Library of Congress > "I
Do Solemnly Swear . .
.":
Presidential Inaugurations
is a collection of approximately 400 items
or 2,000 digital files
relating to inaugurations
from George Washington's in 1789
to George W. Bush's
inauguration of 2001
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take the
Oath of Office from Supreme Court Justice...
I do solemnly swear (or affirm)
that I will
faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States,
and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the
Constitution of the United States.
Patterns of Speech: 75 Years of the State of the Union Addresses In 2010, President Obama was the first modern president
to use the words “bubble,” “supermajority” and “obesity” in a State of the Union
speech.
But other words have a longer history.
A historical look at the number of times presidents have used selected words
in their State of the Union addresses (or analogous speeches) from 1934 to 2011.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/01/25/us/politics/state-of-the-union-words-used.html
January 22, 2009
The New York Times
By MARK MAZZETTI and WILLIAM GLABERSON
WASHINGTON — President Obama signed executive orders Thursday directing the
Central Intelligence Agency to shut what remains of its network of secret
prisons and ordering the closing of the Guantánamo detention camp within a year,
government officials said.
The orders, which are the first steps in undoing detention policies of former
President George W. Bush, rewrite American rules for the detention of terrorism
suspects. They require an immediate review of the 245 detainees still held at
the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to determine if they should be
transferred, released or prosecuted.
And the orders bring to an end a Central Intelligence Agency program that kept
terrorism suspects in secret custody for months or years, a practice that has
brought fierce criticism from foreign governments and human rights activists.
They will also prohibit the C.I.A. from using coercive interrogation methods,
requiring the agency to follow the same rules used by the military in
interrogating terrorism suspects, government officials said.
But the orders leave unresolved complex questions surrounding the closing of the
Guantánamo prison, including whether, where and how many of the detainees are to
be prosecuted. They could also allow Mr. Obama to reinstate the C.I.A.’s
detention and interrogation operations in the future, by presidential order, as
some have argued would be appropriate if Osama bin Laden or another top-level
leader of Al Qaeda were captured.
The new White House counsel, Gregory B. Craig, briefed lawmakers about some
elements of the orders on Wednesday evening. A Congressional official who
attended the session said Mr. Craig acknowledged concerns from intelligence
officials that new restrictions on C.I.A. methods might be unwise and indicated
that the White House might be open to allowing the use of methods other than the
19 techniques allowed for the military.
Details of the directive involving the C.I.A. were described by government
officials who insisted on anonymity so they could not be blamed for pre-empting
a White House announcement. Copies of the draft order on Guantánamo were
provided by people who have consulted with Mr. Obama’s transition team and
requested anonymity for the same reason.
In remarks prepared for delivery at his confirmation hearings to become director
of national intelligence in the Obama administration, Dennis C. Blair, a retired
admiral with a long background in intelligence, endorsed the new approach and
promised to enforce it rigorously. “It is not enough to set a standard and
announce it,” he said.
“I believe strongly that torture is not moral, legal or effective,” he told the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. “Any program of detention and
interrogation must comply with the Geneva Conventions, the Conventions on
Torture, and the Constitution. There must be clear standards for humane
treatment that apply to all agencies of U.S. Government, including the
Intelligence Community,” his written statement said.
As for closing Guantanamo, he said that would take time but must be done because
it has become “a damaging symbol to the world.”
“It is a rallyingcry for terrorist recruitment and harmful to our national
security, so closing it is important for our national security,” Admiral Blair’s
statement said.
“The guiding principles for closing the center should beprotecting our national
security, respecting the Geneva Conventions and the rule of law, and respecting
the existing institutions of justice in this country. I also believe we should
revitalize efforts to transfer detainees to their countries of origin or other
countries whenever that would be consistent with these principles. Closing this
center and satisfying these principles will take time, and is the work of many
departments and agencies.”
The executive order on interrogations is certain to be received with some
skepticism at the C.I.A., which for years has maintained that the military’s
interrogation rules are insufficient to get information from senior Qaeda
figures like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The Bush administration asserted that the
harsh interrogation methods were instrumental in gaining valuable intelligence
on Qaeda operations.
The intelligence agency built a network of secret prisons in 2002 to house and
interrogate senior Qaeda figures captured overseas. The exact number of suspects
to have moved through the prisons is unknown, although Michael V. Hayden, the
departing director of the agency, has in the past put the number at “fewer than
100.”
The secret detentions brought international condemnation, and in September 2006,
President Bush ordered that the remaining 14 detainees in C.I.A. custody be
transferred to Guantánamo Bay and tried by military tribunals.
But Mr. Bush made clear then that he was not shutting down the C.I.A. detention
system, and in the last two years, two Qaeda operatives are believed to have
been detained in agency prisons for several months each before being sent to
Guantánamo.
A government official said Mr. Obama’s order on the C.I.A. would still allow its
officers abroad to temporarily detain terrorism suspects and transfer them to
other agencies, but would no longer allow the agency to carry out long-term
detentions.
Since the early days after the 2001 attacks, the intelligence agency’s role in
detaining terrorism suspects has been significantly scaled back, as has the
severity of interrogation methods the agency is permitted to use. The most
controversial practice, the simulated drowning technique known as
water-boarding, was used on three suspects but has not been used since 2003,
C.I.A. officials said.
But at the urging of the Bush administration, Congress in 2006 authorized the
agency to continue using harsher interrogation methods than those permitted for
use by other agencies, including the military. Those exact methods remain
classified. The order on Guantánamo says that the camp, which received its first
hooded and chained detainees seven years ago this month, “shall be closed as
soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order.”
The order calls for a cabinet-level panel to grapple with issues including where
in the United States prisoners might be moved and what courts they could be
tried in. It also provides for a new diplomatic effort to transfer some of the
remaining men, including more than 60 that the Bush administration had cleared
for release.
The order also directs an immediate assessment of the prison itself to ensure
that the men are held in conditions that meet the humanitarian requirements of
the Geneva Convention. That provision appeared to be a pointed embrace of the
international treaties that the Bush administration often argued did not apply
to detainees captured in the war against terrorism.
The seven years of the detention camp have included four suicides, hunger
strikes by scores of detainees, and accusations of extensive use of solitary
confinement and abusive interrogations, which the Department of Defense has long
denied. Last week a senior Pentagon official said she had concluded that
interrogators at Guantánamo had tortured one detainee, who officials have said
was a would-be “20th hijacker” in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The report of Thursday’s announcement came after the new administration late
Tuesday night ordered an immediate halt to the military commission proceedings
for prosecuting detainees at Guantánamo and filed a request in Federal District
Court in Washington to stay habeas corpus proceedings there. Government lawyers
described both delays as necessary for the administration to make a broad
assessment of detention policy.
The cases immediately affected include those of five detainees charged as the
coordinators of the 2001 attacks, including the case against Mr. Mohammed, the
self-described mastermind.
The decision to stop the commissions was described by the military prosecutors
as a pause in the war-crimes system “to permit the newly inaugurated president
and his administration time to review the military commission process generally
and the cases currently pending before the military commissions, specifically.”
More than 200 detainees’ habeas corpus cases have been filed in federal court,
and lawyers said they expected that all of the cases would be stayed.
Mr. Obama had suggested in the campaign that, in place of military commissions,
he would prefer prosecutions in federal courts or, perhaps, in the existing
military justice system, which provides legal guarantees similar to those of
American civilian courts.
Some human rights groups and lawyers for detainees said they were concerned
about the one-year timetable. “It only took days to put these men in Guantánamo;
it shouldn’t take a year to get them out,” said Vincent Warren, the executive
director of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, which has
coordinated detainees’ lawyers.
But several groups that had criticized the Bush administration’s policies
applauded the rapid moves by the new administration. Mr. Obama’s actions
“reaffirmed American values and are a ray of light after eight long, dark
years,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil
Liberties Union.
Mark Mazzetti reported from Washington, and William Glaberson from New York.
Carl Hulse contributed reporting from Washington.
Obama Takes Oath, and Nation in Crisis Embraces the Moment
January 21, 2009
The New York Times
By PETER BAKER
WASHINGTON — Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the
United States on Tuesday and promised to “begin again the work of remaking
America” on a day of celebration that climaxed a once-inconceivable journey for
the man and his country.
Mr. Obama, the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas,
inherited a White House built partly by slaves and a nation in crisis at home
and abroad. The moment captured the imagination of much of the world as more
than a million flag-waving people bore witness while Mr. Obama recited the oath
with his hand on the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln used at his inauguration
148 years ago.
Beyond the politics of the occasion, the sight of a black man climbing the
highest peak electrified people across racial, generational and partisan lines.
Mr. Obama largely left it to others to mark the history explicitly, making only
passing reference to his own barrier-breaking role in his 18-minute Inaugural
Address, noting how improbable it might seem that “a man whose father less than
60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand
before you to take a most sacred oath.”
But confronted by the worst economic situation in decades, two overseas wars and
the continuing threat of Islamic terrorism, Mr. Obama sobered the celebration
with a grim assessment of the state of a nation rocked by home foreclosures,
shuttered businesses, lost jobs, costly health care, failing schools, energy
dependence and the threat of climate change. Signaling a sharp and immediate
break with the presidency of George W. Bush, he vowed to usher in a “new era of
responsibility” and restore tarnished American ideals.
“Today, I say to you that the challenges we face are real,” Mr. Obama said in
the address, delivered from the west front of the Capitol. “They are serious and
they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know
this, America, they will be met.”
The vast crowd that thronged the Mall on a frigid but bright winter day was the
largest to attend an inauguration in decades, if not ever. Many then lined
Pennsylvania Avenue for a parade that continued well past nightfall on a day
that was not expected to end for Mr. Obama until late in the night with the last
of 10 inaugural balls.
Mr. Bush left the national stage quietly, doing nothing to upstage his
successor. After hosting the Obamas for coffee at the White House and attending
the ceremony at the Capitol, Mr. Bush hugged Mr. Obama, then left through the
Rotunda to head back to Texas. “Come on, Laura, we’re going home,” he was
overheard telling Mrs. Bush.
The inauguration coincided with more bad news from Wall Street, with the Dow
Jones industrial average down more than 300 points on indications of further
trouble for banks.
The spirit of the day was also marred by the hospitalization of Senator Edward
M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, whose endorsement helped propel Mr. Obama
to the Democratic nomination last year. Mr. Kennedy, who has been fighting a
malignant brain tumor, suffered a seizure at a Capitol luncheon after the
ceremony and was wheeled out on a stretcher.
The pageantry included some serious business. Shortly after he and Vice
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. were sworn in, Mr. Obama ordered all pending Bush
regulations frozen for a legal and policy review. He also signed formal
nomination papers for his cabinet, and the Senate quickly confirmed seven
nominees: the secretaries of homeland security, energy, agriculture, interior,
education and veterans’ affairs and the director of the Office of Management and
Budget.
When he arrives in the Oval Office on Wednesday, aides said, Mr. Obama will get
to work on some of his priorities. He plans to convene his national security
team and senior military commanders to discuss his plans to pull combat troops
out of Iraq and bolster those in Afghanistan. He also plans to sign executive
orders to start closing the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and could
reverse Mr. Bush’s restrictions on financing for groups that promote or provide
information about abortion.
Delays in the confirmation process have left both the State Department and the
Treasury Department in the hands of caretakers. But Hillary Rodham Clinton was
expected to win Senate confirmation as secretary of state on Wednesday, and the
Pentagon remains under the control of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who was
kept on from the Bush administration and did not attend the inauguration so
someone in the line of succession would survive in case of terrorist attack.
In his address, Mr. Obama praised Mr. Bush “for his service to our nation as
well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.”
But he also offered implicit criticism, condemning what he called “our
collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.”
He went on to assure the rest of the world that change had come. “To all other
peoples and governments who are watching today,” Mr. Obama said, “from the
grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born, know that
America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a
future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.”
Some of Mr. Obama’s supporters booed and taunted Mr. Bush when he emerged from
the Capitol to take his place on stage, at one point singing, “Nah, nah, nah,
nah, hey, hey, hey, goodbye.” By day’s end, Mr. Bush had landed in Texas, where
he defended his presidency and declared that he was “coming home with my head
held high.”
The departing vice president, Dick Cheney, appeared at the ceremony in a
wheelchair after suffering a back injury moving the day before and was also
booed.
The nation’s 56th inauguration drew waves of people from all corners and filled
the expanse between the Capitol and the Washington Monument. For the first
transition in power since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, much of the capital was
under exceptionally tight security, with a two-square-mile swath under the
strictest control. Bridges from Virginia were closed to regular traffic and more
than 35,000 civilian and military personnel were on duty.
Mr. Obama secured at least part of his legacy the moment he walked into the
White House on Tuesday, 146 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, 108 years
after the first black man dined in the mansion with a president and 46 years
after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. declared his dream of equality.
Mr. Obama, just 47 years old and four years out of the Illinois State Senate,
arrived at this moment on the unlikeliest of paths, vaulted to the forefront of
national politics on the strength of stirring speeches, early opposition to the
Iraq war and public disenchantment with the Bush era. His scant record of
achievement at the national level proved less important to voters than his
embodiment of change.
His foreign-sounding name, his childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia and his skin
color made him a unique figure in the annals of presidential campaigns, yet he
toppled two of the best brand names in American politics — Mrs. Clinton in the
primaries and Senator John McCain in the general election.
Mr. Obama himself is descended on his mother’s side from ancestors who owned
slaves and he can trace his family tree to Jefferson Davis, the president of the
Confederacy. The power of the moment was lost on no one as the Rev. Joseph E.
Lowery, one of the towering figures of the civil rights movement, gave the
benediction and called for “inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not
intolerance.”
The Rev. Rick Warren, a conservative minister selected by Mr. Obama to give the
invocation despite protests from liberals, told the crowd, “We know today that
Dr. King and a great cloud of witnesses are shouting in heaven.”
For all that, Mr. Obama used the occasion to address “this winter of our
hardship” and promote his plan for vast federal spending accompanied by tax cuts
to stimulate the economy and begin addressing energy, environmental and
infrastructure needs.
“Now there are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that
our system cannot tolerate too many big plans,” he said. “Their memories are
short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men
and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose and necessity
to courage.”
He also essentially renounced the curtailment of liberties in the name of
security, saying he would “reject as false the choice between our safety and our
ideals.” He struck a stiff note on terrorism, saying Americans “will not
apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense.”
“For those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering
innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken,”
he said. “You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.”
But Mr. Obama also added a message to Islamic nations, a first from the
inaugural lectern. “To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on
mutual interest and mutual respect,” Mr. Obama said. “To those who cling to
power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you
are on the wrong side of history — but that we will extend a hand if you are
willing to unclench your fist.”
Mr. Obama’s public day started at 8:45 a.m. when he and his wife, Michelle, left
Blair House for a service at St. John’s Church, then joined the Bushes, Cheneys
and Bidens for coffee at the White House.
The Obamas’ daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, joined them at the Capitol, as
did Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain, as well as former Presidents Bill Clinton,
Jimmy Carter and the elder George Bush.
While emotional for many, the ceremony did not go entirely according to plan.
Mr. Biden was sworn in by Justice John Paul Stevens behind schedule at 11:57
a.m., and Mr. Obama did not take the oath until 12:05 p.m., five minutes past
the constitutionally proscribed transfer of power.
Moreover, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. stumbled over the 35-word oath,
causing Mr. Obama to repeat it out of the constitutional order. Instead of
swearing that he “will faithfully execute the office of president of the United
States,” Mr. Obama swore that he “will execute the office of president of the
United States faithfully.”
Following time-honored rituals, the Obamas attended lunch with lawmakers in
Statuary Hall at the Capitol, then rode and walked to the White House, where
they watched the parade from a bulletproof reviewing stand. They planned to
attend all 10 official inaugural balls before spending their first night in the
White House.
In his Inaugural Address, Mr. Obama seemed at times to be having a virtual
dialogue with his predecessors. “What is required of us now is a new era of
responsibility,” he said, “a recognition on the part of every American that we
have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not
grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly.” Mr. Bush and Mr. Clinton likewise
called for responsibility at their inaugurations, but Mr. Obama offered little
sense of what exactly he wanted Americans to do.
Mr. Obama also seemed to take issue with Ronald Reagan, who declared when he
took office in 1981 that “government is not the solution to our problem;
government is the problem.” Mr. Clinton rebutted that in 1997, saying,
“government is not the problem and government is not the solution.”
Mr. Obama offered a new formulation: “The question we ask today is not whether
our government is too big or too small but whether it works, whether it helps
families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is
dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer
is no, programs will end.”
Mr. Clinton, at least, applauded the message. In a brief interview afterward, he
said Mr. Obama’s installation could change the way America was viewed.
“It’s obviously historic because President Obama is the first African-American
president, but it’s more than that,” Mr. Clinton said. “This is a time when
we’re clearly making a new beginning. It’s a country of repeated second-chances
and new beginnings.”
January 17, 2009
Filed at 4:33 a.m. ET
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Theodore Roosevelt loved a parade and on March 4, 1905,
Washington gave him one as spirited as the man himself.
Roosevelt became president in September 1901 with the assassination of William
McKinley. Now, an election victory behind him, he would serve in his own right.
An estimated 30,000 marched, among them Roosevelt's beloved Rough Riders from
the Spanish-American War, in an exuberant inaugural procession that placed the
beaming president up front.
The Associated Press has been going back into history to finds its stories on
some of the most notable inauguration days. Here is an excerpt from AP's story
on the parade, as it appeared on the front page of The Racine (Wis.) Daily
Journal that day:
------
WASHINGTON, March 4 -- President Roosevelt led his inaugural parade in quick
marching time from the capitol to the White House. No president in recent years
has been as prompt in moving from one end of the avenue to the other. The troops
marched in ideal weather, the sky being clear, the sun warm, and a fair breeze
blowing. The president lost no time in formalities. He descended the steps which
were put in place in front of the inaugural stand and took his carriage without
re-entering the capitol. The inaugural march began at 1:20 o'clock and as the
president's carriage, followed by that of Vice President Fairbanks and those of
the members of the cabinet, proceeded through the capitol grounds, the vast
throng hastily placed itself on either side of the line of march and cheered
without ceasing.
PRESIDENT KEPT BUSY BOWING
The procession moved slowly and Mr. Roosevelt in acknowledging the salutes from
either side rose to his feet repeatedly and with his silk hat in his hand bowed
to right and left. The buildings facing the capitol grounds through which the
procession passed, were occupied to their full capacity with cheering people,
who waved flags and handkerchiefs. No incident marred in the slightest degree
the inaugural procession as it left the scene of the inaugural address and
proceeded down past the peace monument and took its way toward the White House
on the broad avenue.
The procession formed immediately behind the carriages of the presidential party
and in the order previously arranged, marched from the capitol. Many times along
the line of march the president arose in his carriage and lifted his hat. A
broad smile lit up his face and it was easy to see the cheers of the admiring
throngs greatly pleased him.
The military grand divisions of the procession came after the rough riders.
WEST POINTERS AND ''MIDDIES''
Major General James F. Wade was chief marshal and with a splendidly uniformed
staff representing each staff corps of the army led the division. Foremost in
the line were the pets of the army and navy, the West Point cadets and the
''middies'' from Annapolis with the District of Columbia national guard, which
has come to be looked upon as almost a part of the regular army organization.
The cadets headed by Brigadier General Frederick Grant and under their own
superintendent, Brigadier General Mills, acquitted themselves splendidly. There
was a diversity about their organization which made it very attractive, for it
represented infantry, field artillery, new mountain battery platoons and the
cavalry which makes West Point famous throughout the world.
MARCHED LIKE CLOCK WORK
The boys marched like veterans and although many of them had friends and
relatives and sweethearts along the line of march, they never turned their eyes
to the right or left, but marched like clockwork.
The midshipmen surprised everybody. Sailors are not supposed to be good foot
soldiers, yet beyond question the two battalions from Annapolis, 700 strong,
gave the West Pointers the hardest contest they had ever had for first place in
a parade. The boys ... marched with a precision that was wonderful and were
cheered at almost every step. ...
------
Also on the front page in Racine: Roosevelt is given a ring containing a lock of
Abraham Lincoln's hair, cut after he was shot and before he died. The government
anticipates a $28.5 million surplus. Two special trains from Cleveland that were
''making a good run'' to Washington collide the night before, killing seven
passengers.
------
AP Corporate Archives Director Valerie Komor contributed to this report from New
York.
May 21,
2008
Filed at 1:10 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- President Bush vetoed the $300 billion farm bill on Wednesday, calling
it a tax increase on regular Americans at a time of high food prices in the face
of a near-certain override by Congress.
It was the 10th veto of Bush's presidency. But since it passed both houses of
Congress with veto-proof majorities, his action will likely be overridden.
The president believes the legislation is fiscally irresponsible and gives away
too much money to wealthy farmers, yet his criticism rang hollow with lawmakers
from both parties who voted for increased crop subsidies, food stamps for the
poor and other goodies to help their districts in an election year.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said lawmakers should think twice before
they override Bush's veto.
''Members are going to have to think about how they will explain these votes
back in their districts at a time when prices are on the rise,'' she said.
''People are not going to want to see their taxes increase.''
Perino said the bill is $20 billion over the current baseline -- ''way too much
to ask taxpayers right now.''
''This bill is bloated,'' she said. ''When grocery bills are on the rise,
Congress is asking families to pay more in subsidies to wealthy farmers at a
time of record farm profits.''
In announcing Bush's veto, White House budget director Jim Nussle said Bush
rejected it because it increases federal spending. He said Americans are
frustrated with wasteful government spending and the funneling of taxpayer funds
to pet projects. ''This only worsens the frustration that they will feel,''
Nussle said, adding that Congress should extend the current farm bill.
About two-thirds of the bill would pay for nutrition programs such as food
stamps and emergency food aid for the needy. An additional $40 billion is for
farm subsidies while almost $30 billion would go to farmers to idle their land
and to other environmental programs.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has said that the measure will drastically
increase nutrition initiatives that will help 38 million U.S. families put food
on their tables. She made it clear she would have preferred smaller farm
subsidies, but deferred to some Democratic colleagues looking ahead to the fall
campaign.
Some Republicans criticized the mostly bipartisan and popular bill because a few
home-state pet causes, including tax breaks for Kentucky racehorse owners and
additional aid for salmon fishermen in the Pacific Northwest.
The bill also would:
--Boost nutrition programs, including food stamps and emergency domestic food
aid, by more than $10 billion over 10 years. It would expand a program to
provide fresh fruits and vegetables to schoolchildren.
--Increase subsidies for certain crops, including fruits and vegetables excluded
from previous farm bills.
--Extend dairy programs.
--Increase loan rates for sugar producers.
--Urge the government to buy surplus sugar and sell it to ethanol producers for
use in a mixture with corn.
--Cut a per-gallon ethanol tax credit for refiners from 51 cents to 45 cents.
The credit supports the blending of fuel with the corn-based additive. More
money would go to cellulosic ethanol, made from plant matter.
--Require that meats and other fresh foods carry labels with their country of
origin.
--Stop allowing farmers to collect subsidies for multiple farm businesses.
--Reopen a major discrimination case against the Agriculture Department.
Thousands of black farmers who missed a deadline would get a chance to file
claims alleging they were denied loans or other subsidies.
--Pay farmers for weather-related farm losses from a new $3.8 billion disaster
relief fund.
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).
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.
