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. Daily or i often say brings a lot more out than success. As a so not a very Good Relationship with the father. He might have been president without it. He was called the feather duster by his legislators. These things help a great deal in testing a president s character. I will make one exception, George Herbert walker bush. There was a unique head of state not very partisan. One could argue he threw away his presidency seeing therese might be called ahead in the seh middle east. He should have explained why he did that later on but still, hes the one with the endless resume. Martin van buren, terrible luck as president. I say that and stand by it. Host Abraham Lincoln had no business being president. When you look at his past. Guest yes and no. If youre looking at government experience, we have one term in congress. We forget he was the leader ofpt the party and we really forget he was the most prominent lawyer and his county or state or region he was a very famous defense attorney. So if we were to look at someone like david boyd comes to mind, he wasnt getting any attention in those days, but he certainly understood politics and how to get clients and how to cash in to some degree. He depends on a rich, but he certainly died middleclass for his time. If you are looking at are government office, i has galvanized by the fugitive slave act and above all, the judge scott decision mobilized with a passion that he had before and that passion is what drove him through the base and the presidency. Before we go on, we have to remember this when the state legislature picked the senator. We always talk about gerrymandering to get out the versus r vote. His party did much better, but they picked the senator. Everybody knew i he was a pilot victory. He gets the telegram to come to cooper union and you know the rest of the story. Host kate devour is the author of the white house and first women. Ho heres a quote by rachel jackson, Andrew Jacksons wife. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of god int and to n in a palace in washington. I think it i think its difficult for a lot ofhi the first ladies. Martha washington talked about being a state prisoner, Michelle Obama talked about feeling like a prisoner in the white housed and i thought it was interesting what she said, some dont even tell their wives they are going to be running until they win. Loowith backend ladybirds johnsn even though she was very financially supportive, he was very dismissive of her and he didnt even tell her he was running the first time until far along in the process. Another thing i think there is a sense among the women and its a sacrifice for them. Forced to give it up you dont get paid and then you are criticized for everything you do. She talked about how frustrating it was and knew there would be a segment of the population thatte hated her which included being called the Steel Magnolia andns made fun of eventually. I think the two of them have a lot in common if Rosalynn Carter would have been born later she would have been even active and it would have been unthinkable in the 70s. Its like Hillary Clinton having an office but didnt work well for her and in 94 she blamed herself for a lot of thought. So i think there is this element. heres here is a little bit of the video of Michelle Obama talking about living in the white house. I guess we dont have that video. I apologize. She was the first first lady they were cruel to an me and thy never forgave John Quincy Adams dot there was a stain on the history. She was married to another man and they went to claim they were married but there is no record of there ever being married. They went back to nashville and married again and his best friend judge overton wrote a long essay about this trade should. Host what has been your involvement in the white house . Guest starting and ending with president nixon. There was support for the white house they publish things andd raised money occasionally by a family objects. The security wasnt like it is today. Host how did the whiteor house, though originally . T was a guest they called for two buildings. He realized they had to have bricks and mortar so he settled on the white house and thett capitol instead of the capital. First what he agreed almost five times the size of what was built then he agreed a family on a Country House. He watched every stone that wene into it. He wanted it done november 1 that was the deadline. It was a little house by comparison. Host how big is it, how many floors, how many were . Est o guest there are two basement levels and a state floor and a second and thirdmils floor which is the private living quarters that includes al incredible room overlooking the Washington Monument and its a family room and in fact the obamas released on the cover which is incredible because they are guarded in this area as you can imagine its the only place they can relax. It has Different Levels of the head staff and then theres the kitchen where the staff gathered to have lunch together. I thought it was incredible it was like a version of johnson ty abbey. I never thought about the butlers that serve the family or who runs the private side of the white house and i think its fascinating that relationship they develop as lifeliness because you feel isolated and in fact wore a wore a bush. Its more than lipservice commits real devotion. If you read the memoirs you think thats not usual, they dont write memoirs. They are like family. Its a good thing to an english Country House not because they were trying to be shelley buttr because it works. Its public and private, first private, but thats what makes. It work. The work goes on constantly and it is like a Country House. Host how did you get th access to so many of the employees for your book the residents . Guest i interviewed close to 54 staffers. It is difficult to get them to talk. Several of them would only say positive things. They dont want to reveal any secrets about the families that would make them look bad and anyone negative things were even set in a positive way. When i talked to one aboutyones Monica Lewinsky he told me a story about Hillary Clinton during the height of the scandal coming down from the second floor asking to go to the pool with some books. The president just admitted his affair and she just wanted to time alone by the pool it was as small but telling the story that it was an effort to do this for her. She didnt want anybody to seent her so sh he described this gargantuan effort to give her an afternoon sitting out by the pool and she looked like shed been cryinshe hadbeen crying anf staff felt very protective of Hillary Clinton at the time. M she had been through so much and it was embarrassing. Long story short it wasnt easy to get them to talk. They love the families they serve and theres a love of allegiance. There was a wonderful memoir thabutJackie Kennedy was reallyd that he did it. Its not something the first family likes. Host you have a quote about to skip out when about the clintons. Guest team left on goode terms but there are some of allegiance that form. They do have opinions. They are not overtly political. N he talked about how the clintons changed the phone system. They wanted to be able to make calls themselves which i think is understandable but the ushers would say its the case everything is about tradition and they dont like anything being upended so that speak to the sense they were doing something differently and it didnt sit well within thead staff. I dont think of them as traditional at all. Youre talking about the social half of the white house with the buck lawyers and things. They had a different relationship with the sea service. Why do you agree with that statement . Use at all the president s do. You get close to people and you see that no person is a hero they. They all have likes and dislikes and i would expect some of the rumors we heard, it was a rough transition between the clintons and the staff. One of the ushers said he hader moved out. He called and asked for help. If they sold it differently some liked the secret service and others with just drop their code [inaudible] there are things they have to do professionally and sometimese it doesnt blow up with the family that had their own independence they dont want to conform to that but the secret services and theoretically under the president. It goes back to the first in mrs. Roosevelt. Remember he came in after the assassination. He would go skinny dipping in the potomac. His wife was terrified he was around washington for himself bd nobody would protect him. He managed to get a pass from the secret service so if somebody says i cant stand down, you have to talk to treasury, then i guess mrs. Roosevelt would have to deal with that later . 58 times weve gone to the polls. I often told my students to think of the president as the ti uninvited guest. That wasnt true in the early days where im not sure unless y you were a hero like Andrew Jackson. Lincoln of course being martyred his photograph was in every schoolhouse. It wasnt until the job becamek more. Someone did a poll as recognizable as any other but he didnt do what fdr did. He didnt speak offthecuff. Getting ready to work tomorrow. The same stories were in chicago. It was very hot and he walked several miles per exercise. Every radio had his voice. Kenn not as a transition. Was the second ar or the third t the first everyone had television and it was a universal thing. The president of the primetime performer. [inaudible] i think your microphone fell off and we are going to get itt. On. This is from 1912 i think yougu will be able to figure it out. Its called the old way and the new. They are dusting off portraits of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard taft in thisf dog together as an example of the old way of doing things so he is dispensing favors and theres all sorts of political corruption contrasted with the new way of doing things as a champion of the common man it ends with a plea to send 1 dollar to the Democratic National committee on behalf of the Woodrow Wilson campaignus because Woodrow Wilson that Republican Guard with the wealthiest. They would watch whoever else was purporting and have [inaudible] against the establishment whohew would represent the small guy against big guy and very few have the farmer. You write that the white house has become just as much a part of america. You cant separate the two really. Ag its such a symbolic combinati combination. Eisenhower proposed a highrise to the south and he would live on the top two floors. The public went crazy. We dont know whether that would happen. I wondered was it Grover Cleveland he was 20 years older than she was and what the press was intrusive with her and didnt h want her at the white house because she went to formal occasions but had a big house out of town. She had chickens and rabbits and dobermans. But truman of course moved to blair housethat. I would be surprised any president would be able to go to far away. He had no choice to do what he did. I wanted to extend from 17th street. All of these places. It wenif went through and then s stopped and they took the phone away. Ne he asked no one and paid the money out of the household budget. Welcome to book tv on cspa cspan2. Usually we focus on one author put this month. Bill is one of the authors about the white house including temples of democracy, the white house, the history of an american idea, the president s house and warehouse. Hes a professor that taught ato columbia coming university of houston and has spent quite a bit of time as they come to attend. And all is the author of the book the leaders that we disturbed. He taught for George Washington for quite a while and princeton and served as spokesman for ther commission. Her tube fo to president s inside the white house and the grace and power of americas first first ladys. F shes worked at cbs and fox as well so we will be talking with him about the history. 202 7488200, seven 488201 for those in the mountain and pacific. You can dial make a comment on the Facebook Page or send an email. Earlier on we talked about her. The white house is a place attention played out in the administration. Its purpose the stress of being in that house and one of the challenges is to make. When i come home at night its to fintofind that space of prot, those things that allow you to privacy you need but also to revel in the house that you are in. Graceful people thats like you are living in a beautifulr e hotel. Youre going to interact with a group of people, special visitors and staff and you feel like greeting them and then you get into the elevator and go to your personal space and it feels like youre th you are the onlye living here. Its interesting to see the first ladys overtime deal with negotiating in the white house and i think for someone like Michelle Obama, she felt a lot of pressure. When i interviewed obama she taught about how they didnt necessarily look to the first ladies of the past because she has a unique position and there was an amount of scrutiny that she was going to have to deal with so fitch is a reality but its interesting to see. Americans are not very forgiving in terms of what the first lady is allowed to do and we will see if we have a first gentleman ife that changes anything. From Jackie Kennedy to barack gp obama you have trained to raise a Young Children in the white house so i think the president ei staffers who i view as the favorite family to serve was george bush senior and barbara bush because they knewho childrens names and i think part of that is because they didnt have children and that they didnt have that added burden. Michelle obama even talked about how conflict did she felt watching her daughters ge daughg to the secret service for the first day of school she thought what have we done. I think for women there is an added level of custer that thes women feel. Who ha host guest i think that somerviee people liked working for her. If sh shes that i would six don roses on that pedestal she was specific. If she asked for asparagus andyo you gave Something Else youu better have a good excuse. Of course they came from the historic visit in the 1980s she had a flower arrangement hae changed three times in one day in every room at the white house because she wanted to knock their socks off. A word of sympathy i thinkknb number one, it will be kind to Michelle Obama and the president we have to weigh out the memoirs and a lot of things. He we had that awful cover. There were certain people and it wasnt helpful. Then we had a list that was long, long gone. She is certainly one of them. The speech at the convention was the most human speech ever. At the other tribute nancy reagan, there was a telling comment. If Ronald Reagan met her before he would never have been president. [inaudible]ust she was the president s protector in every possible way and took a hit for him and was willing to pay. Sitting with the transition te team, [inaudible] do you think theyve been there in any personal sense most [inaudible] she went to george h. W. Bush and said we have to get rid of him and he said i just cant do it so she said if you are not man enough to, im going to. So their son talks about the mother in glowing terms and as you say she took a lot of heati because she wanted what was best for him always. And there was an article [inaudible] the management at the white house wasnt unlike the management of a film in hollywood. I always [inaudible] what was life like in the white house from 43 to 45 he meant a lot of time there but people he wanted to see, they would have to come spend the night. They were ther there all the tid was filled with kids and they got permission. Roosevelt had his own group and she made a group for herself. Na its an interesting pointnt because she really nabbed him constantly. He would see her coming and they no think so as progressive. I got to this point at the end of the day it got really annoying for him. Just schedule a lunch for me and they started scheduling. If she did get into trouble for sitting in on the cabinet meetings. Fdr used to have famous parties. Eleanor would put the bag down and told them about her day. In the current and be fair she tells the story about when no ordinary time cannot. She said that she and her husband and bill and hillary were trying to get all these people in here and decided ittmm wasnt possible. People even read memoirs about being a white house staffer so late at night they would rearrange furniture because they were told when they wouldectly o rearrange they know where every one is that i could imagine them poring over a blueprint. I worked on the blue room and she participated and what problems the committee and her father was obviously successful. Ahas every family had an impact . Its always been a link in melodrama and its a very compelling story this family torn to pieces. Its