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American Morning

Talk with Former Bush Sr. Speechwriter

Aired January 28, 2003 - 10:23   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And we are focusing on the State of the Union Address. Turning policy plans into inspiring presidential prose is never an easy job. That's the task of White House speechwriters. They try to make the president sound good, while staying far in the background. Out in the foreground today is former speech writer for the first President Bush, Daniel McGroarty. He is with us from Washington.
Dan, good morning. Thanks for being with us.

DAN MCGROARTY, FMR. BUSH SR. SPEECHWRITER: Good morning. Thanks, Daryn. I'm happy to be with you.

KAGAN: State of the Union Address, always a big night, a very important speech, but in terms of rating State of the Union Addresses, how big is this one for President Bush tonight?

MCGROARTY: Well, I always have a bit of resistance against the speech of the century comparisons that are made about every State of the Union, but I think tonight, clearly, is more important than most. The bookend aspect, the fact this comes a day after the Blix report and a day before the U.N. Security Council deliberations really heightens the interest in the speech tonight and gives you a sense of the opportunity the president has to make his case to the American people and the world.

KAGAN: We just saw a picture right before we see President Bush there. I think he's practicing there at the podium. But before that, you see him gathering with speechwriters in the Oval Office. Talk us through how this process works. It's not just like you're assigned the State of the Union, you hand it over to the president, and that's what we hear at 9:00 tonight.

MCGROARTY: Don't we wish.

You get it right on the first try, and you're looking for something else to do. No, the process starts months back, when you frame out the themes that you want to work in this particular speech, and when you start to frame together the different component parts, in terms of policy, that you're going to want to treat here.

As your viewers would understand, there's a lot of wastage. You are guess and you're writing provisionally parts of the speech that you don't use. There's that aspect to it. So you want to pull the lead writer off of every other assignment a couple of months so they can to work this speech. I talked a couple of times over the last couple of days, and as late as this morning with friend of mine who is very close to the process at the White House. This speech this year is pretty subtle. This is a White House that doesn't rewrite these speeches on the motorcade on the way down to the Hill or call through changes to the teleprompter. So the president's going to be doing -- I would -- he might even not do any more rehearses today, so he doesn't deaden the speech. I know he's rehearsed it a couple of times. But Hans Blix was talking today, and all those things have to continue to be factored into the speech.

KAGAN: Right, kind of like our job over here, breaking news changes what you have to say at the time...

MCGROARTY: That's happening this year.

KAGAN: Absolutely. Now you mentioned international concerns, and of course that's at the top of a lot of people's lists. But the concern to a lot of Americans are domestic issues, issues like unemployment and health care. How do you go about and everything in and address what people are waiting to hear at home?

MCGROARTY: That's the perennial problem with every State of the Union speech, how to control the message and how to move across the various topics that you have to treat. If you talk all about one thing, then there's something else where you are not addressing the concerns of the American people. We know the president will be talking about the war with Iraq, the impending conflict, the causes and the consequences of it.

We know he's going to have talk about the weak economy. Is he also -- people are also talking about building in some aspect where he treats Medicare reform. That's a lot, and that's probably enough. The question will be what sort of inter-relationships get played out in the context of the speech tonight. You want to control the message. You don't want to have it be a parade of paragraphs where people take away what they want. You want to govern it with some sort of overriding theme.

KAGAN: And Dam, just real quickly, a couple of words, as we go, how hard is it to be on the sidelines on a night like tonight?

MCGROARTY: I'm happy on the sidelines. I still remember vividly my own experience as a State of the Union survivor. So it's OK for me to be here on this side.

KAGAN: I sense a new reality game show out there, being a speech writer at the White House. You survived.

MCGROARTY: That's unreality, unreality show.

KAGAN: Daniel McGroarty, thank you so much for joining us.

MCGROARTY: Thanks, Daryn.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired January 28, 2003 - 10:23   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And we are focusing on the State of the Union Address. Turning policy plans into inspiring presidential prose is never an easy job. That's the task of White House speechwriters. They try to make the president sound good, while staying far in the background. Out in the foreground today is former speech writer for the first President Bush, Daniel McGroarty. He is with us from Washington.
Dan, good morning. Thanks for being with us.

DAN MCGROARTY, FMR. BUSH SR. SPEECHWRITER: Good morning. Thanks, Daryn. I'm happy to be with you.

KAGAN: State of the Union Address, always a big night, a very important speech, but in terms of rating State of the Union Addresses, how big is this one for President Bush tonight?

MCGROARTY: Well, I always have a bit of resistance against the speech of the century comparisons that are made about every State of the Union, but I think tonight, clearly, is more important than most. The bookend aspect, the fact this comes a day after the Blix report and a day before the U.N. Security Council deliberations really heightens the interest in the speech tonight and gives you a sense of the opportunity the president has to make his case to the American people and the world.

KAGAN: We just saw a picture right before we see President Bush there. I think he's practicing there at the podium. But before that, you see him gathering with speechwriters in the Oval Office. Talk us through how this process works. It's not just like you're assigned the State of the Union, you hand it over to the president, and that's what we hear at 9:00 tonight.

MCGROARTY: Don't we wish.

You get it right on the first try, and you're looking for something else to do. No, the process starts months back, when you frame out the themes that you want to work in this particular speech, and when you start to frame together the different component parts, in terms of policy, that you're going to want to treat here.

As your viewers would understand, there's a lot of wastage. You are guess and you're writing provisionally parts of the speech that you don't use. There's that aspect to it. So you want to pull the lead writer off of every other assignment a couple of months so they can to work this speech. I talked a couple of times over the last couple of days, and as late as this morning with friend of mine who is very close to the process at the White House. This speech this year is pretty subtle. This is a White House that doesn't rewrite these speeches on the motorcade on the way down to the Hill or call through changes to the teleprompter. So the president's going to be doing -- I would -- he might even not do any more rehearses today, so he doesn't deaden the speech. I know he's rehearsed it a couple of times. But Hans Blix was talking today, and all those things have to continue to be factored into the speech.

KAGAN: Right, kind of like our job over here, breaking news changes what you have to say at the time...

MCGROARTY: That's happening this year.

KAGAN: Absolutely. Now you mentioned international concerns, and of course that's at the top of a lot of people's lists. But the concern to a lot of Americans are domestic issues, issues like unemployment and health care. How do you go about and everything in and address what people are waiting to hear at home?

MCGROARTY: That's the perennial problem with every State of the Union speech, how to control the message and how to move across the various topics that you have to treat. If you talk all about one thing, then there's something else where you are not addressing the concerns of the American people. We know the president will be talking about the war with Iraq, the impending conflict, the causes and the consequences of it.

We know he's going to have talk about the weak economy. Is he also -- people are also talking about building in some aspect where he treats Medicare reform. That's a lot, and that's probably enough. The question will be what sort of inter-relationships get played out in the context of the speech tonight. You want to control the message. You don't want to have it be a parade of paragraphs where people take away what they want. You want to govern it with some sort of overriding theme.

KAGAN: And Dam, just real quickly, a couple of words, as we go, how hard is it to be on the sidelines on a night like tonight?

MCGROARTY: I'm happy on the sidelines. I still remember vividly my own experience as a State of the Union survivor. So it's OK for me to be here on this side.

KAGAN: I sense a new reality game show out there, being a speech writer at the White House. You survived.

MCGROARTY: That's unreality, unreality show.

KAGAN: Daniel McGroarty, thank you so much for joining us.

MCGROARTY: Thanks, Daryn.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com