Matthew Scully

President George W. Bush prepares his State of the Union speech with Dan Bartlett, White House Communications Director, at left, Mike Gerson, director of Presidential Speechwriting, and speech writers Matthew Scully and John McConnell in the Oval Office Thursday, January 23, 2003.

Matthew Scully (born March 30, 1959) is an American author, journalist, and speechwriter.

Biography

Scully was born and raised in Casper, Wyoming. He attended Arizona State University in the 1980s. He married Emmanuelle Boers in 1998. They live in Los Angeles.

Career

Scully worked as a speechwriter in the 2000 presidential campaign, and served as a special assistant and senior speechwriter for President George W. Bush from January 2001 to August 2004. He also wrote speeches for vice-presidents Dan Quayle and Dick Cheney, Governor Robert P. Casey of Pennsylvania, and Bob Dole.

In an article in The Atlantic, Scully accused former White House chief speechwriter Michael Gerson of wrongfully taking credit for speeches allegedly written by Scully and other members of President George W. Bush's speechwriting team.

Palin acceptance speech

Prior to the 2008 Republican National Convention, Senator John McCain (the Republican Presidential nominee to-be) asked Scully to write the acceptance speech for his Vice Presidential nominee, whom McCain had not yet chosen. Scully wrote the speech two weeks before the convention. He wrote the speech for a man to deliver, not a woman. Four days before the convention, Scully was surprised when he was informed that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was to be McCain's running mate. Scully then worked all night to tailor the speech to Palin and also to incorporate new campaign strategy shifts that were being rapidly formed in intensive discussions by McCain campaign staff.

Palin delivered the 40-minute speech at the convention on September 3, 2008.

Literary career

Scully is the author of Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy (2002), described by Natalie Angier in a book review published in The New York Times (October 27, 2002) as a "horrible, wonderful, important book.... because the author, an avowed conservative Republican and former speechwriter for George W. Bush, is an unexpected defender of the animals against the depredations of profit driven corporations, swaggering, gun-loving hunters, proponents of renewed 'harvesting' of whales and elephants and others who insist that all of nature is humanity's romper room, to play with, rearrange, and plunder at will." Nichols Fox in a review published in The Washington Post wrote that Dominion is "destined to become a classic defense of mercy."

Scully served as literary editor of National Review magazine. He has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, and The American Conservative.

Works

• Scully wrote a chapter ("Fear factories: the case for compassionate conservatism for animals") of the book "CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation): the tragedy of industrial animal factories" (Daniel Imhoff, editor). San Rafael, California : Earth Aware, c2010. ISBN 9781601090584

External links

• "Animal Cruelty and Need for Reform", online discussion with Matthew Scully, Washington Post, August 25, 2004