David Frum, a conservative who worked as a Bush speechwriter, has written that "conspicuous intelligence seemed actively unwelcome in the Bush White House."

Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, is the author of a bestselling White House memoir and two highly intelligent books on American politics and society.

"This whole country was born of voluntarism," said Peggy Noonan, a former Bush speechwriter who coined the phrase when she wrote his acceptance address.

Mr. Maher recently introduced David Frum, the former Bush speechwriter associated with the phrase "axis of evil," as part of the show's "axis of entertainment," but that was a wish.

"The legendary ones are the senators," said David Frum, a fellow with the American Enterprise Institute and a former Bush speechwriter.

As Matt Latimer observed in his account of his years as a Bush speechwriter, "Speech-Less," there was no hint of Aaron Sorkin's "West Wing" sexiness.

In 2003, David Frum, a conservative columnist and former Bush speechwriter, denounced the "American elite" for its "combination of guilt and self-doubt."

They find him modest and, in the phrase of a former Bush speechwriter, Christopher Buckley, "a class act."

When I asked Peggy Noonan, the Bush speechwriter, for a synonymous phrase, she instantly said, "Uneven cuts"; we can look for that phrase in future answers.

Perhaps Bush speechwriters chose this challenging rhetoric without understanding its full implications.