From a New York Times story by Peter Baker headlined “A Memorial to a Writer and His Now-Lonely Message of Compassion”:

In the middle hour of their grief, they gathered in the majestic Washington National Cathedral, where presidents and cabinet secretaries and other titans of America’s ruling class are traditionally memorialized in the nation’s capital.

The man they came to mourn, Michael John Gerson, was no president or cabinet secretary. He was a wordsmith, a presidential speechwriter turned columnist. But he was more than the author of memorable addresses. He was an author of an idea that some fear will be buried along with him.