POTUS Speaks: Finding the Words That Defined the Clinton Presidency

by Michael Waldman

Clinton's principal speech writer--a man who edited or wrote nearly two thousand addresses for the President--shares his insights into the major battles of the Clinton presidency, from the fight over NAFTA to his war with GOP over budget cuts, providing an in-the-trenches perspective. 50,000 first printing.

Genres: Politics, History, Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published October 5, 2000

Reviews

[Gordon Kwok · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book both the substance, first-hand account and also what it is like to see an interagency process. For example, it takes all the branches of the federal government and their input to craft together a State of the Union speech. There are countless fact checkers, checking both for legal errors and also factual errors and those who's job is to check to make sure that the speech does not offend anyone. For example, instead of saying, "every man for himself" which may be construed as sexist, it might be changed to "every individual for themselves."

Overall, if you like history books or books about the White House, this is a great book to have.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as nuts and bolts about the writing process as I was hoping, but it gives you a good picture of just how deeply involved in the overall work of the White House that presidential speechwriters are and how involved in the process Bill Clinton was, writing, re-writing, etc. Also give you a very good idea of just how much work and how many long nights and practice sessions go into the State of the Union address. You also get to see the cast of characters in the Clinton White House, including Al Gore, Rahm Emanuel, Paul Begala, Elena Kagan, Mark Penn, Bob Shrum, etc.

[Alice Harbin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book because it gave me such an insiders view of the Bill Clinton presidency. Also it is well written as one might expect. The way that Clinton used or didn't use his speech writers is amazing to me. He was such a good extemporaneous speaker, he hardly needed a writer it seems.
When reading about the speech writers dilemma, I was transported back to my college days, and my speech writing class. I struggled mightily with it, so I sympathized greatly with the speech writers.