Al Kamen: Speeches That Keep On Giving

[BurtWorm]

From the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/05/AR2009020503178_pf.html

Friday, February 6, 2009; A15

A few hundred or so former and current Department of Homeland Security people are finding it much easier to get to sleep these days, thanks to a lovely present from their former boss Michael Chertoff. The gift? A truly thoughtful book, which cost the department $11,200 to put together, called "Select Speeches" -- as in a selection of speeches given by Secretary Chertoff between 2005 and 2008.

Not available in bookstores, the lovely, 315-page paperback, making the rounds in Washington recently, was given to between 200 and 300 DHS folks, putting the cost per book at $37 to $55. That may sound like a lot, but the paper that DHS used to print the book is very heavy.

There are no pictures, and there is no foreword -- nothing but a compilation of 36 of Chertoff's finest and most memorable talks, including this admonition in a speech on Oct. 1, 2005, at Princeton University:

"If we are going to arrive at a day when terrorism no longer casts a dark cloud over the civilized world, we have to be prepared to advance international cooperation to hitherto unseen heights. And that's because . . . terrorism is also spreading its ideology of hatred and intolerance around the world, and we have to match it in geographic location point by point." (No, not that we have to be equally evil. We're pretty sure he meant match it with our ideology of brotherhood and tolerance.)

There's his famous "Remarks on the Second Stage Review" in March 2006 at the Heritage Foundation, in which he talked about lessons learned from the Hurricane Katrina fiasco, saying that "the essence of preparedness is planning and integration of execution." That might be remembered long after Washington's Farewell Address is forgotten.

If you weren't lucky enough to get one of these books, remember: Chertoff is writing his own book

[tanyev]

1. You don't have to be an egomaniac to be a Republican, but it sure helps.