Who speaks for Pope George?
ET CETRA Who speaks for Pope George? Success has a million fathers; failure is an orphan. By this measure, George W. Bush's recent commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame was a...
...Guess that rules him out as the president's ghostwriter...
...Commonweal 6 July 13,2001...
...The author of this encomium...
...Several people have told us, each with absolute authority, who drafted the speech...
...By this measure, George W. Bush's recent commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame was a success...
...Michael Novak...
...Still, the ideas could have been his, reworked a bit by White House wordsmiths...
...One name, emphatically reported, was Michael Novak, who also was present at Notre Dame as part of the presidential party...
...Frankly, the speech didn't read like Novak's prose, with which we're pretty familiar since, in a previous political existence, he was a columnist here...
...Now, however, we read a declaration from National Review Online that the president's address "is a marvelously succinct statement of first principles" and "should be produced as a pamphlet...
...Doesn't it...
...Unfortunately, the authoritative versions don't agree...
Vol. 128 • July 2001 • No. 13
