Writing Checks

Heroic Conservatism: Why Republicans Need to Embrace America’s Ideals (And Why They Deserve to Fail If They Don’t), by Michael J. Gerson (HarperOne, 320 pp., $26.95)

SHORTLY before the scheduled publication of this book, The Atlantic magazine published a scorching article by Michael Gerson’s former White House speechwriting colleague, Matthew Scully. In painstaking detail, Scully depicted Gerson as a man who distorted the record to magnify his own role in events.