A longtime senior speechwriter for President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, John P. McConnell was part of the three-person team responsible for all of the 43rd president’s major addresses, including the speech to the Joint Session of Congress after September 11, 2001 and four State of the Union messages. McConnell served all eight years of the Bush-Cheney administration, holding the unique position of both deputy assistant to the president and assistant to the vice president. Previously he had worked as a speechwriter for Vice President Dan Quayle and Senator Bob Dole, and traveled extensively with both during national campaigns. He is a former resident fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics in the John F. Kennedy School of Government and is currently a trustee of Wayland Academy and serves as Chairman of the Selection Committee for the annual Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency.