Free Republic

(New York Jewish Week) — The Jewish Democratic Council of America, the leading Jewish organization affiliated with the Democratic Party, endorsed George Latimer in his bid to unseat New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman in the upcoming primary. It also endorsed Wesley Bell in his campaign to unseat Rep. Cori Bush in Missouri, marking the first time that the Jewish Democrats have endorsed primary challengers to Democratic incumbents. Both incumbents have been vocal critics of Israel. In New York’s 16th district, which covers southern Westchester County and a sliver of the northern Bronx and is home to a sizable Jewish community,...

A Joe Biden terrified that the African-American vote is slipping away from the party of pandering made an absurd claim during a rare day trip from his basement bunker to Kenosha, Wisconsin. At least his handlers were able to find and lead him to Wisconsin, which Hillary Clinton failed to do in 2016. Biden had just finished a meeting with the family of Jacob Blake, the young African-American wanted on a felony warrant for sexual abuse shot after struggling with police. As part of his portrayal of the Trump administration as oppressors of blacks and white people as guardians of...

Harry Potter author JK Rowling missed out on a top honour because some US politicians believed she "encouraged witchcraft", it has been claimed. Matt Latimer, former speech writer for President George W Bush, said that some members of his administration believed her books promoted sorcery. As a result, she was never presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The claims appear in Latimer's new book called Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor. He wrote that "narrow thinking" led White House officials to object to giving Rowling the civilian honour. The award acknowledges contributions to US national interest, world peace...

A Washington tell-all book is seldom a good place to look for political wisdom. But, whether he meant to or not, former White House speechwriter Matt Latimer’s new book, “Speech-Less: Tales of a White House Survivor,” makes at least one important point: politics should be about ideas, not personalities. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case recently. Conservatives coined a term, Bush Derangement Syndrome, to explain the fierce opposition many liberals had to George W. Bush personally. It wasn’t simply his policies they opposed, it was him. They hated the way he walked, the way he talked. He exhibited “faux cowboy...

President Bush favored cap and trade, one of this former speechwriters claims in a new book. In fact, Matt Latimer writes in "Speechless," the President actually ENDORSED the policy in a speech, but no one in the press could figure out what he meant. Cap-and-trade, which would put a limit on businesses' carbon emissions, barely passed the House this year but has yet to make headway in the Senate. Most Republicans are vocally opposed to it.

When the sun rises over our capital city this morning, its denizens will awake to a truly novel tale: The aggrieved ex-staffer—wait for it!—disillusioned by Washington. The tome out today is by former Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer, who describes the White House as "less like Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing and more like The Office." In Mr. Latimer's hands, it reads more like "The Princess Diaries," full of hurt feelings and high-schoolish drama. Like all kiss and tells, "Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor" is thick with atmospherics intended to suggest the author's importance: a West Wing office, meetings...

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. There are only two kinds of people who won’t like this book. First are the liberal media who tied the Gordian knot that binds conservatism to Bush. As Byron York reported in...

The writer said Mr Bush was uneasy about Republican choice John McCain and critical of Sarah Palin as his number two. 'What is she, the governor of Guam?' he joked. But he went on more seriously: 'This woman is being put into a position she is not even remotely prepared for. She hasn't spent one day on the national level. 'Neither has her family.' Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld apparently had to be talked out of editing his own entry on Wikipedia, the Internet encyclopedia he referred to as 'Wika-wakka.' He also used to watch YouTube clips that made fun of...

Bush was preparing to give a speech to the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. The conference is the event of the year for conservative activists; Republican politicians are required to appear and offer their praise of the conservative movement. Latimer got the assignment to write Bush's speech. Draft in hand, he and a few other writers met with the president in the Oval Office. Bush was decidedly unenthusiastic. "What is this movement you keep talking about in the speech?" the president asked Latimer. Latimer explained that he meant the conservative movement -- the movement that...

President George W. Bush's former speechwriter Matt Latimer reveals that Bush considered Barack Obama unfit for the White House and predicted that vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin would be a disaster for the GOP. "After one of Obama's blistering speeches against the administration, the president had a very human reaction: He was ticked off," Latimer writes in his forthcoming book, "Speech-Less: Tales of a White House Survivor," which has been excerpted in the October issue of GQ. "He came in one day to rehearse a speech, fuming. 'This is a dangerous world,' he said for no apparent reason, 'and this...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – A former aide to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin is dismissing a claim by onetime Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer that the former president was clueless about Palin when she was tapped as John McCain's running mate last August. Latimer writes in a new book — scheduled for release in October — that Bush wasn't even aware of Palin when she was picked. "'What is she, the governor of Guam?'" Bush reportedly asked. Latimer also writes that Bush told aides that the then-Alaska governor was "not even remotely prepared" for the national stage. But Jason Recher, who...

Former president George W. Bush had a flair for insulting the people fighting to be his successor, former speechwriter Matt Latimer reveals in the October issue of GQ. The piece, an excerpt from Latimer's forthcoming book, "Speech Less: Tales of a White House Survivor," gives a candid look at the final days of the Bush presidency. In several passages, Bush comments on the candidates then vying for the White House: The president, like me, didn't seem to be in love with any of the available options. He always believed Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee. "Wait till her fat...

Matt Latimer, a minor former speech writer for George W. Bush, is out with a diss-and-tell book, and Byron York's previews in the Examiner are causing quite a stir in political circles both left and right. It seems there's something for everyone in Lattimer's Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor. Conservatives who never felt like Dubya was one of their own will point to certain segments and say, "See, I told you so." A prime example is when Latimer supposedly got tasked with preparing a speech for Bush's appearance before the 2008 CPAC conference: "What is this movement you...

President George W. Bush's former speechwriter Matt Latimer reveals that Bush considered Barack Obama unfit for the White House and predicted that vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin would be a disaster for the GOP. "After one of Obama's blistering speeches against the administration, the president had a very human reaction: He was ticked off," Latimer writes in his forthcoming book, "Speech-Less: Tales of a White House Survivor," which has been excerpted in the October issue of GQ. "He came in one day to rehearse a speech, fuming. 'This is a dangerous world,' he said for no apparent reason, 'and this...

A former aide to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin is dismissing a claim by onetime Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer that the former president was clueless about Palin when she was tapped as John McCain's running mate last August. ... But Jason Recher, who served as special assistant to President Bush and as a traveling aide to Palin during the campaign, said the former President was well aware of Palin — especially since the two met in person in Alaska just three weeks before Palin was added to the Republican ticket.

<p>While the rest of his party was celebrating the choice of novice VP candidate Sarah Palin last August, then-President George W. Bush attempted to inject some reason and caution into the melee, according to a new book by a former White House speechwriter.</p>

Is there a politician George W. Bush ever liked? Not according to former Dubya speech writer Matt Latimer. In his forthcoming memoir, "Speech Less: Tales of a White House Survivor," Latimer says the former Prez dissed pretty much everyone in Washington - including Barack Obama. "He came in one day to rehearse a speech, fuming," Latimer writes. "'This is a dangerous world,'" he said for no apparent reason, "and this cat [Obama] isn't remotely qualified to handle it. This guy has no clue, I promise you." GQ's October issue has a sneak peek at the book - out Sept. 22...