The passion of the voters and so forth. When you talk about a symbol of state, how important is that . Very important to. Having the presidency is all from the kingship and its a twopronged thing, symbolic president and manager of the government and it has been from the start and some are good administrators and some are battle better symbols and i think its the characteristic of the office. They have to be both, really. In your book, the leaders we deserve and if you didnt, you write that if great or near great president s were shaped by numerous experiences with people from all walks of life the unsuccessful spent most of their adult lives in a single pursue politics. Thats correct and if you look at some of my failures, James Buchanan probably had more jobs than anyone. He waited all of his life to be president and it was a goal from the time he was in the state legislator. He conspired behind his wifes back to run for president. She did not even know he was one of the candidates and joshua was stunned when he received it. We think of others. Failure brings a lot more out than success theyre greasing of lincoln lincolns many failures, death of his mother and sister as a child, not a Good Relationship with his father. His father renting out other firms because he was a big burly guy and was not paid for his own later labor. He was determined to make something out of himself and we think of roosevelt and polio in the story is very well known. You might have been present without that, but he might not have had the empathy. He was a very spoiled child. Called the feather duster by his fellow state legislators. Then, it trumans failure with business. These things tape help a great deal in testing a president s character. Ones with the inflated resid resumes dont always do well. George bush, the further we get away from him, there was a unique head of state, not very partisan. One could argue he threw away his presidency with that tax increase, going flat back on the pledge seen there might be called to head in the middle east he was willing to do that. He shouldve explained why he did that later on, but still he is the one with the endless resume that did very well. By the way, Martin Van Buren did terrible luck as president. The magician, and the schemer, not much up to being a president s and was much better as head of the democratic committee. I say that i stand by it . Host Abraham Lincoln had no business being president , ditty . I mean, when you look at his past . Guest yes and no. If you look at government experience, we had we forget he was the leader of his party in the state legislature in illinois. We really forget that the years out of office he was probably the most prominent lawyer in his county, his state, his region. He was an attorney for the illinois central and a very famous defense attorney, so, i mean, in our time if we were to look at someone like david boyd who comes to mind, f lee bailey of our generation, he was in those rings work he wasnt getting his attention in those days, but he understood politics and how to get clients and how to cash in. He certainly was born he did not die rich, but he did die middleclass. So, i would say if you are looking at government office, one term in congress, but looking about a symbol of his era and galvanized by the popular sovereignty and the dred scott decision, mobilized with a passion that he had not had before and that passion is what drove him to the presidency. By the way, before we go on people forget he we also douglas, but that was when the state legislature picked the senator and we all start by gerrymandering and get out the vote. Democratic legislators versus republican. His party did much better, but the democrats through the district picked the senator, but everyone knew that was a pirate to victory. As soon as he loses to douglas he gets the telegraph to come to cooper union and show his stuff to the establishment and you know the rest of the story. Host Kate Andersen brower who is the author of two books, the residents about the white house and first women. Heres a quote by rachel jackson, Andrew Jacksons wife id rather be a doorkeeper in the house of god then within that palace in washington. Guest i think its very difficult for a lot of first ladies and martha washington, George Washingtons wife talked about being a state primitive prisoner and Michelle Obama has talked about feeling like a prisoner in the white house and i thought it was interesting when she set about some president s not even telling their wives that they would run and they win and they were surprised and you look back in history a ladybird johnson even though she was financially supportive of lbj he was very dismissive of her and when he was right for congress he did not even tell her the first time until far along in the process and i think another thing i think there is a sense among these women that they are kind of being dragged along into the white house and its a sacrifice for them. I think with Michelle Obama you see that to give up a lucrative career giving up making more money than her husband. As the first lady you cant work and then you get criticized no matter what you do and i have talked to 31st ladies who talks about how frustrating it was and a matter what she did she knew there would be a largest segment of the population who would hate her and, so she said she did what she wanted which included sitting in capital means and being called a steel magnolia. People forget about Rosalynn Carter how she was kind of a precursor to Hillary Clinton in many ways. I think the two of them have a lot of common. Maybe, generationally if Rosalynn Carter had been born later she would have been more active and sought out a west wing office which wouldve been unthinkable in the 70s and obviously Hillary Clinton having a west wing office did not break so well for her at the time. Democrats lost in the Midterm Election of 94 and she blames herself for a lot of that, so i think there is a definite prison like element for these women. Host heres a bit of video of Michelle Obama talking about living in the white house. I guess we dont have that video. I apologize for that. Guest rachel jackson, though, she was the first first lady they were cruel to an Andrew Jackson never forget john quincy adams, but there was a scar, Stephen Mistry of their marriage. She was married to another man and they went down from nashville which is not much today, but was a long time then and claimed they were married, but there is no record of them being married and they went back to nashville and gossip was everywhere about it, so they married again and when he ran for president his best friend, judge overton, wrote a long essay about the situation. Judge over sin had a lot of integrity and he told the story, but there was one might he said and so they say they were married. So, there wasnt much defense nor would it have been surprising. Host build bill feel whats been your involvement with the white house . I wrote a history of the white house and starting with the last two weeks of president nixon and ending with president reagan for the White House Historical association which is a nonprofit support for the white house and they publish things and raise money and occasionally by some dance object like Benjamin Franklins busters on paper the white house, so i wrote the book and the security was not was what it is today in the generosity of the chief as sirs ushers i got a really intimate look at the place. Host how did the white house come about, originally . Guest it was called for in the constitution in the residence act called for two buildings and George Washington was so happy with the site that was selected on the potomac halfway through the country that he realized that they had to have a building. They had 10 years with the amendment, 10 years to move it there and he knew they had to bricks and mortar, so he settled on the white house instead of the capital because that rattled on and on and controversy and it was so huge. He thought he could finish a house. First one he agreed on was five times the size of what was built and then he agreed finally on a Country House designed by an Irish American named james hoban. He washed every stone that went into it. He wanted it finished by 1800 picked that was the deadline, november 1, and it was. It was built in the cellars of the huge house that was dug. It was just a little house by comparison. Seemed very huge and the scottish men who built the house, the stonemasons, they knew the stone very well, very porous stone like they had in scotland. To seal it they whitewash it, to fill in the holes and cracks and it became the white house. Host Kate Andersen brower, how big is it, humming floors and rooms . Guest looks like its only three floors on the outside, but there are two basement levels and there is a state floor and then to a second and third floor, which is the familys private living quarters that includes a solarium, which is this incredible room overlooking the Washington Monument and its really a family room for a family and in fact, the obamas and architectural digest last week released photos, which was incredible because they are very guarded about those areas as you can imagine is feeling place they they can really relax. So, it has several different levels. Six levels to the white house into hitting areas where there is a pastry kitchen for the head chef and it chief offer ushers office, so its huge of the basement level, the basement kitchen is where the residence staff gathering have legendary together and in the 60s and 70s there was actually kitchen with a chef and they all loved her. I thought that was incredible. It is sort of our version of Downton Abbey that was taking place at the white house and you dont ever think of that world and also, i mean, i was a White House Reporter they never thought about the butlers who serve the first family or who actually runs the private side of the white house and i think that is fascinating, the relationship that the butlers developed with the family as kind of a lifeline because when you live in a white house you feel very isolated and they are so close that in fact laura bush and her daughter one of her daughters went to the funeral of james ramsey who is the butler who i interviewed who came up from texas to go to his funeral, so its more than lip service. Its real devotion. Guest if you read a servant at the white house memoirs, you better think that is not usual. Those people dont write memoirs, the ones that are really close and they know, they just dont do it. Its a good analogy to a Country House, english Country House not because anyone is trying to be shelley, but because it works. Its public and private, first private, but it is what makes it work. All those people with all those jobs. They are carpenters, a plumber, a painter in this work goes on constantly under the chief usher and it is the residence and it is like a Country House long ago. Host Kate Andersen brower, how did you get access to so many of the longterm white house employees for your book the residence . Guest i interviewed close to 60 former staffers and thats important zero that they are all former staffers and it was difficult to get them to talk. It took years and some would only say positive things. You know, they dont want to reveal any secrets about the family that would make them look bad, even negative things were said in a positive way like for instance when i talked to one usher about what it was like during Monica Lewinsky. Anyones interested in what that was like and he told me a story that Hillary Clinton during the height of the scandal coming down from the second floor and asking to just go to the pool with some books. It was a sunny weekend in august, and the president had just publicly admitted his affair with Monica Lewinsky and she just wanted time alone by the pool and it was a small story, but i think its a telling a story, that it was actually not for to do this for her pure chi did not want to see anyone and she didnt want any secret Service Staff to see her, so he described this gargantuan effort to give her three hours and an afternoon sitting outside by the pool and he said she looks like she had been crying and i think the staff felt very protective of Hillary Clinton at the time. They felt she had been through so much and was very embarrassing long story short, it wasnt easy to get them to talk and they really do love the family they serve. Theres a lot of allegiance there and they do not rights like you said although jb west wrote a wonderful memoir about his time there, but Jackie Kennedy was really mad he did that. It is not something that the first family likes. Host you also have a quote by skip allen, white house usher about the clintons. They were about the most paranoid people id ever seen in my life. Guest yeah, i mean, there are people guest he was fired. Guest not skip, chris emery was fired. Skip left on good terms, but there are some allegiances that form. Of these are human beings and they do have opinions, i mean, they are not overtly political, but skip was talking about how the clintons changed the phone system and they used to have an operator connect the phone line, but the clintons did not like to think people were eavesdropping, so they had to they wanted to make calls themselves and did not want calls transferred, which i think is understandable to want in the modern era, but to the ushers and i think bill would say this is the case that everything is about tradition and they dont like anything being upended at all, so that kind of speaks to the sense that the clintons were trying to do something differently and that did not sit well with some of the staff. Caller dont you think within tradition, the clintons were very traditional. She was with the rooms, working on the rooms. Guest i mean, i dont think of them as traditional at all. She had a west wing office. Guest that kind of thing, but the social side of the white house with the butlers and things, i always thought they wanted everything to be a stickler for the way it was. Guest that a difficult relationship with the secret service. They all do, but the clintons host why do you both agree with that statement . Guest we have a number of memoirs and secret Service Agents. Host you said they all do, all the president s do . Guest you get close to people you i guess they see that no person is a hero to their valet. They see some of their faults and try not to listen to the faults that they hear, peoples comments about others and they keep their jobs by not repeating it most of the time, but they all had likes and dislikes and i suspect some of the rumors we have heard particularly about the clintons and the transition, it was a rough transition not between the bushes and the clintons, but between the clintons and staff old and new. We had an early brouhaha around the time of travel gate story that one of the ushers us that he was moved out for daring to show a former First Lady Barbara Bush how to operate a word processor or email. Guest with her memoirs she called for help and they clinton staffer found out and he was fired. Host he was treated disloyal. He thought he came with the traits drapes. Someone asked a professional question and i answered it, but they thought differently. We have had these not very good stories coming out, but some president s were some just drop their code of macgyver and after it. They are close enough, closest to the president guest on a number level the secret service gets its orders from outside the Treasury Department and there are things they have to do professionally and sometimes it doesnt exactly melt with what the family who has had its own level of discipline independence, they dont want to conform to that, but the secret service is not theoretically under the president. Guest interesting history to that. Goes back to the first mrs. Roosevelt. Remember he came in after assassination and this was a outdoorsman, tough guy. He would go skinny been in the potomac and writing in Rock Creek Park and no one was going to tell him what to do and his wife was terrified that he may be a target. This athlete running around washington and no one to protect him, so she went behind his back to the secretary of treasury and he managed to get the secret service to not be in command of the president , so if someone said mr. President i cannot stand down you have to talk to the secretary of the treasury and that would give him five minutes to calm down. Host in a larger context, Alvin Felzenberg, how is the presidency changed over the last but the elections . Guest how many . Host fiftyeight times that whip on to the polls. This will be the 58th. Guest i often tell my students to think of the present as uninvited guest in your living room. That was not true in the early days, certainly was not true until the advent of radio where im not sure most americans when the government did less, unless you were a hero like Andrew Jackson who had a silhouette in every tavern in america, the second savior, battle of new orleans and things like that and lincoln being martyred. Im sure his photograph was in every schoolhouse well, even when i was growing up lincoln and washington were in every school, but it wasnt until the job became more. Coolidge was one of the first to be known on the radio. Someone did a poll once in his voice was addr