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POTUS Speaks: Finding the Words that Defined the Clinton Presidency (review)
- Rhetoric & Public Affairs
- Michigan State University Press
- Volume 4, Number 4, Winter 2001
- pp. 757-760
- 10.1353/rap.2001.0081
- Review
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
Rhetoric & Public Affairs 4.4 (2001) 757-760
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Book Review
POTUS Speaks:
Finding the Words that Defined the Clinton Presidency
POTUS Speaks: Finding the Words that Defined the Clinton Presidency. By Michael Waldman. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000; pp. 224. $25.00.
Just after the Democratic convention in 1992, Michael Waldman, a public interest lawyer at Congress Watch, Ralph Nader's lobbying organization, got a call from a former congressional staffer now working for the Democratic nominee. George Stephanopoulos was offering him a job doing policy research for the Clinton campaign. Waldman jumped at the chance, and when the new administration moved into the White House he was initially listed as a special assistant for policy. His gifts [End Page 757] as a writer, however, made him more valuable in the speechwriting operation, and by early 1996 he was the president's chief speechwriter. We know from West Wing (the TV show) that these people lead interesting lives. But we can also see that, as the genre of staffers' political memoirs has burgeoned, the amount of new information and original insight each delivers has diminished. Waldman's tale is thankfully not one of those breathless tell-alls, but a history of the Clinton administration's first seven years, viewed from the speechwriter's perspective. This means that he's not the first to map the territory, and it highlights the question of how his particular vantage might illuminate events. As it happens, Waldman is a canny observer and a deft storyteller. Those looking for a readable tour d'horizon will find Waldman an amiable and illuminating guide. Those familiar with the already-voluminous literature on the Clinton years will find this an intriguing complement to more conventional approaches: the image of presidential leadership as progressing from speech to speech seems a strikingly apt one for an age in which ubiquitous mass media and instant communications environ a modern presidency uniquely equipped for "going public" and a citizenry increasingly inattentive or skeptical in the face of politicians' persuasive attempts. Although POTUS Speaks includes incisive reports on the major events and campaigns that have defined the administration, readers of Rhetoric & Public Affairs will be most interested in what one might call the rhetorical process, and Waldman presents a stimulating history of the development of the speechwriting operation in the Clinton White House.
Even attentive citizens, whose knowledge of presidential speechwriting is mostly confined to recollections of memorable phrases, may not have thought about the existence and significance of variation in the relations between presidents and their speechwriters. One might suppose, for instance, a division of labor in which speechwriters would "find the words," while the president and his policy advisors would shape the programs that the words describe. This neat organizational image might characterize some administrations. For instance, Peggy Noonan had never met the president when she wrote Reagan's celebrated speech commemorating the 40th anniversary of D-Day. But the Clinton White House didn't work this way. In two important respects, the speechwriting operation was integrated into the process of governing: the speechwriting and policy staffs often worked in tandem on key speeches, an interaction that not only framed the speech but also set the agenda intended to translate its themes into legislation; and the president, always sensitive to the close connection between persuasive speech and successful deeds, participated actively, from managing the Communications Office to throwing himself into the details of writing the speech.
Waldman describes a process in which he was not only privy to but frequently a contributor in policy discussions, and Clinton's team of energetic policy wonks--the ones toiling just outside the limelight of the Cabinet--took an active part in fleshing out the president's themes for major speeches. Waldman recounts one all-nighter of [End Page 758] work on the 1996 State of the Union speech. The scene opens at midnight, with Waldman and Don Baer of the speechwriting staff closeted in Waldman's office with Bruce Reed (of the policy planning office) and Gene Sperling (of the...