You may have seen on the Internets this morning various excerpts from what appears to be GQ’s answer to Vanity Fair‘s Levi Johnston article, in terms of the great “which major New York magazine can publish the weirdest and least fact-checkable 10-page fart of targeted-readership porn” journalism wars. “Matt Latimer,” a late-term speechwriter for George W. Bush, has written a snippy sack of anecdotes from his time in/near the White House during the 2008 presidential race, the Wall Street collapse, etc etc. It could have been an interesting read, but here’s the problem: it’s not. It is one of the shittiest pieces of writing, ever, or at least since Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Did you know that not a single person in the White House knew anything about anything except for smug mid-level stenographer “Matt Latimer,” according to Matt Latimer?
If you would like to find the well-marketed blockquotes about Bush’s thoughts on Sarah Palin and John McCain’s campaign, you should be able to find them on like any blog. But we just want to focus on making fun of this Matt Latimer, the notable douche.
Maybe he should tell us about himself early on, because what we all care about is Matt Latimer! In one notably artless splash of cliches, we get the bildungsroman of a young shitsack:
As a young political geek growing up in Flint, Michigan, I’d always dreamed of heading to Washington to work for a conservative president and help usher in another Reagan Revolution. As soon as I was able, and with the support of my baffled liberal parents, I packed up my old maroon Dodge Dynasty and said good-bye to my sleepy hometown.
My youthful exuberance cooled as I moved up the rungs of power. On Capitol Hill, I worked for a congressman who “misremembered” basic facts, such as the “Eisenhower assassination.” I worked for a senator who hid from his own staff. I was assigned to coach Republican senators on how to reach out to the media and entertainment world. (You try explaining The View to a group of 65-year-old white Republican men.) At the Pentagon, as chief speechwriter to Donald Rumsfeld, I battled an entrenched civil-service system and an inept communications team.
In 2007 I finally made it to the Bush White House as a presidential speechwriter. But it was not at all what I envisioned. It was less like Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing and more like The Office. After watching Karl Rove’s bizarre farewell to White House staffers and hearing the president dismiss the conservative movement I believed in (“I know it sounds arrogant to say,” he told me, “but I redefined the Republican Party”), I thought I could muddle through till the end. Washington might not have been the city I had dreamed of, but I figured things couldn’t get much worse.
Oh my god, die. Look at the sadness and despair you brought to America’s single most promising young human being, you inept cock-slaps in Washington! Of which Matt Latimer is still not a creature!
In the first months I worked at the White House, I wrote any number of speeches praising America’s economic prosperity. There’d been month after month of uninterrupted job growth, after-tax income was increasing, exports were rising, inflation was down. “The fundamentals of our economy are strong,” we’d write. Because that’s what we’d been told.
‘Twas a betrayal of the highest degree, to us, the word-writers! These things we’d been told: falsehoods. LIES, MY GOOD MAN, ECONOMIC LIES OF WASHINGTON!
Paulson was supposed to be a nonideological, pragmatic, sensible type. He was bald with glasses and had a scratchy voice that sounded like he had a thousand-dollar bill caught in his throat.
Editor Juli translates: “Paulson loved eating money. This is why the economy became so bad, because he ate all the money, we’d write. Because that’s what we were told.”
To look like we were doing more, we announced various initiatives, such as assembling an alliance to encourage lenders to renegotiate loans. For a while, the communications guys—Ed Gillespie and Kevin Sullivan—wanted the president to give a toll-free number for Americans to call for assistance with their mortgages. I thought that was embarrassing, as if George W. Bush were Jerry Lewis.
Oh, ha ha ha, ha ha, “ha,” indeed, do you see what I just did there, hmm? I turned a remarkable phrase, with trenchant wit. This is what I do, because I am Matt Latimer. Those cretins Ed Gillespie and Kevin Sullivan produced what, in their own little minds, seemed like a bon idee — helping humans with their house payments, or “mort-gages,” a word I invented because I am smart — but how very drab and tacky this potentially useful help line would have been. Telephone hotlines! In these corridors!
Of course, this threw the proverbial monkey wrench into our plans—and at the eleventh hour.
That’s an actual sentence that GQ magazine published, in whatever context. We’re done.
But maybe you’ll have a different reaction.
ME TALK PRESIDENTIAL ONE DAY [GQ]
{ 105 comments }
BYRON YORK even talked shit about our friend Matt. This is not looking good for the boy.
He joined the Bush White House in 2007? What, was Taco Bell not hiring that week?
This is why we must not elect Ben Konop.
Well I am glad he pointed out that said “monkey wrench” was “proverbial,” and not one of W’s actual wrenches. Because I can’t imagine him fixing anything, although I do like what he did to the GOP.
Those passages LITERALLY “drove me up the wall” — without a paddle — in a proverbial balloon full of “hot air,” if you know what I mean. (Not to mix metaphors.)
He left out the part where Cheney gave out Cheney bucks to those staffers who showed the most banal evil.
I think the W phone idea would have been goddamned hilarious (for us.) Considering the depth of W’s compassion and intellect, this would have ended badly for pretty everyone else involved.
No, I don’t have a different reaction.
If it is an expose about the Bush WH, all I want to know is: who is sleeping with whom, who is secretly dating, and a list of staff favorite movies and snacks.
He has a banal wit and an awkward prose. I expect to his tomes to someday populate the checkout isles of our finest Duane Reade’s.
So GW Bush was a better judge of Sarah Palin than JS McCain?
Maybe he reads Wonkette…
Jerry Lewis was a master of eloquence compared to George W. Bush.
what a fucking self-important, insufferable asshole. i weep for his baffled liberal parents.
this is what we needed, though…another viewpoint from inside the circus that was the W presidency.
I don’t know, he doesn’t seem anymore of a douche than the rest of that crowd.
“He was bald with glasses and had a scratchy voice that sounded like he had a thousand-dollar bill caught in his throat.”
I’m been firmly against the whole torture thing, but after reading these excerpts, I might be persuaded to endorse the enhanced-interrogation technique of moneyboarding.
I love that proverb about the monkey wrench. It’s a Jewish place in Texas where they have horses and monkeys.
$50 says any 800 number Bush gave out would have turned into one of those inevitable “government official mistakingly gives out phone sex number instead of public assistance number” deals.
[re=411307]sad tortoise[/re]: No Josh Goldberg beat him it.
[re=411328]El Pinche[/re]: EDIT: ..him to it.
Too good to have been ghost-written by W himself?
[re=411320]OzoneTom[/re]: If ever there was evidence that WALNUTS! was a fuckup from the beginning, GW making the call that quick is plenty. I do like the bit about W claiming to have changed the republican party. That he did.
Gay. That is all.
Come on, admit it – Dan Brown wrote that shit, it’s got his semi-literate style all over it.
[re=411334]Rotundo[/re]: Right that. Too bad that we can’t have two sane parties…
Also, Jim Newell, this…
It is one of this shittiest pieces of writing, ever, or at least since Uncle Tom’s Cabin
made me starburst repeatedly and with astounding alacrity. Also. As well.
Most shocking GWB revelation: “he was wearing Crocs.”
Because we are morons, who don’t “read newspapers” or “question the stream of bullshit we’re sucking down.”
I don’t know. If the title of the article is “Me Talk Presidential One Day,” doesn’t that indicate a level of self-mockery that indicates GQ knows the article is a POS? Or am I giving them too much credit?
I’d always dreamed of heading to Washington to work for a conservative president and help usher in another Reagan Revolution — This is more Chele Stanton, right? We found out yesterday she is a poet and actress and singer and therapist and minister but today we find out she also is a former Bush speechwriter, too, right? Is Chele Stanton everybody who’s not us? Because I’m reasonably sure today we’re not all Chele Stanton. But she seems to be everybody else.
[re=411325]One Yield Regular[/re]: “moneyboarding.” Excellent, person with numbers instead of screen name.
The Bush WH was so transparently inept and evil that these books are nothing but a yawn–the keep telling us what we knew all along. The book I’d like to read, and one that would be useful for generations to come, is how the they managed to fuck up govt with every single douchey idea they’d ever had, execute said idea and do it overnight.
Like producing a bill about a foot thick called The Patriot Act, and have it to the printers within 24 hours, or whatever the turn around time? How did they get their tentacles into the smallest branches of govt, like editing the fish lady’s recommendations for putting 8 fish on the endangered list and reducing it to 1 fish without her having any input.
By the time Democrats woke up from their post-election blues hangover, the Republics were using GSA contracts to further douche bag careers.
I’m not a truther and don’t believe that they exploded the WTC or anything. I just want to know how the fuck they used it to their own advantage in a 48 hour turnaround time. And how they transformed the federal bureaucracy at warp speed.
How did they do it? BTW–I don’t believe in conspiracies. I believe entities work in their own self interest (like multi national corporate cocksuckers) and when those interests intersect, they cooperate with each other. But to do what they did to this country and do it so fast, someone had to be in charge. (Lookin’ at you, Karl and Dick).
After reading the article, I think he should refund whatever money he was paid to taxpayers because he was clearly overpaid.
“I wrote any number of speeches praising America’s economic prosperity.”
Picking a nit from the back of the proverbial flea infested monkey… Any number? Zero? A million billion? Square root of negative one? Please be more clearer!
[re=411338]bumfug[/re]: My thought as well.
That article is a cruel hoax.
[re=411339]OzoneTom[/re]: I’d take one right now.
flint is his “sleepy” hometown. “sleepy” as in, i’ve been unemployed since the mid 80s and drink three pints of royal gate a day, which, you know, makes me “sleepy.”
What is this, a cruel hoax?
Editor Juli translates: “Paulson loved eating money. This is why the economy became so bad, because he ate all the money, we’d write. Because that’s what we were told.”
Move over, H. L. Mencken.
This was Bush’s speechwriter? No wonder.
[re=411346]DustBowlBlues[/re]: Well you don’t need to believe in a conspiracy per se to think that maybe they sorta knew something was gonna happen (“bin laden determined…”) and figured hey this could be a good way to grab some power and invade iraq. Then when it happened…”holy shit! I didn’t know ‘my pet goat’ had such a wow finish!”
I dunno, I’m not a truther either, but you’re right–they sure exploited the shit out of 911 and did it fast.
“The president asked his secretary, Karen, to bring him the Rose Garden remarks he’d just delivered that day, September 19, announcing his action plan. He got slightly exasperated when she was delayed in printing them out. When he finally got them, he put his half-glasses on and looked at them. ‘See, this was fine today,’ he said. ‘But we got to make this understandable for the average cat.’”
Either W is a beatnik, or finishing the speech by rubbing his ass up against the podium now makes a lot more sense.
Do you think this douchetini got kicked out of Flint because he sucks too much to live there and not drag the place down further? I would love to get Michael Moore’s thoughts on this.
“At the Pentagon, as chief speechwriter to Donald Rumsfeld, I battled an entrenched civil-service system and an inept communications team.”
What a fucking hero! That inept communications team is probably what failed to tell Bush about “Bin Laden determined to attack US with airplanes.” And that entrenched civil service: by golly, they didn’t want to go war in Iraq, because it would be an interminable quagmire. Thank goodness Rummy was successful on overcoming their resistance!
If you have to brag about being “chief speechwriter” (how many did he have) to Rummy, your career is in serious trouble.
Here’s the material I’m shopping around on the content of Latimer’s “revelations.” Call me, Leno.
1. What he said about Palin was insulting…to Guam
2. Has he ever peeked around the back of his wife? People who sleep with big-A’ed Texan glass houses…
3. If W says you are being “put in a position you are not remotely prepared for” you are in way over your head.
4. Except he didn’t say “keister.” And he didn’t say “cat.”
“The president, like me, didn’t seem to be in love with any of the available options. ”
Good thing he checked with you, Matt! God knows what he might have done otherwise.
[re=411332]El Pinche[/re]: “Josh Goldberg. Beat him…no, edit: it.” fixed that for you.
There’s another passage in there where he says that Obama isn’t qualified to be President because of how little experience he has and how dangerous the world is. Unlike, say, the experience one gets in handling international affairs by being the Governor of Texas.
He also is supposed to have said Hillary had a fat ass.
I especially liked the part about how insulting to his dignity it was to write remarks for Carter. Oh, yes, it must’ve hurt to give up his precious integrity that he’d built up spending a year writing remarks about shit he didn’t have the slightest clue about for a historically terrible president! However did he get through it?
Also, I’m a little disturbed that Bush apparently used the word “cat” like he was an old-school blues musician. The incoherently talking to himself thing fits my perception of him perfectly, though.
Today, we are all baffled liberal parents.
[re=411342]The Toot[/re]: Poor Matt is just a poor, id-o-rant backwoods boy from Flint, with a masters from Columbia and a JD from U. of Michigan. He don’t know how to question nothin’.
Who would hire this dickwad?
George W. Bush, who threw a non-proverbial monkey wrench at America.
[re=411318]Crab1[/re]: Will presidential footwear do? “Even more distressing, he was wearing Crocs.”
[re=411346]DustBowlBlues[/re]: The PATRIOT Act (to spell it as they did at the time) was pretty much a laundry list of repressive legislation. It’s not hard to believe they’d been working on it for a while when through either Presidential ineptitude or perfidy (or both) came the perfect storm of circumstances for them to get away with it.
Well then. At least we’ve been given an explanation for why Dubya’s speeches sounded like they were penned by a fourth grader. Mystery solved.
[re=411315]ManchuCandidate[/re]: What’s the ratio of Cheney bucks to Rove nickels?
As usual, I have a different reaction. “Encourage lenders to renogiate loans”, to me, might conceivably fall into the “helping humans” category; some bullshit 1-800 number that plays patriotic music while you are in the queue and you can’t make your payments falls into the Communications-Guys-let’s “look like we are trying to do more”-shitsack category.
And in general, yes, if congressmen think Eisenhower was assassinated or are prone to deciding policy based on flourishy anecdotes about buggery on Roman slaveships, I do want an insider to write a tell-all about it, even if it is self-serving and badly written. Big deal. But I do want the name of the congressman included!
Is Latimer a prick? Without a doubt. His youthful idealism that told him Flint needs another Reagan revolution answers that nicely.
To this day, I don’t really understand what happened.
Truer words were never typed.
GQ should stay with pictures of Adriana Lima in her underwear.
[re=411361]ragepotato[/re]: Why, I’d petition for Wm. Shatner to reprise his role as Beatnik poetical interpreteur, starting with that children’s treasury of Biblical Quotes culled from Rumsfeld’s briefings to Shrub. With Rummy and Ashcroft providing backup on Bongo and upright bass.
[re=411315]ManchuCandidate[/re]: Don’t scoff at those CheneyBucks, those are good for a box seat at the End of Days.
Ahhh. This post is almost better than the ones you write about Peggy Noonington……
[re=411343]Lascauxcaveman[/re]: It makes me think GQ has something against David Sedaris.
I would’ve gone with something simple like “Latimer’s Nerd”, or perhaps “Letters: From Pentouse to the Whitehouse”.
[re=411361]ragepotato[/re]: “…and all the starving cool cats, doing a heckuva job, not knowing how they were going to put food on their family, blowing like Stan, like Gerry, wild wailing walls of saxophone tumbling down like Africa, there’s a nation that suffers from incredible disease, and there at the top of the stairs was beautiful Mardou, so misunderestimated, made me want to practice my love with women across the country like an ob/gyn doctor, there she was, tripping down the stairs from the Lincoln bedroom where everyone smoked tea and talked free and fast like hepcats hopping freight trains across this whole wide country where wings take dream, and it was all mine, the country, and I thought, I’m the decider, I do not need to explain why I say things, that’s the interesting thing about being President, and I stepped out into the cool night and went looking for a stiff drink.”
There’s this:
“Why did I sign on to this proposal if I don’t understand what it does?” he asked.
Which seems to wrap up the whole eight years of this jackasss.
And then this:
“The president was clearly frustrated with what was going on, but there was little he could do at this late hour. He went up to take a nap, ….
Even more distressing, he was wearing Crocs.”
Thousands of aspiring writers are weeping into their MSs because this bright spark got published and they didn’t. To quote an associate, “This one should be tied to a tree and hit with a sack of his own sh**.”
[re=411346]DustBowlBlues[/re]: No, they DID blow up the WTC.
Just sayin’
[re=411415]One Yield Regular[/re]: *snap* *snap* *snap*
Here’s a thought, college puke: Talk about your fucking ideals all you want to, but in the Bush Administration, you’re a federal fucking employee, and on the dole. Write a goddamned speech.
According to legistorm.com the only member of Congress Matthew Latimer received a salary from was John Kyl- who presumably is the senator who hid from everybody.
[re=411309]YouveBrokenApeLaw[/re]: hahahahaha!
What is this, a giant HOAX?
If we take Latimer at his “proverbial” (written) word, we may finally be able to understand the Bush presidency a little better. W may not have frequently misspoke as we all assumed, but rather he was just doing what he’d been told by reading speeches written by poorly trained apes like Matt Latimer. Throwing wrenches in plans, not gears nor cogs, but plans. It probably wasn’t misspeaking either, but rather Latimer’s genius shining through as he invented new “proverbial” proverbs… Perhaps we really should start putting food on our families…
Well,
I, for one, take umbrage to the insult flung at one Harriet Beecher Stowe.
The rest, yeah.
[re=411415]One Yield Regular[/re]: Bravo, man.
[re=411412]MarSF[/re]: I believe young Matt is the illegitimate son of Peggington.
As for Our Dear ex-Leader, the guy who made a huge fuss about everyone wearing a tie in the Oval was wearing “Crocs?” Damn, he could at least have stayed true to his Thurston P. Howell III heritage and worn Topsiders.
“The president was clearly frustrated with what was going on, but there was little he could do at this late hour. He went up to take a nap, ….”
Ronnie Reagan also enjoyed taking naps, so Matt, you should be very proud. In a way, you were part of a new Reagan Revolution.
Too bad the old geezers didn’t nap more often. It would have saved this country alot of despair.
[re=411341]TCDang[/re]: [re=411445]CaliforniaMike[/re]: [re=411416]Native of SL UT[/re]: Andrew Card is not going to be happy with the whole Crocs revelation.
[re=411326]bfstevie[/re]: very good- Borscht belt joke
[re=411361]ragepotato[/re]: And maybe he just thought he was going to talk to a bunch of meow- meow cats.
[re=411318]Crab1[/re]: Monica Goodling now gives head, but only to her steady. The twins no longer hold anyone’s fascination, because a) one of ‘em got married, and b) they half look like their father. The Obama administration is still investigating the pewter talismans that were suspended in every cardinal direction in the Oval Office. Alberto Gonzales may be unemployed a bit longer, but he can stretch it out more if he’ll break that goddamned Omerta and snag on some folks for easy cash.
Dear Penthouse,
I never thought this would ever happen to me. As a young political geek growing up in Flint, Michigan, I’d always dreamed of heading to Washington to work for a conservative president and help usher in another Reagan Revolution.
I think this is where he gets to fuck Lucianne Goldberg.
Paulson was supposed to be nonideological but he was BALD? Jesus no wonder Matt sold out.
According to his wiki page, “He was best known for his floppy hair.” That sounds about right.
[re=411341]TCDang[/re]: That really repulsed me for some reason, actually anyone wearing Crocs repulses me, I can imagine their foul, sweat-soaked feet sliding around in the pastel , plastic , gnarly footwear.
[re=411315]ManchuCandidate[/re]: You don’t remember when they actually set up that hotline and Bush gave out the wrong damn number? http://wonkette.com/331234/home-relief-for-christians-only
It was hilarious in a That-George-Bush-Will-Be-the-Death-of-Us-All-Ha-Ha sort of way.
Can we stop using the adjective “proverbial,” except as it pertains to actual proverbs?
I don’t recall the Proverb of the Monkey Wrench.
And, as it happens, Jerry Lewis has too much dignity to be associated with Bush.
Moar blockquotes plz?
Poor Matt Latimer; Molly Ivins – High Priestess and Grand Vizier of all things Tilda Swinton – said it so much better so long ago (before the dying).
George Bush was an expert on campaigning for the win; he just didn’t care for governing and stuff.
[re=411520]ericblair[/re]: How about this: “A turd in the hand is worth two name of Bush.”
The first clue to his unspeakable treacherousness was his admission that he drove a Dodge product while residing in Buick City. Was he not vetted?
And finally, we get confirmation that by the end of it, W was a beaten, unhappy, profane (in the deepest sense of the word) man, wondering where it all went wrong and why everything turned to shit.
Matt Latimer would be just so precious in Nijinsky’s role in “L’après-midi d’un faune.”
http://cocteausdress.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/408px-bakst_nizhinsky01.jpg
“I know it sounds arrogant to say,” he told me, “but I redefined the Republican Party”
I know you voted for him Matt. & you certainly helped his team of cretins continue despoiling the country.
Douche-y indeed.
The whole article has the breathless quality of a Penthouse forum article:
The president looked relaxed and was sitting behind the Resolute desk. He felt he’d made the major decision that everyone had been asking for. That always seemed to relax him. He liked being decisive. Excuse me, boldly decisive. The president seemed to be thinking of his memoirs. “This might go in as a big decision,” he mused.
“Definitely, Mr. President,” someone else observed. “This is a large decision.”
He then swiftly unzipped his pants and asked whether we thought his penis, which he nicknamed “Dick” was likewise big and bold…
I was hoping someone would write a Secret History of the Bush regime, but this isn’t it. Nothing about Cheney walking around late at night with his head under his arm or Condi wishing she had four portals for the emissaries of Cupid, instead of only three.
So what next?
[re=411318]Crab1[/re]: YES! I always suspect George was having double headers with Laura and Condi, with Ms. Zhao from Commerce invited in sometimes for variety!
“How did they do it?”
Everything was just ready, and when a good crisis came along, they ran with it. Lots of Americans want some kind of authoritarian regime, with a rubber stamp congress, etc. Look at your favorite 3rd world oligarchy for a view of the future, too.
[re=411418]Way Cool Larry[/re]: Everything they genuinely did was F****ED UP! How could they blow up the WTC? At most, they collaborated with Bin Laden (who is a brilliant strategist, I’m sorry to say).
Hmm, shitty writing. Bush speechwriter. DOES NOT COMPUTE
It must have really sucked to be a Bush speechwriter when he started drinking again. It’s not like his sober years were great, but you might as well forget a TeleproMpTer when someone starts drinking.
There is a little know translation of the Bible which was completed at the direction of President George W. Bush. Excerpt:
(King James version of the quote attributed to Jesus on the cross:)
“My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
– now translated –
“What is this, a cruel hoax?”
Is this the W we were all supposed to want to have a beer with? Because, I think, that might be fun, the whole illegal war thing notwithstanding, yes?
Wha?! Wait a minute. A conservative Republican from Flint, Michigan?! Really, you guys don’t know Flint. He must have literally been the very last conservative Republican from Flint that all of the residents talk about.
Up until know, I only believed ‘Flint Republicans’ to be an urban legend. You know, like El Chupacabra, Bigfoot, or Jesus.
I’m certain I just read this post on the DC Interns blog…
Worst President Ever. Worst staff of morons ever. Glad you’re gone. Never come back.
It should end with the sentence, “Mom, Dad, America, every other country in the world and their people (especially Angela Merkel, what a piece of ass MEOW!), I’m sorry for helping such an enormous shitbag. I’m going to self-immolate because I’m so filled with guilt. Bye now! Monkey wrench.”
Can you think of a better insult than that? Or is your menstruation cycle just overloaded today?
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