Marc Thiessen

In 2010, he published the book Courting Disaster: How the C.I.A. Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack, which defended the use of torture during the George W. Bush administration, and claimed that the Obama administration's rejection of torture might lead to American deaths.

Thiessen has been a columnist for The Washington Post since March 2010. In his columns, he has criticized the Obama administration and advocated against the Iran nuclear deal. In 2020, he defended President Donald Trump’s decision to assassinate Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, saying it was "defensive, preemptive, and lawful."

Thiessen's first book, Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack, was published by Regnery Publishing in January 2010. In the book he argued that the CIA's systematic use of enhanced interrogation techniques was effective, lawful, and moral. The book was endorsed by the former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey. It reached the No. 9 spot on the New York Times Best Sellers list for hardcover nonfiction in February 2010.

In March 2009, Thiessen and Peter Schweizer founded the communications firm, Oval Office Writers LLC.

Since 2009, Thiessen has been a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is also a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

He joined the George W. Bush administration as Chief Speechwriter for Donald Rumsfeld in 2001, and later to Bush's speechwriting team in 2004. In February 2008, he became chief speechwriter when William McGurn resigned.

Thiessen has worked in Washington, D.C. for many years, starting with five years at the lobbying firm Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly. From 1995 to 2001, he served on Capitol Hill as spokesman and senior policy advisor to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R-NC).

Thiessen is a graduate of the Taft School (1985), a private prep school in Watertown, Connecticut. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Vassar College in 1989 and completed graduate studies at the Naval War College.

Marc Alexander Thiessen (born January 13, 1967) is an American author, political appointee, and weekly columnist for The Washington Post. Thiessen served as a speechwriter for United States President George W. Bush from 2004 to 2009 and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld from 2001 to 2006.

Thiessen was born on January 13, 1967. He grew up on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, where both his parents were doctors and "left-of-center liberal Democrat types". His mother grew up in Poland and fought as a teenager in the Warsaw Uprising, a military struggle in which his grandfather died.