Prisoners of the White House; The Isolation of America's President and the Crisis of Leadership
Charles Arhambault (author photograph) Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2013. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. xii, 244 pages. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. About the Author. Stamp of previous owner on fep. Inscribed by the author on the title page. Inscription, dated 2013, reads Ti Joe Dailey, all the best. Ken Walsh. Kenneth T. Walsh (born May 1947) is an American journalist. From 1994 to 1995, he was president of the White House Correspondents' Association. Kenneth T. Walsh is the chief White House correspondent for U.S. News & World Report, author of “The Presidency” column for The Report. He joined the magazine in 1984 as a congressional correspondent and has covered the presidency, presidential campaigns, and national politics since 1986. Walsh is one of the longest-serving White House correspondents in history. He has won the two most prestigious awards for White House coverage: the Aldo Beckman Award (twice) and the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency (three times). In 2006, he won the Fitzwater Prize for Leadership in Public Communication presented by the Fitzwater Center at Franklin Pierce College. Walsh makes frequent television appearances on networks including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox News, and C-SPAN. In reporting on the presidency, Walsh has traveled to more than 70 countries and covered a wide range of events, including many superpower summits and international conferences. He has conducted numerous interviews over the years with the presidents he has covered. Walsh earned a master's degree from American University in Washington, D.C. and a B.A. from Rutgers. Prisoners of the White House looks at the isolation experienced by presidents of the United States in the White House, a habitat almost guaranteed to keep America's commander in chief far removed from everyday life. The authors look at how this is emerging as one of the most serious dilemmas facing the American presidency. As presidents have become more isolated, the role of the presidential pollster has grown. Ken Walsh has been given exclusive access to the polls and confidential memos received by presidents over the years, and has interviewed presidential pollsters directly to gain their unique perspective. Prisoners of the White House gets inside the bubble and punctures the mythology surrounding the presidency. Derived from a Publishers Weekly article: Veteran White House correspondent Walsh provides a review of efforts by presidents—from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama—to maintain contact with the American people, despite their isolation in office. Arguing that the presidents who do this best have the most successful administrations, Walsh traces the evolution of the key technique of polling, which has become an indispensable tool. The author notes that polls are not always reliable, but they enable both a sampling of public opinion and a means of shaping that opinion. Other methods of keeping a finger on the public pulse include monitoring the media, sampling letters from constituents, consulting legislators and friends, and conversations with citizens. Students of political science and history will find this to be a worthwhile reflection on how the presidency has evolved. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Presidents, White House, Leadership, Economic Policy, Isolation, News Media, Polling, Public Opinion, Security, Foreign Policy, Joel Benenson, Budget Deficit
ISBN: 9781612051604
[Book #82963]
Price: $150.00