously on either side?
The aim of both speech and set was clearly to incite, to drive his opponents into the streets and foment trouble, thereby gaining traction for his “more noble” side and leading to the extinction of the so-called “deplorables,” all tens of millions of them.
This similarity between this and the events of Jan. 6 couldn’t be more obvious.
Fortunately, not that many watched this speech. Even the networks, following their bottom lines and some semblance of “equal time” guidelines, stayed with normal programming. Besides, it was college football night plus the U.S. Tennis Open, which I watched despite (in my view) its excessive encomiums to Serena Williams and the (Biden and co. dictated) absence of the great Novak Djokovic.
Still, it’s of great importance to know who is putting their words into the mouths of our leaders. This is especially true since we are now in an era that has been described as “late Brezhnev” with a president whose mental competence resembles that of Soviet Union general secretary Leonid Brezhnev in his dotage.
This could be the subject of some great black comedy. It was for the British, aping the Russians. I highly recommend “The Death of Stalin,” if you have not seen it, with such one-liners as, “I can’t remember who is alive and who isn’t.”
But for us Americans that is no joking matter anymore. I still want to know who put those evil, incendiary words in Biden’s all-too-complaisant mouth.
Was it our fellow Nashvillian John Meacham, as Michael Patrick Leahy, on whose local radio show I appear weekly, asserts? So far he is suspect No. one because he has written speeches for Biden before.
But thus far we have no hard evidence he himself wrote this one and, as in the old television show, the real speech writer has not stood up.
I write this as not a complete stranger to the political speechwriting trade. I have done it a couple of times for national politicians with whom I substantially agreed. It was interesting at first, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Putting uncredited words in the mouths of others is not exactly the best—or most honest—way to spend your time.
And wouldn’t we all rather politicians suck it up and write their own speeches? I know it’s difficult and time-consuming, but then we would more likely know what they really think, not what their writers think they should think. And who knows—that way we might get more Churchills and Lincolns, a significant improvement over the present crew.
First published in the Epoch Times.
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8 Responses
Roger,
You of all people should know that finding politician who can write his own speech is like mining for bitcoins.
An article I wrote some months back for this magazine, about my journalist friend, has this solidly set in my mind.
https://www.newenglishreview.org/articles/where-do-old-journalists-go-to-die/
Their skills are purely reading from scripts or autocues, Donald being one of the very rare exceptions.
The problem is finding one who actually believes, and is committed to, the issues at hand.
I’ll be a bitcoin millionaire before that happens.😊
This was one heck of a read Bill! Thanks for the link — I somehow missed it the first time around…
A right-winger (who only a couple of weeks ago threatened “civil war” in one of his writings) accusing Joe Biden of being divisive and incendiary because he called out the tactics used by people like him. Rich.
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“In the four years since, Fox viewers had become even more accustomed to flattery and less willing to hear news that challenged their expectations. Instead of understanding his narrow win in 2016 as the upset it was, they were told forecasters were going to be wrong again. Me serving up green beans to viewers who had been spoon-fed ice cream sundaes for years came as a terrible shock to their systems.”
More rich.
This is what the soon-to-be vice-president of the US, Kamala Harris told talk show host Stephen Colbert in June 2020 at the height of the BLM riots:
“They’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop. They’re not. This is a movement, I’m telling you. They’re not going to stop, and everyone, beware. Because they’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop before election day in November, and they are not going to stop after election day. And everyone should take note of that on both levels – that they’re not going to let up. And they should not, and we should not.”
More recently, we have seen Democrat zealots, egged on by incendiary rhetoric from people like by Maxine Waters and Chuck Schumer, blockade the private homes of the judges of the Supreme court of the United States of America, something which has never happened in the entire history of US democracy. One zealot, suitably inspired, determined to assassinate one of the judges. Insurrection? On the evening of Friday 24th June, the Arizona State Senate was blockaded by pro-abortion zealots who tried to break windows and doors. State senators were trapped inside and tear gas was used by security. The mob then resorted to spraying monuments outside the Senate with paint and making fires.
1. You’re misrepresenting what Kamala Harris said. She was referring to the upsurge of demonstrations and political advocacy against police brutality, widespread racism, and so forth that was seen throughout the country after George Floyd’s death. Now, someone may disagree on whether those phenomena are widespread enough or serious enough to merit such protest, and it’s true that not a small number of the public gatherings that took place were actually violent and had violence as their goals. But that wasn’t the case for most or even a quarter of them. For you try to portray Kamala Harris’s statement as an expression of support for that violence, when that was not the view she was expressing, is dishonest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94SFX8va2e0
2. The Arizona Capitol “attack” was a relative non-event. There are literally two videos of it to be found, and the sum total of what takes place is a crowd stands around chanting, with a few of them banging on the glass and a couple feebly hitting it before running away (video 1, video 2). There were eight instances of graffiti, total. Don’t insult other people’s intelligence by trying to compare that to a determined attack by thousands of people and which lasted for hours.
Your attempt to deflect discussion of the incendiary rhetoric of the right (which believes the current President came to power illegitimately and backed that belief up with an attack on the Capitol) is nothing but whataboutism.
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“In the four years since, Fox viewers had become even more accustomed to flattery and less willing to hear news that challenged their expectations. Instead of understanding his narrow win in 2016 as the upset it was, they were told forecasters were going to be wrong again. Me serving up green beans to viewers who had been spoon-fed ice cream sundaes for years came as a terrible shock to their systems.”
1. “Misrepresentation” my foot. What Kamala Harris said was incitement full stop. She also urged people to donate money to the Minnesota Freedom Fund to help bail out rioters from jail. The damage to property caused by the violent protests Harris encouraged approached $2 billion in May/June 2020 alone. The protesters were also responsible for dozens of deaths, among which was retired St. Louis police officer David Dorn. These riots make the Jan 6 disturbances look like a Sunday picnic.
2. A “relative non-event”! Isn’t that a neat euphemism? This was a direct assault on the primary democratic institution of a state of the union: lawmakers had to be evacuated to another part of the building & the police had to use tear gas to keep attackers who were trying to break into the state Senate at bay. Protesters then busied themselves defacing statues and infrastructure outside the building. A couple of days after this “relative non-event” razor wire had to be put up around the grounds of the Arizona’s capitol to deter protesters from storming it again. Arizona is not an exception. If you go to places like Portland, Kenosha, Minneapolis etc. you will see government buildings badly damaged and defaced by protesters inspired & egged on by people like Harris. The Federal Courthouse in Portland was attacked multiple times over 2020 & 2021 and set on fire in March 2021. Large parts of Kenosha’s downtown area were razed to the ground in 2020. This was all called “mostly peaceful” by mainstream (by this yardstick, Jan 6 at the Capitol looks like a picnic too). So much for respect for our public institutions.
By the way, the number of videos available for an event does not indicate its significance. YouTube (Google) frequently censors videos for ideological reasons: e.g. videos of middle-aged demonstrators wandering peacefully through the Capitol on Jan 6 which would destroy the “armed insurrection” narrative. The internet experienced via the platforms of ‘Big Tech’ companies is an entirely curated environment: you only see what they want you to see; and we now know these companies are frequently instructed by the DP luminaries to censor their political opposition.
3. Readers will notice how Koolaid completely ignores my point about incendiary rhetoric made by Maxine Waters and Chuck Schumer.
Waters has been inciting mobs for several years now. After Trump assumed office she called for members of his administration to be ostracized and shamed in public. In June this year after the Roe v Wade precedent was overturned she stood in front of the Supreme court and shouted “The hell with the Supreme Court. We will defy them.” So much for respect for our core democratic institutions. Schumer is no better. In March 2020 he stood on the steps of the Supreme Court and hollered:
“I want to tell you Gorsuch. I want to tell you Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”.
This ended with an assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh at his private residence earlier this year. Before that, Schumer and other DP leaders (including Harris) had been whipped up so much outrage & anger that protesters went to the private homes of SCOTUS justices and harassed them ceaselessly. They also set up a social media group to track SCOTUS justices and report their movements so they could be continually harassed whenever they went out (no Big Tech censorship on this one thank you very much). There have also been numerous attacks on churches (mainly, but not only, Catholic). This type of behavior towards SCOTUS members is unprecedented. But no condemnation of it came from senior DP leaders for days; and when it did it was limited to dribs & drabs and delivered only grudgingly.
And here we have a government troll masquerading as a commenter and declaring that these events – all on the record – are “non-events” … and ignoring completely the most unpleasant evidence of incitement.
The only conclusion to be drawn is that incitement to violence, threatening courts if they do not produce a desired verdict, attacking legislative buildings & places of worship and systematically harassing members of the highest court in the land is all acceptable. No problemo!
This is how democracy dies.
P.S. KOOLAID WARNING: readers should note that “Arthur.c Is A Big Dummy” is just a pseudonym of our resident government troll, “Koolaid”, trying to create the impression that he is not alone in his idiocy.
Any comments by “Koolaid ” and “Arthur C. is a big dummy” have me very fearful of the possibility that people like this have the ear of the likes of AOC and the leftie loonies who could take the country even further into the pit. ( I’m a rightist socialist myself)
I don’t know whether it’s an individual or a group, but can you imagine the vengeance they would wreak if they gained actual power rather than just the “ear”
They’d make Stalin’s reign look like a picnic.
Your comment is amusing. I make a comment calling out political extremism and you accuse me of being a political extremist. Yeah, that make a lot of sense. Methinks you have eyes for some flavors of extremism but not others.
I’m just a reader expressing his views and providing honest feedback on what he reads. You don’t need to wear that tinfoil hat around me – really!
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“In the four years since, Fox viewers had become even more accustomed to flattery and less willing to hear news that challenged their expectations. Instead of understanding his narrow win in 2016 as the upset it was, they were told forecasters were going to be wrong again. Me serving up green beans to viewers who had been spoon-fed ice cream sundaes for years came as a terrible shock to their systems.”