POTUS Speaks: Finding the Words That Defined the Clinton Presidency by Michael Waldman

From the Publisher

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.

Publishers Weekly

In this lively and entertaining memoir of his seven years of service in the White House as a speechwriter for POTUS (President of the United States), Waldman does not move much beyond the by now familiar story of the roller-coaster trajectory of Clinton's presidency. He does note that Clinton likes to talk and is good at it, which is not news, but Waldman (Who Robbed America?) goes on to discuss how Clinton used his verbal skills to create a "bully pulpit," employing presidential speeches as a means to change public opinion and push public policy and to institute other changes Waldman finds both numerous and significant. An unabashed Clinton admirer, he mentions the scandals of the presidency, but does not dwell on them. In the end, the reader does not see much beneath the surface of the man. Of interest, though, is Waldman's humorous description of the speech writing process: it is hectic and disorganized, finished at the last minute, and even presidential speech writers, we learn, get writer's block. In all, this is an enjoyable read. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Will we ever be able to make sense of the Clinton presidency? Former Clinton speech writer Waldman has written an engaging, very witty, and insightful account of the Clinton presidency from the perspective of one of the President's chief wordsmiths. The author argues that Clinton was successful at forging a "new presidency" for a new age by reconciling the old heroic model of the Presidency, left over from the Cold War era, to the demands of new times. This was no easy task: "it's hard to be a modern president in a post-modern age." Waldman credits Clinton with several successes, such as "transforming the way a president uses the bully pulpit to lead," changing the Democratic Party, pointing "the United States firmly--and irrevocably--toward the global economy," framing "a new vision for what government should do," and persuading the public to move in that direction. This is an important and valuable contribution to our understanding of the complexities of the Clinton presidency. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/00.]--Michael A. Genovese, Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Kirkus Reviews

Clinton and his White House staff at work, seen from the perspective of his former director of speechwriting. Waldman (Who Robbed America?, not reviewed) joined the Clinton campaign in the summer of 1992 and worked for him until the summer of 1999. During those years he helped draft nearly 2,000 speeches, including two inaugural and four state of the union addresses. His chronology touches lightly on the 1992 campaign ("a sleepless blur") and the chaos of the transitional period, but moves into high gear with his assignment to work on the new President's first inaugural address. Waldman, who focused on domestic issues and the international economy, describes the atmosphere of hope and optimism at the beginning of Clinton's presidency and the ups and downs that followed: the administration's success in passing NAFTA in 1993; the frustrating struggle for reform of welfare, health care, and campaign finance; the budget fights of 1995; Clinton's comeback after the Democratic loss of Congress in 1996; and the administration's determined efforts to attend to business in the face of scandal and impeachment. Waldman, who was only 32 when his White House stint began, was plainly awed at finding himself there (which gives his account a wide-eyed quality), and—since conversational exchanges are liberally reported—either he has a remarkable memory or he kept extensive notes. While this is a far more serious and informative view of the White House than television's West Wing, it is equally filled with images of dedicated young men pulling all-nighters in the service of their chief. What distinguishes this account is the picture of Clinton at workwithwords—writing, editing, rewriting, searching for the right phrase—and then delivering those words or improvising others with assurance and style. An admiring yet not fawning look at Clinton's persuasive powers and use of the bully pulpit.

Product Details

• Interviews & Essays

Interviews & Essays

Surprisingly, very realistic. To be sure, the show is fiction: For example, when it came time for the State of the Union Address, they held a party to thank the speechwriters -- before the speech was even delivered. And the chief speechwriter is played by...ahem, Rob Lowe, a sure sign of creative license. Still, the show gives a far more accurate idea of life in a White House than, say, the evening news. But the real West Wing is more intense. The situations are often more absurd. (What screenwriter could have dreamed up the Lewinsky scandal?) And the relentless, hypercompetitive media environment is far more harrowing.

I have tried to show readers what it’s like to work with a president up close in my new book, POTUS Speaks. (POTUS, as any Secret Service agent will tell you, stands for President of the United States). I worked with President Clinton to write or edit some 2,000 speeches, including four State of the Union addresses and two inaugurals. A presidential speech is more than a string of sound bites or applause lines. It’s where policy, politics, and presidential personality come together. Increasingly, that bully pulpit has come to dominate the presidency. In a typical year Clinton spoke in public 550 times. By contrast, in a similar year, Reagan spoke 320 times, and Harry Truman 88 times. Today presidents have to contend with four or more all-news cable channels, the Internet, and the constant pounding of a hyperactive press.

In my book, I tell the inside story of how Clinton changed the presidency to try and lead in these fractured times. He had to reinvent the office -- relying more on executive actions and less on legislation, focusing on issues like education and child care that had not previously been seen as "presidential." I explore how he changed the Democratic Party, too. Above all, Clinton was focused finding a new role for government, and on restoring the public’s confidence in it. One night in the White House residence, while we were drafting a State of the Union address, he mused, "FDR saved capitalism from itself. Our mission is to save government from its own excesses, so it can again be a progressive instrument." To a surprising extent, I think he succeeded. That’s what makes him, in my view, not only a successful president but an important one.

I wanted to write this book, the first one written by an insider that covers two terms, because very little of what I had read reflected the reality of life in the Clinton White House.

And someday, perhaps, we’ll learn the inside story of life in the Josiah Bartlett White House.

--Michael Waldman