Presidential Dad Trivia
Posted: September 21, 2024 Filed under: America Since 1945 Leave a comment
(source)
George W. Bush, interviewed by David Rubinstein of the Carlyle Group in his book The Highest Calling: Conversations on the American Presidency.
This is not accurate. There was Joseph Kennedy:
who outlived three of his sons. Nathaniel Fillmore lived to be 91, and saw all of son Millard’s presidency. George Harding outlived son Warren, he died in Santa Ana, California.
In his biography of Warren G. Harding, Charles L. Mee describes Tryon Harding as “a small, idle, shiftless, impractical, lazy, daydreaming, catnapping fellow whose eye was always on the main chance”.
The W. Bush interview is frustrating to those of us who think he ruined everything:
How about this:
Well, I’m glad it was nice for you. (Genuinely, I am. The guy has charm, despite the catastrophes. What does that tell us? How can we profit from knowing that a president will come along the consequences of whom are awful and we still are lured in?)
W. does seem to take some responsibility here, on the bank bailouts:
W. Bush seems like a guy who says, well, I made the best decision under the circumstances and then shrugs at the consequences. That was the vibe I got from his book, Decision Points. Just because the consequences are appalling, doesn’t mean it was a bad decision. They no doubt taught him that at Harvard Business School.
In his Miller Center interview, Karl Rove tells a story from the transition meeting with Bill Clinton:
Riley
So this was the one personal thing. Who came up with the line, “When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible”?
Rove
Him.
Riley
Him?
Rove
Yes. As he’s also the author—He stole the idea—of “compassionate conservatism.” When we saw Clinton after the election, he said [imitating Clinton], “When I heard you say that phrase, ‘compassionate conservatism,’ George, I knew we were in deep trouble. That’s brilliant, it was just brilliant.”
W communications guy Dan Bartlett tells another:
When they had their transition meeting, as always happens, he asked him. “How’d you get better at it?” Clinton said, “Two things. First, you’re going to give a lot of speeches, so just practice. Practice more than anything else is going to make you better. Secondly, I learned how to take my time and to pause.” He told him a trick. He said, “On every other sentence or maybe every third sentence, it was one or the other, when I hit a period I would count in my head—one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three—before I’d read the next sentence. It will be hard for you to pull that off, because it feels like an eternity.”
I don’t know if you’ve done public speaking. I do it now. To master the pause, which Clinton now is brilliant at. He said, “Pacing is everything in speechwriting.” So he took that to heart. He took it, but what Clinton was good at, which Bush was never good at, was that while he was not a gifted speaker, he was an authentic communicator. It was always up to us to make sure that he really believed—Clinton could make the signing of a post office bill like the Gettysburg Address. He could take anything and at a moment’s notice turn it around. You knew when Bush was mailing one in.
Helytimes 