Marshall Wittmann

Marshall Wittmann is a pundit, author, and sometime political activist. Currently, he is a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank affiliated with the Democratic Leadership Council. He served as the conservative Heritage Foundation's director of congressional relations. Wittman served as the Christian Coalition's director of legislative affairs, and as a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute. In the first Bush Administration, he served as the deputy assistant secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services. Wittmann also was the legislative representative with the National Association of Retired Federal Employees and a public affairs specialist with the National Treasury Employees Union. He holds both his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Michigan.

In his blog, Bull Moose Blog, Wittman refers to himself in third-person as "the Moose". For example Wittman writes "The Moose has enjoyed the distinct pleasure of being labeled both a Republican squish and a Rovian Plant"[1]. Wittman borrowed his nickname from Teddy Roosevelt, the former President Wittman admires. Wittman has changed his political party affiliation and often revamps his political philosophy. Wittmann describes himself as a member of the "McCainiac wing of the Democratic Party". "McCainiac" refers to senator John McCain, the conservative Republican and occasional critic of the Bush Administration for whom Wittman once worked for as an aide.

Though the Progressive Policy Institute is nominally a liberal institution, Marshall Wittman has become an object of derision among many progressives because of his defenses of the second Bush Administration and attacks on progressives. When President Bush's warrantless surveillance program was revealed, Wittman dismissed any concerns about the legality or constitutionality of the practice, describing concerns about civil liberties as "fevered imaginations of graying baby boomers and twenty-something bloggers" and opined that "The Democratic Party is increasingly under the influence of modern day McGovernites". [2] Furthermore, Wittman has claimed that vocal critics of President Bush constitute a "left wing Cult of Bush Hatred" because "in the left wing universe, one must oppose everything the President supports."[3]

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