"President José Mujica of Uruguay's 2012 speech on climate change delivered to the United Nations"--

When President Warren G. Harding fell ill in 1923, Steve Early, a reporter for the Associated Press, became skeptical of the innocuous bulletins being issued by the White House. He remained at the hotel where the president was staying, and when Florence Harding called out for a doctor, Early scrambled down a fire escape to file the story. His Associated Press report was six minutes ahead of others with the news of Harding's death. A decade later, when Franklin D. Roosevelt entered the White House, Steve Early became the first person to hold the title of presidential press secretary. Mike McCurry, Jody Powell, and Marlin Fitzwater have all become familiar names. But how has the role of the White House press secretary changed over the years? We see these spokespeople at White House briefings, hear them quoted by reporters-but what do they really do? Whom do they really serve: the president, or the press? In his latest book, former Associated Press journalist and White House reporter W. Dale Nelson provides an insightful look at what has gone on behind the scenes of the White House press podium from the 1890s to the Clinton administration. Nelson draws on interviews with former press secretaries, press office records, and his own experience as a White House reporter to trace the history of the position, from its early, informal days to its present, seminal role in the Clinton administration.

Introduction -- American dreams : access, mobility, fairness -- Free minds : educating democratic citizens -- Hard facts : knowledge creation and checking power -- Purposeful pluralism : dialogue across difference on campus -- Conclusion.

Lectures and discussions held at Columbia University on April 27, 28, and 29, 1959.

With vivid insight and rousing examples, The President’s Speech takes apart America’s most important presidential addresses, phrase by phrase, and examines the pivotal, often familiar, and always potent language that presidents past used to mold public opinion. Author and speechwriter Edwin Vilade provides the framework for each speech, both within the context of its era and also as a point on a timeline of our country’s long history. Starting at George Washington’s Farewell Address and ending with George W. Bush’s Axis of Evil State of the Union speech, Vilade reveals the varied and often conflicting points of view that shaped the final famous words. Color facsimiles show actual edits, deletions, additions, and handwritten notes to illustrate how remarkable and forceful language was crafted, sometimes at the last minute, into enduring words made famous by their timing, context, delivery, and power, from the 1823 Monroe Doctrine to Ronald Reagan’s “tear down that wall, Mr. Gorbachev” speech at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, revealing political and social currents that frame these words for modern times.

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