Matt Latimer's New Book - "Speech-less"

Former speechwriter, Matt Latimer, has a book coming out today about the Bush administration. Apparently, it is full of high school gossip and hurt feelings. Matt's former boss, William McGurn, has an ed-op in the WSJ today talking about his experience with Matt.

In a memoir that takes us from Matt's childhood in Michigan through all the morons and phonies he worked for in Washington, only Mr. Rumsfeld gets the full gush. Left unmentioned is that Matt is on Mr. Rumsfeld's payroll, working on the former Defense Secretary's memoirs.

n the same way, Matt neglects to mention that personnel took away his West Wing cubby when they needed space for someone more important. Or that he spent the next few weeks knocking on every door in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, looking for a room sufficiently grand to display his large and ever-expanding collection of framed testimonials to himself.

In fairness, it's not all yucks. On the day Mr. Rumsfeld resigns, Matt recounts a scene in the Defense secretary's office. "You were my star," (emphasis in the original) he tells Matt. "And, uh, I probably never told you that." Right there in the secretary's office, Matt reports, "I started to cry.'"

Right there too we see Mr. Bush's greatest failing: Never did he look into young Matthew's moist eyes and tell him, "You are my star." If he only had we would have a very different book.