-Caveat Lector- >From Slate.CoM "" What's troublesome is the evidence that Bush has an unusually distant relationship to the material in his speeches. "" The Guy Reading Mike Gerson's Speeches By: Jacob Weisberg Posted Wednesday, Oct. 13, 1999, at 2:36 p.m. E-Mail This Article Sign Up for E-mail Auto-Delivery It was the criticism of conservatives in George W. Bush's big speech on education last week that got all the attention. Far more interesting, though, was the idea of conservative activist government that the shrub articulated. "Our Founders rejected cynicism and cultivated a noble love of country. That love is undermined by sprawling, arrogant, aimless government. It is restored by focused and effective and energetic government," W. said. "And that should be our goal: a limited government, respected for doing a few things and doing them well." This phraseology recalled a series of articles written by David Brooks and William Kristol of the Weekly Standard in 1997 calling for what the authors dubbed "national greatness conservatism." The echoes of their writing in Bush's speech were very clear indeed. Brooks and Kristol cited examples of this kind of government from Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Reagan, citing the Homestead Act, the national parks, and the Panama Canal. Bush used the same presidents and the same examples. Kristol and Brooks called for "limited and energetic government." Bush called for "effective and energetic government." Brooks and Kristol: "Instead of arguing that government should be limited ... [Republicans] have often argued that government is itself evil." Bush: "Too often my party has confused the need for limited government with a disdain for government itself." What this shows, I think, is that Bush wasn't simply "triangulating" or "pushing off" right-wing conservatives like Robert Bork and Tom DeLay. He was tapping in (candidates being allowed to plagiarize from journalists) to a line of intelligent, moderate conservative argument about the federal government's rightful responsibilities. But the question arises: How did W. come to adopt the Brooks-Kristol concept of national-greatness conservatism? Or perhaps the question should be how the Brooks-Kristol concept found its way into his speech. The answer is Bush's chief speechwriter and senior policy adviser, Mike Gerson. Gerson is an evangelical Christian and one of the original champions of "faith- based social programs," an idea he promoted when he worked for Indiana Senator Dan Coats. Gerson's--I mean Coats'--idea, was to allow tax credits (and not just a deduction) for contributions to charities. Speechwriter Gerson is also credited with Bob Dole's attack on Hollywood in 1996 as well as the address Steve Forbes gave to the Christian Coalition in 1997, the one that convinced the religious right to accept Forbes' conversion from the supply side to the Lord's side. After a stint working as a journalist for U.S. News, he joined the Bush campaign this year. Gerson didn't return my phone calls, but the assumption that he is responsible for most of the intellectual and historical references in Bush's speeches--such as a tribute to Albert Shanker of the American Federation of Teachers in last week's address--is widespread among conservative insiders. Bush doesn't mention Al Shanker when speaking off the cuff. Of course, Bush is not the only politician who uses a speechwriter. What's troublesome is the evidence that Bush has an unusually distant relationship to the material in his speeches. Did Bush even read the Brooks and Kristol articles? His boast to the Washington Post a few months ago that he doesn't waste his time reading policy tomes, combined with the way he delivers his speeches, might lead you to suspect otherwise. Bush squints into the teleprompter, sounding out the words streaming by as if encountering them for the first time. In his education speech, he tripped over the term "exemplary," which came out of his mouth as "exemplarary," and he referred to the Walter Sisulu Children's Academy, a charter school named after the late ANC leader, as "Sizzle-oo." He called the Manhattan Institute, one of the more influential conservative think tanks, simply "Manhattan Institute," without the definite article, a minor-seeming mistake that suggests he doesn't fully grasp what he's saying. Bill Bennett unwittingly provided some additional support for this suspicion when he appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday and tried to defend Bush from the charge of conservative-bashing. Asked about Bush's slight against Bork, Bennett described it as "unfortunate." He continued: And I, as somebody who read that speech beforehand--and I will take some responsibility for not seeing that. The line is "Republicans who talk as if we're slouching toward Gomorrah." It was to represent a line of thought, not a personal attack on Bob Bork's book. But that's the title of the book. I think notes are going to Bob Bork, saying, you know, "It wasn't about you, Bob Bork, it was about a certain line of thinking." Bennett assumes Bush himself wouldn't know--and couldn't be expected to know-- that someone named Bork wrote the book Slouching Toward Gomorrah that Bush referred to. He makes it sound as if Bush has no more responsibility for what he says in a speech than Tom Brokaw does for a report he delivers on the nightly news. Bennett doesn't even think Bush is the one who owes Bork an apology! So who does? Must be Mike Gerson. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ explainer What Is Moore's Law? By Matt Alsdorf Last month, in Science magazine, a scientist wrote that the computer industry is "in serious danger" of violating Moore's Law. What is he referring to? Moore's Law is really just a prediction that the processing power of the state-of-the-art computer chip will double every 18 months. It's named after computer engineer Gordon Moore, a co-founder of the Intel Corporation. In 1965, Moore observed that since the invention of integrated circuits (or microchips) in 1959, the number of transistors that a chip of constant surface area could hold had doubled once every year or two. (Integrated circuits are the basic units of computer logic and memory, and transistors are the "on-off" switches that allow digital information to be transmitted, processed, and stored. The more transistors you can pack on a circuit, the more powerful the circuit becomes.) Moore simply predicted that this pattern would continue. Even though it's not really a law, Moore's prediction has held true for the past three decades. In fact, its hallowed status has made it self-fulfilling: Chipmakers and industry analysts now set their goals and forecasts based on Moore's Law. And because chip prices have decreased even as capacity has risen, the computer processing power available to consumers at a given price has doubled even more quickly. Since Moore's Law depends on the continuous shrinking of transistors, scientists generally agree that it will eventually be violated. Previous predictions that it would break down have proved incorrect, and most scientists expect Moore's Law to hold for at least 10-15 more years. But the Science article suggests that Moore's Law may encounter physical limits sooner. Transistors have already shrunk to one five-hundredth the width of a human hair. To adhere to Moore's Law, within five years engineers would have to create transistors that are only a few dozen atoms across--a feat that might be impossible, since atomic movement is so difficult to predict. Engineers are currently investigating new materials and technologies that might allow Moore's Law to survive this latest challenge. Next question? Something in the news you'd like explained? 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