This will be of most interest to Beltway obsessives, but Matt Latimer has a letter today responding (I use the word loosely) to Ed Gillespie’s item the other day about his tell-all book. To recap, Gillespie wrote this:

In the letters section of the Wall Street Journal today, Speech-less author Matt Latimer implies that he is not really very involved in writing former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s book — that he doesn’t “finally report to” Rumsfeld, and is more a proofreader for the publisher than a ghostwriter for the author. I found this statement incredible. When I was a counselor to President Bush with responsibility for his speechwriters, Latimer told us the reason he would be leaving months early, breaking his commitment to serve through the end of the term, was that Rumsfeld insisted Latimer leave the White House immediately to help write his book.
I am surprised that no reporter has yet asked either Donald Rumsfeld or Crown Publishing whether Rumsfeld hired Latimer or not, and whether Latimer has a financial stake in the sales of Rumsfeld’s memoirs — something not disclosed in his own book. It would be a revealing omission for someone purporting to be an unvarnished truth-teller, given that the author lacerates virtually everyone he ever worked with or for — except Rumsfeld.

That’s relevant because Latimer dumps on most everyone in the book with a few exceptions including — oddly enough — Don Rumsfeld. Latimer immediately contacted us. I told him any response should, for the sake of the record, deal with the Rumsfeld business. He sent his bit without so much as mentioning, let alone rebutting, the Rumsfeld business. I told him it really would be much stronger if he addressed the Rumsfeld matter. He said he’d rather leave it the way it is. I said okay, but if there was anything I should know that would suggest Gillespie was wrong — i.e., that Latimer hadn’t told the White House he was leaving to work on the Rumsfeld book he now denies having much to do with — he really should let me know so I wouldn’t draw the wrong conclusions. He sent back an e-mail evading me. And when I wrote that usually when someone has absolutely nothing to say to defend himself, it’s a sign he’s been nailed, he wrote back nothing at all. The memoirist had been struck dumb.

I know and like a lot of the people Latimer trashes in his book (a capacious category, to be sure), so I won’t go on here, but I thought that this information was important for people who might be mystified by this non-responsive exchange.