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Vocapedia >
USA > Politics > White House
> President, Government, Cabinet, Leadership

Matson
cartoon
Cagle
10 April 2018
https://www.cagle.com/r-j-matson/2018/04/trump-fixer-upper
Donald J. Trump

President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush
wave to the crowd
after the president's speech
at the 2004 Republican National Convention
at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Photograph: Todd Plitt
USA TODAY
file
Report: NYPD eyed RNC-bound activists
AP UT
25 March 2007
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-03-25-nypd-convention_N.htm

Cal Grondahl
cartoon
Utah Standard Examiner
Cagle
16 December 2008
L to R
43rd US president George W. Bush,
Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki
Related
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7782422.stm
White House spokesman
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/23/
516945294/white-house-spokesman-predicts-more-federal-action-against-marijuana
presidential spokesman
https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/
100000005131085/the-back-story-on-trump-and-medicaid.html - June 2017
White House communications director
http://www.npr.org/2017/07/31/
540631305/reports-scaramucci-out-as-white-house-communications-director
administration
https://www.npr.org/2020/11/17/
933848488/biden-administration-heres-who-has-been-nominated
White House staff
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-19-
whitehouseshakeup_x.htm
White House chief of staff
USA > White House Photos UK
https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2013/jan/04/
white-house-pictures
White House > security breach
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/
us/white-house-drone.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/30/
us/white-house-intruder-got-farther-than-first-reported-official-says.html
executive branch
https://www.npr.org/2019/05/11/
722106580/congress-showdown-with-the-executive-branch-here-s-what-you-need-to-know
presidency
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/
sunday-review/donald-trump-will-presidency-survive.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/12/
us/politics/how-federal-ethics-laws-will-apply-to-a-trump-presidency.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/
books/review/the-black-presidency-barack-obama-
and-the-politics-of-race-in-america-by-michael-eric-dyson.html
USA > President UK /
USA
https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/057_chron.html
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/12/23/
571722326/why-mental-health-is-a-poor-measure-of-a-president
http://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/
544735978/racial-issues-have-often-been-a-test-for-u-s-presidents-with-conflicted-feelings
http://www.npr.org/2017/08/18/
544523278/fathers-of-our-country-how-u-s-presidents-exercised-moral-leadership-in-crisis
http://www.npr.org/2017/04/28/
525875211/trump-the-president-who-hasn-t-stopped-being-a-businessman
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/
opinion/why-im-supporting-bernie-sanders.html
http://www.npr.org/2016/02/15/
466848438/why-president-how-the-u-s-named-its-leader
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2009/jan/25/
barack-obama-white-house-pictures?picture=342286388
presidential power
https://www.npr.org/sections/congress-electoral-college-tally-live-updates/2021/01/08/
955043654/pelosi-asks-military-to-limit-trumps-nuclear-authority-heres-how-that-system-wor
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/09/
873495248/presidential-power
nuclear authority
ability to use nuclear weapons /
access the launch codes and order a nuclear strike
https://www.npr.org/sections/congress-electoral-college-tally-live-updates/2021/01/08/
955043654/pelosi-asks-military-to-limit-trumps-nuclear-authority-heres-how-that-system-wor
the president's legacy
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/us/
politics/obama-as-wartime-president-has-wrestled-with-protecting-nation-and-troops.html
economic legacy
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/
magazine/president-obama-weighs-his-economic-legacy.html
the president's record
http://www.npr.org/2016/01/12/
462857025/gov-nikki-haleys-republican-address-to-the-nation
leadership
http://www.npr.org/2017/08/18/
544523278/fathers-of-our-country-how-u-s-presidents-exercised-moral-leadership-in-crisis
be responsible for
N /
be accountable for N
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=jkfiF_tugU0 - 1 July 2016
U.S. President George W. Bush's job-approval rating
UK / USA
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-08-
bush-approval-rating_N.htm
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/apr/20/
usa.topstories3
commander in chief
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/us/
politics/23obama.html
order a nuclear strike
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/
opinion/trump-korea-war-competence.html
chief executive
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/
opinion/20tue1.html
sitting president
http://www.npr.org/2017/04/28/
525930318/trump-to-be-first-sitting-president-since-reagan-to-address-nra
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/11/us/
politics/obama-hiroshima-visit.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/04/
us-usa-election-obama-analysis-idUSTRE7330NY20110404
lame-duck president
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/
opinion/03mon1.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/
opinion/04mon1.html
http://www.cagle.com/news/BushLameDuck/main.asp
president-elect UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/18/
obama-time-person-of-year
Timeline: The presidents of the United States
UK
All the US leaders from 1789 to 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2009/jan/14/
uselections2008-obama-white-house
weekly radio address
President Bush's 2007 Radio Addresses
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-12-29-
bush-address_N.htm
seal of the President of the United States
https://www.gocomics.com/stevebenson/2016/12/06
Kennedy counselor > Theodore Chaikin Sorensen 1928-2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/us/
01sorensen.html
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/us/20101101
_sorensen.html
political adviser
top adviser to the president
chief political adviser
to President George W. Bush > Karl Rove 1994-2007
https://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/karl-rove
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/us/
politics/04rove.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/13/
washington/13cnd-rove.html
power
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/
opinion/are-there-limits-to-trumps-power.html
emergency / special powers
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/15/
695203852/many-presidents-have-declared-emergencies-but-not-like-trump-has
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/15/
695012728/trump-expected-to-declare-national-emergency-to-help-fund-southern-border-wall
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/11/
693128901/if-trump-declares-an-emergency-to-build-the-wall-congress-can-block-him
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/07/
682965555/fact-check-can-trump-use-emergency-powers-to-build-the-wall
powerful
powerless
executive power / powers
http://www.npr.org/2017/08/03/
541190032/trump-puts-his-signature-and-his-view-on-sanctions-law-following-presidential-tr
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/
opinion/executive-power-run-amok.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/us/
politics/obama-sets-the-stage-for-curbing-emissions.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/us/
politics/shift-on-executive-powers-let-obama-bypass-congress.html
separation of powers
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-07-24-
lawyers-bush_x.htm
power broker
war powers authority
http://www.npr.org/2015/04/07/
398065156/debate-has-the-president-exceeded-his-war-powers-authority
executive privilege
https://www.npr.org/2018/01/17/
578634802/bannon-and-trump-white-house-
raising-questions-about-executive-privilege-lawyers
Library of Congress
United States presidents and
first ladies > Portraits gallery
https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/057_chron.html
First Lady
https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/057_chron.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/us/
politics/melania-trump-first-lady.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/us/
a-first-lady-at-50-finding-her-own-path.html
Presidents of the United States
Selected Images From the Collections of the Library of Congress
https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/057_intr.html
term
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/us/
politics/obama-as-wartime-president-has-wrestled-with-protecting-nation-and-troops.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/06/us/
politics/clinton-delivers-stirring-plea-for-obama-second-term.html
second / new term
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/us/
politics/obama-speech-leaves-gop-stark-choices.html
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/19/
for-second-term-presidents-a-shorter-honeymoon/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/
opinion/an-invigorated-second-term-for-president-obama.html
cartoons > cagle > Obama second term
2013
https://www.cagle.com/news/obama-second-term/
State of the Union speech
deliver a statement
outline plans for
N
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/07/
us/politics/obama-fannie-mae-freddie-mac.html
propose
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/07/
us/politics/obama-fannie-mae-freddie-mac.html
bill
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/01/17/
263511534/obama-signs-trillion-dollar-federal-spending-bill
sign
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/
news-wrap-signing-farm-bill-obama-praises-bipartisan-compromise/
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/01/17/
263511534/obama-signs-trillion-dollar-federal-spending-bill
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/
us/politics/obama-signs-defense-bill-with-conditions.html
sign a presidential
memorandum
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/us/
politics/17gays.html
sign a bill into law
http://www.npr.org/2017/08/02/
540660414/hfr-trump-signs-russia-sanctions-into-law-amid-putin-retaliation
sign into law
a decision by
Congress
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/03/28/
521813464/as-congress-repeals-internet-privacy-rules-putting-your-options-in-perspective
sign into law
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3OFAAnHaI
sign into law a stop-gap spending
bill
signing statements -
reserving the right to revise,
interpret or
disregard
laws on national security and constitutional grounds
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-07-24-lawyers-bush_x.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/
us/politics/obama-signs-defense-bill-with-conditions.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-07-24-
lawyers-bush_x.htm
have the constitutional power to
V
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/
us/politics/obama-signs-defense-bill-with-conditions.html
enact
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/18/
us/politics/18obama.html
presidential
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/
opinion/can-president-trump-be-presidential.html
presidential power
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/01/29/
presidential-power-vs-congressional-inertia
presidential appointments
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/27/
opinion/a-unanimous-supreme-court-a-blow-to-presidential-appointments.html
presidential
appointments
to the Supreme Court
The Appointment
Clause
of the Constitution
(Article II, Section
2, clause 2)
states the President
"shall nominate,
and by and with the
Advice
and Consent of the Senate,
shall appoint ...
Judges of the supreme Court."
That "advice and
consent" role
has meant different
things in U.S. history.
In the early days of
the republic,
nominees to the court
got a passing glance.
The Senate acted
speedily,
within about a week,
from the date of
nomination to a vote.
But there was
a
marked difference after 1967,
the year Thurgood
Marshall
was nominated to be
the first
black Supreme Court justice.
Post-1967,
the median wait time
for a presidential nominee
has ballooned
to more
than two months.
(Current members of
the court
faced an average of 71 days.
That includes Antonin
Scalia,
who died at the age of 79
on Saturday.)
And it's very
possible,
if not probable,
that
Obama's nominee
to replace Scalia
— and he is pledging
to do fulfill
his "constitutional responsibilities" to do so
— will break the
record for the longest
wait for a vote in history.
The fight to replace
Scalia
could be historic,
possibly resulting
in
the longest vacancy on the court
since it went to nine
justices in 1869.
http://www.npr.org/2016/02/14/
466723547/7-things-to-know-about-presidential-appointments-to-the-supreme-court
http://www.npr.org/2016/02/14/
466723547/7-things-to-know-about-presidential-appointments-to-the-supreme-court
recess appointments
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-05-
bush-recess-option_N.htm
The President's Daily Brief./ daily intelligence briefing
http://www.npr.org/2016/12/13/
505348507/what-exactly-is-the-presidents-daily-brief-and-why-is-it-important
overhaul
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/us/
politics/11web-educ.htm
Camp David, Maryland
https://www.npr.org/2017/12/23/
571750761/for-president-trump-no-christmas-at-camp-david
at Camp David
Air Force One
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/19/us/
politics/air-force-one-a-cherished-perk-awaiting-an-upgrade.html
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/02/15/
airforce.one/
Marine One
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-03-03-
enterprise-usat_N.htm
the Beast - the presidential limousine
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/03/
us/one-day-in-an-elevator-with-obama-then-out-of-a-job.html
US government
https://www.usa.gov/
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/01/
us/politics/congress-shutdown-debate.html
government based on the rule of law
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/
opinion/after-mr-trumps-din-the-quiet-grandeur-of-the-courts.html
Government Accountability Office
http://www.npr.org/2017/03/28/
521823473/gao-agrees-to-review-costs-of-trumps-trips-to-mar-a-lago
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-10-10-boot-camps_N.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-10-28-economic-disaster_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-09-06-disaster-response_x.htm
cabinet
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/12/
david-dayen-american-prospect-joe-biden-cabinet - 8 December 2020
http://www.npr.org/2016/11/10/
501606327/who-might-be-in-donald-trumps-cabinet-plus-more-about-the-transition
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/
opinion/make-the-cabinet-more-effective.html
cabinet meeting
cabinet room
https://www.npr.org/2018/03/08/
591742988/in-the-white-house-cabinet-room-parallels-to-apprentice-boardroom
cabinet departments
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/01/08/us/
politics/women-in-the-obama-administration.html
Interior Department / Department of the Interior
https://theintercept.com/2020/12/29/
deb-haaland-interior-native/
Justice Department > Attorney General
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/
us/justice-dept-seeks-to-curtail-stiff-drug-sentences.html
https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/
attorney-general-eric-holder-delivers-remarks-annual-meeting-american-bar-associations
Justice Department white paper
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/08/10/
us/politics/10obama-surveillance-documents.html
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/02/05/
what-standards-must-be-met-for-the-us-to-kill-an-american-citizen
USA > U.S. Department of State > Secretary of State
UK / USA
https://www.state.gov/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/14/
mike-pompeo-lashes-out-reign-ends
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/22/
us/politics/biden-antony-blinken-secretary-of-state.html
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/12/27/
573799686/for-rex-tillerson-a-rocky-first-year-as-trumps-secretary-of-state
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/08/30/
547298214/are-trumps-foreign-policy-stumbles-first-year-growing-pains-or-a-reason-for-worr
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/02/
513077136/tillerson-takes-the-helm-at-the-state-department-promising-respect-and-honesty
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/01/
us/politics/rex-tillerson-secretary-of-state-confirmed.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/
us/politics/rex-tillerson-secretary-of-state-trump.html
at the State Department
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/02/
513077136/tillerson-takes-the-helm-at-the-state-department-promising-respect-and-honesty
Defense secretary / secretary of defense
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/24/
631742060/examining-where-jim-mattis-stands-in-the-trump-administration
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/01/
502784038/trump-nominates-gen-james-mattis-as-his-defense-secretary
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/world/asia/
31military.html
Energy secretary
https://www.gocomics.com/nickanderson/2016/12/14
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us/
politics/rick-perry-energy-secretary-trump.html
Secretary of Education /
Education scretary
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/07/
954725906/devos-resigns-as-education-secretary-says-impressionable-children-are-watching
https://www.npr.org/sections/biden-transition-updates/2020/12/22/
949114642/biden-to-pick-connecticut-schools-chief-miguel-cardona-as-education-secretary
https://www.gocomics.com/jeffdanziger/2017/01/20
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/28/
education/28spellings.htm
health secretary / secretary of health and human services
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/
us/politics/tom-price-health-and-human-services.html
Treasury Secretary
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/13/
515084616/steven-mnuchin-confirmed-as-treasury-secretary
http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/10/08/
446707186/treasury-secretary-keeps-up-pressure-to-raise-debt-limit
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-30-
snow_x.htm
step down
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/09/25/
351363171/eric-holder-to-step-down-as-attorney-general
resign
https://www.npr.org/sections/congress-electoral-college-tally-live-updates/2021/01/07/
954518782/law-enforcement-and-social-media-identifying-u-s-capitol-mob-members
https://www.npr.org/sections/congress-electoral-college-tally-live-updates/2021/01/07/
954495552/transportation-secretary-elaine-chao-to-resign-citing-violence-at-capitol
Texas Secretary of State
https://www.sos.state.tx.us/

The Guardian p. 2
30 August 2004
Huge protest against Bush on eve of party meeting
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/aug/30/
usa.uselections2004
Masks:
Donald
Rumsfeld (L)
and
43rd U.S. president George W. Bush (R).
immunity
The Constitution and the Supreme
Court
both say a president is largely
immune
from civil lawsuits.
The chief executive
does critical work
leading the
nation,
the logic goes,
and shouldn't be bedeviled
by
ordinary civil lawsuits.
http://www.npr.org/2017/03/28/
521841986/trump-lawyers-claim-immunity-in-sex-harassment-suit-just-as-bill-clinton-did
http://www.npr.org/2017/03/28/
521841986/trump-lawyers-claim-immunity-in-sex-harassment-suit-just-as-bill-clinton-did
poll
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/26/us/
politics/obamas-approval-rating-matches-two-year-low-poll-shows.html
approval rating
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/26/
us/politics/obamas-approval-rating-matches-two-year-low-poll-shows.html
George W. Bush Presidential
Library
https://www.nytimes.com/topic/organization/
george-w-bush-presidential-library
American politics and pop culture
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/07/24/
fashion/20090726-celeb-slideshow_index.html
Corpus of news articles
USA > Politics > White House
President, Government, Leadership
BOOKS
Presidential Words
In a Speechifying Season,
a Look At How the Writer's Job
Has Changed
By ROBERT K. LANDERS
April 12, 2008; Page W8
White House Ghosts
By Robert Schlesinger
Simon & Schuster, 581 pages, $30
The eight hours Richard Goodwin spent writing the speech one March day in 1965
were "the finest moments of my life in politics," and the address itself,
delivered in the chamber of the House of Representatives that very night --
leading to the passage of the Voting Rights Act -- was perhaps the high point of
Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency. "It is not just Negroes, but it is all of us,
who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we . . .
shall . . . overcome," Johnson said, making the black protest anthem his own
rallying cry.
After the moving speech, reporters were told that Johnson himself had composed
it and was responsible, in particular, for the inclusion of its most memorable
phrase. But the speech and the phrase were, in reality, Mr. Goodwin's work.
After a year of close collaboration with the president, he had drawn on his own
knowledge of the man -- "not merely his views, but his manner of expression,
patterns of reasoning, the natural cadences of his speech," Mr. Goodwin recalled
in his 1988 memoir. The speechwriter had sought "to heighten and polish --
illuminate, as it were -- his inward beliefs and natural idiom, to attain . . .
an authenticity of expression." Though Mr. Goodwin's hands were on the
typewriter, "the document was pure Johnson."
The longstanding tradition back then was that the presidential speechwriter
should remain largely out of public sight, his existence almost a secret shame,
intimating, as a speechwriter for President Carter once put it, that the
nation's chief executive was "too lazy or too stupid to decide for himself what
he is going to say." President-elect John F. Kennedy, with his Inaugural Address
in nearly final form, even pretended to be writing a first draft of it in
longhand so as to give a leading reporter the impression that he, Kennedy, and
not Theodore Sorensen or anyone else, was the author. But in recent decades,
Washington journalist Robert Schlesinger observes in "White House Ghosts," the
phantoms -- "for better or worse" -- have become far more visible.
Mr. Schlesinger, who interviewed more than 90 speechwriters and other White
House aides, has written an evenhanded account of the speechwriting for
presidents, from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to George Walker Bush, with a chapter
devoted to each presidency. His episodic history is fluent, well researched and
richly detailed.
Raymond Moley, one of FDR's speechwriters during his first term, saw himself as
more than a wordsmith, and rightly so. "My job from the beginning . . . was to
sift proposals for him, discuss facts and ideas with him, and help him
crystallize his own policy," Moley wrote in 1939. Implicit in this conception of
the speechwriter's job, notes Mr. Schlesinger, was the idea "that policies and
words are inextricably linked -- the former cannot be conjured in the absence of
the latter." Moley, Sam Rosenman and other Roosevelt speechwriters were advisers
as well as wordsmiths. But the job "has evolved," Mr. Schlesinger notes, "as
television eclipsed radio as the nation's medium, as the White House staff grew
from a handful to a sprawling group of specialized cadres, and, of course, as
each president has dealt with it in his own way."
In Carol Gelderman's earlier study of presidential speechwriting -- the
incisive and concise (221 pages) "All the Presidents' Words" (1997) -- she
identified the Nixon administration as the one where the decisive break
occurred. President Nixon "established the first formally structured White House
speechwriting office, called the Writing and Research Department," its ranks
fluctuating from 12 to 50, part of what Nixon called the "PR group." But, said
Ms. Gelderman, an English professor at the University of New Orleans, "the
writers rarely assumed a consultative role in policy matters. Unlike their
predecessors from Rosenman to [LBJ's Harry] McPherson, Nixon's writers had no
regular access to the Oval Office." Indeed, the reclusive Nixon wrote some
speeches virtually on his own. Mr. Schlesinger's account bears Ms. Gelderman
out.
Speechwriters had little involvement in the making of policy and only limited
access to the president in most of the administrations that followed Nixon's,
even that of the "Great Communicator." "For eight years," writes Mr.
Schlesinger, "Ronald Reagan's speechwriters had had diminishing access to a
president who was remote from even his closest aides. [But he] had presented a
clear ideology and style so they had gotten his voice even though they might go
months without seeing him." Between the ideological conservatives writing
Reagan's speeches and the more pragmatic senior staffers in his inner circle,
there was continuing tension -- tension that was constructive during the first
term, in Mr. Schlesinger's view, but, with some different people involved,
destructive during the second.
Reagan appreciated the importance of speeches to a successful presidency, but
George Herbert Walker Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Gerald Ford were less concerned
with the words they proclaimed, Mr. Schlesinger reports. Mr. Bush disdained
"high-flying" rhetoric and never even practiced delivering his speeches
beforehand. Mr. Carter "didn't much like the idea of using [speechwriters],
ever," one of his wordsmiths recalled. President Ford "rarely faced up to the
fact that making a major address is one of the most important things a President
does," said his chief speechwriter, Robert Hartmann. Journalist John Hersey,
shadowing Ford for a week in 1975 much as he had shadowed Harry Truman in 1950,
found himself "profoundly disturbed by what seemed to me the aimlessness of the
speechwriting session" that Ford had with his writers in advance of an address
at the University of Notre Dame. Hersey contrasted it with a speechwriting
session of Truman's, "at which most of his principal advisers, including Dean
Acheson, were present, and during which policy was really and carefully shaped
through its articulation."
Presidential speeches are important not only as a means of educating and
persuading the public but also, according to Mr. Schlesinger's father, the late
historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., "as a means of forcing decisions,
crystallizing policies, and imposing discipline" within the executive branch.
During the presidency of Bill Clinton, there was something of a return to the
older tradition of involving speechwriters in the making of policy, the author
says. "There was more crossover between the speechwriters and policy aides than
in any presidency since [LBJ's]. . . . Clinton preferred to work on speeches
with aides who could answer substantive questions about policy." But Clinton
also often preferred to ad lib his remarks rather than stick to his prepared
speech, and he spoke so often that, in effect, he devalued his own words. In a
typical year, by one count, he spoke in public 550 times, compared with Reagan's
320 times and Truman's 88.
Unlike his father and despite his own oft-derided propensity for verbal gaffes,
George W. Bush has recognized the importance of speeches, notes Mr. Schlesinger.
"He put a great deal of time and energy into speech preparation and faith in his
speechwriters." As some of Bush's speeches illustrate, particularly in the
aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, a president's words do matter.
By departing from the older tradition, recent presidents seem to have
inadvertently denied themselves the power of speechwriting to clarify their own
thinking and aid in the making of policy. Arthur Schlesinger, to whom his son
has dedicated "White House Ghosts," said he fully agreed with Carol Gelderman on
"the necessity of 'uniting important policymaking and speechwriting functions in
one trusted adviser.' " Robert Schlesinger refrains from endorsing that
prescription, but his extensive study seems to provide further support for it.
Mr. Landers is a writer in Arlington, Va.,
and the author of "An Honest Writer:
The Life and Times of James T. Farrell" (Encounter).
Presidential Words,
WSJ,
12.4.2008,
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB120795568431409207
March 31 1981
Reagan stable after shooting
From The
Guardian archive
March 31
1981
The Guardian
President
Reagan was last night recovering in hospital after a successful two-hour
operation to remove a single bullet from his left lung following an
assassination attempt outside the Hilton Hotel in the centre of Washington.
Dr Dennis O'Leary, a spokesman for the George Washington University Hospital,
said the President was awake and in a "stable condition." He said there had been
no serious danger to the President's life. Dr O'Leary said the bullet had
ricocheted off his seventh rib. But he assured the American people that the
70-year-old President was in "excellent" condition and in good physical shape.
Three other men were seriously wounded in the shooting. They were the
President's 40-year-old press secretary, Mr James Brady, a Washington policeman,
and a secret service agent. Dr O'Leary said a bullet had passed through Mr
Brady's brain and he had experienced severe brain injury.
According to the doctors, Mr Reagan had been given a blood transfusion on his
arrival at the hospital and before going into surgery. The bullet was found
lodged in the tissue of the lung and was easily removed because there was no
abdominal bleeding. The doctors suggested that Mr Reagan could be up and about
again within a fortnight.
The doctor said that Mr Reagan had sailed through the operation" for a man of
his age. But he warned that an operation of the kind he had been through causes
"stress" to the body, though in Mr Reagan's case, because of his good physical
condition, the doctor did not seem unduly concerned.
The White House said the President was in good spirits as he was wheeled into
surgery . He told Senator Paul Laxalt, "Don't worry about me, I'll make it." A
doctor said the President had told Mrs Reagan, "Honey, I forgot to duck", and
that he looked up at assembled aides and said, "Who's minding the store?" and
that he joked with surgeons, "Please tell me you're Republicans."
The Secretary of State, Mr Alexander Haig, took control of the government soon
after the incident, awaiting the arrival in Washington of the vice-president, Mr
George Bush,
Speaking from the White House, Mr Haig said he had been in touch with America's
friends and allies abroad.
Mr Haig looked shaken as he read the statement in a broken voice, saying that no
defence alert had been taken. In the pandemonium outside the Washington Hilton
after the shooting, secret service men wrestled the assailant to the ground. He
was named as John Warnock Hinckley, aged 25, of Evergreen, Colorado. The secret
service said that Hinckley seemed to have acted alone.
From The Guardian archive >
March 31 1981 > Reagan stable
after shooting,
G, Republished 31.3.2007, p. 36,
http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2007/03/31/pages/ber36.shtml
From The Times Archive
On This Day - May 18, 1976
After the Watergate scandal,
Jimmy Carter’s position
as a
Washington outsider
became an electoral asset,
and he received more than 50 per
cent
of the popular vote in the 1977 election
MR JIMMY CARTER’S campaign technique has improved since the
primary season opened in New Hampshire last February. He now carries the aura of
a man who might very well be President next January, instead of seeming simply
one of a large number of candidates claiming that the wind of victory was in his
sails.
He treats the topics he discusses seriously, balancing specific proposals with
his now familiar oath of sincerity which still sounds sincere, even though he
has been swearing it in public several times a day for nearly 18 months.
At a rally in a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in a working class suburb of
Baltimore on Friday night, the effects of this balance in his oratory were
striking. He started to talk about the need for honesty in government and the
hall fell silent. Everyone listened. This is the thing which disturbs everyone
in America, the long-latent suspicion that every politician in Washington was
corrupt, which exploded with Watergate’s demonstration that the suspicion was
often justified.
He said that the important thing was for the candidate to keep the confidence of
the electors. “I would far rather lose the election, I would rather lose my
life, than betray your confidence”, he said. Enough people have heard him and
believed him to bring him to the brink of victory.
From The Times
Archive,
On This Day - May 18, 1976,
18.5.2005,
http://www.newsint-archive.co.uk/pages/main.asp - broken URL
From The Times Archive
On This Day - July 20, 1974
A resolution submitted
to the House Judiciary Committee
sought to impeach President Richard Nixon
over the Watergate scandal.
Two weeks
later Nixon
became the first US president to resign.
A FOUR-PART draft resolution impeaching President Nixon for
alleged “high crimes and misdemeanours” ranging from obstruction of justice over
the Watergate affair to personal tax fraud was presented to the House Judiciary
Committee today. The devastating case was presented by Mr John Doar, chief
committee counsel to the 38 members who will have to vote whether to submit a
full bill of particulars to the full House. A vote is expected within a week.
Mr Doar was quoted by members as saying “reasonable men acting reasonably would
find the President guilty”. Mr Nixon was cited by Mr Doar for:
1. Being “personally and directly responsible” for the cover-up of the Watergate
break-in which had been done on his “behalf”. Specifically, he was accused of
suborning perjury, paying hush money, destroying evidence, and interfering with
the legal investigations.
2. “Massive and persistent” abuse of his powers through the break-in at Dr
Ellsberg’s psychiatrists’ office, unlawful wiretapping and abuse of government
agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence
Agency and the Internal Revenue Service.
3. Contempt of Congress through his refusal to supply subpoenaed evidence.
4. Fraud in his income taxes, through claiming over $450,000 deductions for a
fraudulent gift of his pre-Presidential papers to the nation.
From The Times
Archive,
On This Day - July 20, 1974,
The Times,
20.7.2005,
http://www.newsint-archive.co.uk/pages/main.asp - broken URL
November 23, 1963
A tragedy
for the world
From The Guardian archive
Saturday November 23, 1963
Guardian
President Kennedy was in Texas to gather support for his Civil
Rights programme. Like Lincoln before him, it has cost him his life. He believed
in it and he fought for it.
The best memorial to him would be a more rapid acceptance of
it in the South and in Northern communities where the subtler forms of
segregation and discrimination are practised and, for that matter, in every
country where equal rights and opportunities are not accorded without regard to
race or religion.
Civil rights became the foremost part of his domestic programme. He had to move
carefully; both because haste could so easily bring bloodshed, and because he
was opposed by the Southern wing of his own party.
His platform in the 1960 Presidential campaign came out boldly for the Negro's
right to share school benches and polling booths with whites, and for the
Federal Government's duty to enforce this. He was backed in this by Lyndon
Johnson, himself a Southerner and now President.
To the world, he will be remembered as the President who helped to bring the
thaw in the cold war. The real change came only after Cuba.
That crisis, taking the world to the edge of a nuclear war, left its mark on
both him and Mr Khrushchev. Kennedy certainly - and Mr Khrushchev probably -
knew that a false move by either of them could have been catastrophic.
Although, in a conventional sense, the Americans won the encounter, there was no
crowing in the White House. The President recognised how frightening were the
consequences of misunderstandings. But he worked for improvement, as did Mr
Khrushchev, and it came. He leaves in this a monument - but one on to which his
successors must build.
President Kennedy respected his allies and worked with them. His last visit to
this country was during a lightning tour of Europe - part triumphal and part
persuasive - in which he sought to reassure people and Governments that the
United States was as deeply committed as ever to the defence of Western Europe.
But he will be remembered for his youth and friendliness. "The torch has been
passed to a new generation of Americans," he said.
To people in many other countries it was gladdening to see leading the greatest
of Western nations a young man, though one matured by war and years of public
service.
He and Mrs Kennedy made the White House what it has hardly ever been before - a
place where artists and thinkers of all nations and creeds were welcomed. He was
a true liberal, a thinker himself no less than a man of action, and a courageous
leader.
From the Guardian
archive > November 23, 1963 >
A tragedy for the world, G, Republished
23.11.2006,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/1963/nov/23/usa.
mainsection
President Kennedy assassinated
November 22, 1963
Alistair Cooke, New York
President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the
United States, was shot during a motorcade drive through downtown Dallas at 1pm
(6pm British time) this afternoon. He died in the emergency room of the Parkland
Memorial Hospital 32 minutes after the attack. He was 46. He is the third
president to be assassinated in office since Lincoln, and the first since
President McKinley in 1901.
Police held as chief suspect Lee Oswald, said to be a self-styled Communist who
once renounced US citizenship and unsuccessfully sought to become a Russian
citizen. The chairman of a Fair Play for Cuba committee, he was arrested in a
cinema after a policeman had been killed.
The new President is the Vice-President, Lyndon Baines Johnson, a 55-year-old
native Texan, who took the oath of office in Dallas at five minutes to four at
the hands of a woman judge, and later arrived in Washington with the body of the
dead President.
This is being written in the numbed interval between the first shock and the
harried attempt to reconstruct a sequence of fact from an hour of tumult.
However, this is the first assassination of a world figure that took place in
the age of television, and every network and station in the country took up the
plotting of the appalling story. It begins to form a grisly pattern,
contradicted by a grisly preface: the projection on television screens of a
happy crowd and a grinning President only a few seconds before the gunshots.
The President was almost at the end of his two-day tour of Texas. He was to make
a luncheon speech in the Dallas Trade Mart building and his motor procession had
another mile to go. He had had the warmest welcome of his trip from a great
crowd at the airport.
The cries a personal touch were so engaging that Mrs Kennedy took the lead and
walked from the ramp of the presidential plane to a fence that held the crowd
in. She was followed by the President, and they seized hands and forearms and
smiled at the people.
The Secret Service and police were relieved to get them into their car, where
Mrs Kennedy sat between the President and John B Connally, the governor of
Texas. Dallas police had instituted the most stringent security in the city's
history: they wanted no repetition of the disgraceful brawl that humiliated
Adlai Stevenson when he attended a United Nations rally on October 24. The
motorcade was going along slowly but smoothly when three muffled shots, which
the crowd first mistook for fireworks, cracked through the cheers.
President Kennedy assassinated, Alistair Cooke, New York,
November 22, 1963,
The Guardian >
Archives, G, p. 30, 23.11.2005,
http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2005/11/23/pages/ber30.shtml
Related > Anglonautes >
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