IN THE WORDS OF MY SPEECHWRITER

David McGrath appears to think that Governor Palin scored a home run with her acceptance speech because it was written by a (horrors!) speechwriter.

Here’s McGrath:

Today, selling term papers to students to use as their own is still illegal, but selling speeches to politicians to use as their own remains a legitimate enterprise.
How can that be?

Uh, Mr. McGrath, are you certain it is? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m rather certain that Gov. Palin didn’t just ask for an acceptance speech. Nor would I believe that of any politician, on any speech. I’m pretty sure that Gov. Palin (and the McCain staff, of course) had thoughts, ideas, phrases, and organization that they wanted incorporated. And I’m pretty sure that Gov. Palin did the final editing. Back to Mr. McGrath:

[P]olitical audiences are already aware that politicians employ speechwriters. Granted, it can be easy to determine when President Bush is reciting from someone else's script and when he is ad libbing in his own fractured English. But how can we know whether a line, or an entire speech, comes from the brains of McCain or Obama, or from hired staffers?

Uh, maybe because the speaker is telling the speechwriter what he wants to say? McGrath again:

Can voters this year be sure they learned something about the real Sarah Palin from her GOP vice presidential nomination acceptance speech last night, considering news that it was originally written by speechwriter Matthew Scully over a week ago for an unknown male nominee?

Um, because it sounded like her? Campaign Spot reader Jay in Texas, said it this way:

The problem with the whole teleprompter argument is that the entire speech was about her life.

When she said that, as a mother of one of those troops, she wanted McCain as Commander in Chief, it doesn't matter who typed in the words. She wasn't just the reader; she was the mother of one of those troops.

When she talked about attacking corruption in the Republican party, she wasn't merely the speaker; she was the one who attacked corruption in her own party.

And when she spoke of the special love required for a special needs baby, she didn't just deliver the speech.

She also delivered the baby.

McGrath ends with this:

If contemporary political candidates cannot find time to write all their speeches, the way Teddy Roosevelt or Abraham Lincoln did, they should at least craft the major ones.

Does McGrath really believe that any speaker, President, Vice-President, or even lowly old me, would not have major input into his/her speech’s content, look, and feel?

Sure, the shoe was polished. But it fit.