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Finding the Words that Defined the Clinton Presidency
Simon and Schuster
October 2000
On Sale: October 5, 2000
287 pages
ISBN: 0743200209
EAN: 9780743200202
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
POTUS stands for "President of the United States."
Michael Waldman served as a special assistant and then chief
speechwriter to Bill Clinton from 1992 to 1999. During that
time, he worked closely with the president to write or edit
nearly two thousand speeches, including four State of the
Union addresses and two inaugural addresses. More than
rhetoric, these speeches are where policy, politics, and
presidential personality come together. With four
twenty-four-hour cable news channels and the Internet
competing for stories, every word a president speaks can be
instantly transmitted around the world. This constant media
attention has transformed the ways the White House works and
a president leads. POTUS Speaks takes us behind the
world's most powerful bully pulpit to show us what it is
like to govern in the eye of this media hurricane. It
describes life within the White House gates -- including the
dramatic, sometimes humorous struggles to shape the message,
control policy, and win the battle for public opinion.
Waldman tells the stories behind the words at key
moments in Clinton's presidency -- his speeches on the
economy and trade, his calls for campaign finance reform,
his budget showdowns with the GOP Congress. Waldman recounts
how Clinton's dramatic 1998 State of the Union address -- a
speech credited with helping to save his presidency -- came
together. He shows how policymakers struggled to contain a
worldwide financial crisis even as the press and the public
were obsessed with scandal. Readers meet the players, from a
president deeply involved in the process of crafting his
speeches to the young, sometimes anonymous policy aides who
guided the government. The Bill Clinton who emerges
in Waldman's candid account is not only a successful
president but, in many and surprising ways, an important
one. A man in love with history, obsessed with politics and
policy, and highly attuned to the power of words, Clinton
used the bully pulpit relentlessly. We see the sources of
his uncanny ability to connect with the public. We see how
he changed the presidency, using his speeches and executive
actions to address long-ignored domestic issues. And we see
how he worked to frame a new role for a smaller but active
government. POTUS Speaks is the first
contemporary history of the two terms of the Clinton
presidency to be written by a key participant. It is a major
contribution to the consideration of Clinton's legacy.
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