david montgomery died recently common has a book followed the house of labor and it is about the name teen 20s. there has been a lively and vibrant, active, pretty radical labor movement, but it had been crushed by the brutal attack.

this is very much a business run society and the business classes are highly class conscious constantly fighting a class war have state power supported none and they were able to crush and destroy the labor movement. but it revived and it can revive again and other popular movements well, too. and there is a basis for it. [applause] the basis for it is the quite positive changes have taken place in the 1960s. in many ways it's a much more civilized society and at that time. i think that is a basis for re-creating the kind of solidarity and mutual aid working together, dedication, commitment that is very necessary today that we can't overlook the fact that we are in a moment of human history which

is entirely unique for the first time in human history. we are in a position where the decisions that we will make will determine whether these issues survive. it's definitely true now. these are not small questions. >> quite a sobering note. as we bring this evening to a close and indeed there is a word called to save up. it means service. i can think of no one who has performed more service for humankind venue. thank you very much. [applause] [cheers and applause]

[cheers and applause] [inaudible conversations] >> 11, ken walsh talks about faith on political agendas. he appeared on the morning program "washington journal,"

where he discussed his boat and took viewer phone calls. >> there is a familiar face. ken walsh one tenuous news and world report correspondent. the author of several books including his most recent "celebrity in chief: a history of the presidents and the culture of stardom." here is the cover of the book. mr. walsh, you write that american presidents have always been famous, but it was only after they had end of the mass media and the vast increase in power and reach of all the presidency under fdr that the leader of the u.s. became a true superstar. what did fdr do to create the aquatics >> guest: a number of things. i've written seven books now. fdr is the first modern president. he not only gained a lot of power and took a lot of power is

the president in the modern sense because we are fighting for depression and world war ii but also he understood the importance of the mass media as few other presidents ever has. palladio and newspapers for the media and franklin roosevelt understood particularly the power of radio. millions of americans have radios in their homes. i understood he could enter their homes as their leader in him in him and i got there i met

him think we could fashion a 19 media superstar and that is part of the celebrity in chief notion to post code that americans care what herbert hoover was doing her part was doing a authentic was doing i thought that you have was doing i thought that you have a quiet thing that that is the ability to bring americans into the world of the president and to be interested in the president as a person him and left him and him him and that is to try to please people

him and him and him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him or him. a lot of american are not out there throwing medicine ball around like the president was here that you showed he was. he didn't really get it at first connect to popular culture. franklin roosevelt didn't get it. postcode chapter two, theodore roosevelt a strenuous life was ex-president standout is the biggest stars ever to occupy the white house in modern times. teddy roosevelt, fdr, jfk, ronald reagan, bill clinton and barack obama. >> guest: to have this aura, the certain charisma, inability to connect with american values. the value is dependent upon a time in my people wanted from the president. president franklin roosevelt with optimization. president theodore roosevelt distant cousin was the notion of baker and powerful interest. it goes on and on. they also had a sense of an aura about them. they seem to understand that americans have gone through a series of phases in finding a president. today a president needs to be an entertainer companies to be part of the culture in the sense of keeping people interested and the president understand that. least effective presidents don't

or are unable to act on it. there are other presidents i talk about in the books in the book written on celebrities in chief. they didn't capitalize on it very well. president jimmy carter him president bush father time, and him and the you can see the names anybody familiar with history knows that the president who were not celebrities as their presidents wore on. doesn't she started out famous and built on it and not make a big difference in shaping the perceptions of issues that the president as an individual. >> name three commercial products. baby ruth bars and billy bear. >> teddy roosevelt, this is an example of him as a modern celebrity president.

really captivated the imagination and that is a big part of this. teddy roosevelt what you are referring to is the case or he was a big game hunter not only the united states but all over the world. he went out to hunt air and one of his guys brought him a little baby bear to shoot at his camp and president roosevelt decided he wasn't going to do this and so they released the bear and the story got out. the teddy bear became a very popular plush animal. it was a different person of how it came to fame one person at a german manufacturers started producing him him him him him him him him him him him him him in him and him.

i was the brother of president carter tried to attach his name shall product didn't work very well. that is a task to him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him as a him him him him him him him him with a long history president people?

guest: in that case, grover cleveland was much older than frankie, as she was called. the media jumped on that as an interesting moment. they were married when he was president. she was interesting to a lot of people and to the country because she was educated charming, lovely. this was the recipe for following it closely. when they were married, they tried to go on their honeymoon in rural maryland. a huge cavalcade of reporters tracked them down. they woke up the morning after they were married and solve -- saw all these reporters on the grounds. president cleveland was upset and never forgave the media for spoiling their honeymoon. he set up a house in washington where they could live not and

the white house, because their celebrity was so intense. host: ken walsh, you say the modern era began with fdr. how sophisticated have we gotten -- we being -- house of the skate have we gotten in promoting our presidents? guest: extremely sophisticated. i started covering the white house in 1986, this is my fifth president. without ronald reagan had mastered the media but it does state that is the three television networks. he was a former television and movie star himself. he understood television and how it will and was very good at it. he was able to dominate the dominant media of his time television. since then we've had so many changes in the media world that we are all living through and today president obama mastered the media of his time social

media come using the white house website to promote his agenda himself. going on television shows that other presidents disdain like the late-night comedy shows, but also shows other president did have the opportunity between two firms the back of her neck is comedy. the show. president obama his argument if he has to go with the voters are demanding understanding different segments of the electorate draw different things at different media and he goes there. future presidents have to do the same thing to be celebrities in different venues to carry their agenda. >> host: 202 is the area code. if you want to talk with ken walsh, author of "celebrity in chief: a history of the presidents and the culture of stardom." 7,488,000. we will begin taking those calls in just a minute.

george w. bush was a modern president. did he have a celebrity to him are not quiet >> guest: every president has done to agree when they are elected. fame, notoriety. president bush certainly had that. as time went on he disdained a lot of the communications techniques that modern presidency use. i don't think he ever was offered that he was very good on television. his father felt he was not very good on television. in person, president which was a very engaging guy from a very gregarious. but he didn't convey the message more broadly and that is one problem he had. and he felt it was below the statute of the president to be

on the rate night comedy show. he didn't want to do that and so i think he missed a lot of opportunities there. also he had the same problem is to have had that he was not a very good communicator making mistakes and he got a little gun shy about that. as time went on he lost a lot of celebrity. by the end of the presidency with the iraq war, afghanistan more than the economy that went sour, he was almost an anti-celebrity come a figure that people make jokes about and not a figure that people were drawn in by. that is the fundamental difference with this president. >> host: we will show you a picture president reagan and you can see it over there, mr. walsh. how often do presidents use celebrities who enhance their image quiet

>> guest: here we see president reagan and nancy reagan with michael jackson. a lot of people were taken up shortly this because michael jackson showed up in full regalia. presidents have tried to capitalize on other people's fame for many years at franklin roosevelt was the brilliant pioneer in this spirit there are pictures available at his library in other places with huge numbers of hollywood stars. more than any other president to had to know what to do some

presidents try to do it or unable to succeed. it is one of the most solid pictures of any president in that it's mattis richard nixon with elvis presley. people might be familiar with the picture where nelson and was a fan of law enforcement and he wanted to get a law enforcement out so you could help law enforcement track down the bad guys. he went to the white house and he also showed up in regalia. of course nixon was a straightlaced guide and he had on a cave. he had a shirt open to his waist and he said something like elvis, that is quite a get up you have on. elvis said you have your audience and i have mine. so there is a picture of them shaking hands awkwardly. nixon was unable to capitalize on the entertainment world in that picture showed it well. postcard got that picture in my office. we are talking about the presidency is for the 20th century and a little bit of

history. billy and charlie ohio. it is going to help if i push the button. go ahead. >> caller: yes yes. how many past presidents had a military and we know our last two democrats certainly didn't have a military background. do you agree that presidency is in the strength of your cabinets quiets i'm not even aware that barack obama has a cabinet. he addresses every problem down the pipe. >> guest: he does. a couple points. one is the history of the military background. american flag return presence of military background in terms of crisis. it was the era of the revolutionary war, george washington. many presidents are military heroes and were elected because of that because of such as

andrew jackson. you have u.s. grant. fast forward, president eisenhower of world war ii. culinary palate for season the invasion of normandy. he was the famous general it though on. president bush the father in world war ii. president kennedy, goes on and on. more recently president obama had not been in the military. president bush the sun was in the national guard but he was in the military in that sense. a long history of americans turning to military leaders for the presidency and i don't think that it's over. president obama has not had the bat around, but that is something america is price. i think that the cabinet -- president obama is not the only president who is superseded his cabinet. presidents talk about cabinet government and when they get into office the cabinet is not

a dominant force. it is the white house staff and that is certainly true of the obama administration. the white house staff makes the main decisions. the cabinet carries them out and so i think that is not an uncommon pattern. >> host: has the significance of the cabinet in the last 50 years come in 60 years stated quiet >> guest: i think it has aired. sherman, dean acheson, people who were experts on foreign policy in particular hoping president truman out. the kennedy cabinet was really up there in terms of stellar individuals who were in the cabinet. you had stellar individuals over time. i would say president obama has had some very capable inconsequential people in the cabinet. it is just a president obama is

much more comfortable running the government through the white house, the white house staff. history will be rich but the white house staff is one of the most powerful waive had. president obama takes a lot of credits for things. when i first started doing this we've had some terrible economic problems. president reagan would take credit for anything that happened positive in the economy. he would go to a little mom-and-pop employment operation in rural maryland just to celebrate a hire enough people to show the economy getting better. this is always something common. they're white house is responsible for the policy hi thomas. >> caller: hi, how are you doing quite >> host: please go ahead. >> caller: i have two comments. you are going comment a few

minutes ago on bush and hand being his first term. he had every reason to be fairly unique. he didn't win his first term. i challenge anybody to go to wikipedia on your computer anybody that owns a computer and he lost the first election. there was more people voted for al gore than they did george bush. he did not win. the second point is ronald reagan -- he was an actor. he knew how to play. dallas his profession. he knew how to play the american people. he got on the big screen and he told us everything we wanted to hear and make things look good. number three mr. jeb bush you

all were kind of bringing up talking about e-mails and all being with his e-mails, they need to be forthright with all the votes in florida that went missing somehow between hand and catherine ayers to make sure that his brother juan the 2000 election. >> host: thomas and daytona beach, florida. ronald reagan and jeb bush. >> guest: will take them in order. the caller referred to the 2000 election were of course the supreme court decided in a 54 decision awarding the state of florida was a huge uncomplicated site over who had won florida versus george w. bush. the color is gray. al gore won more popular votes than george bush. about 500,000 as i recall. the democrat could not get past that for a long time the supreme

court may destroy because they thought al gore had won the popular vote, which he had. this is the way it works. the supreme court is the arbiter in cases like this and that is what happened. as far as writing goes, president reagan wasn't an actor in movies and television and had a lot of shows that are very valuable for president to have. reagan was once asked in consternation that a lot of people think you are a movie actor. how are you qualified to be president and he said i think it is difficult for me to imagine a president who was not an actor because he feels those skills are so important. that is the way reagan was. he used earlier performances on television. i'm not in the critically. look at some of his speeches

such as the anniversary speech and his features as they shuttle blew up. it is rare that they are remembered anymore. reagan's work. jeb bush you talked about the e-mail situation. he did try to help his brother win florida when it looked like florida is going to go to al gore. he was governor at the time and let his brother down. the big problem there is the dynasty of all people ready for a third bush in the white house and that is something jeb bush has to use in dealing with his own celebrity as a member of a dynastic family. >> host: ken walsh, how the jenness of all, the celebrity in chief -- >> guest: that's a good question. i've been thinking a lot as we move into the cycle. hillary clinton of course is the most famous by far of anybody

running for president in 2016. she hasn't announced yet but we are expecting her to run. and the whole issue of the e-mails in the last segment, anything she does is channeled through perceptions of her as a celebrity. she has a unique resume. she was first lady. she was senator from new york, secretary of state. people know her. she is astronomical name identification and people have ingrained perceptions of her. she has to take her celebrity and she is a celebrity and channel it into positive ways. she will throw a lot of criticism, scrutiny and negativity from people who don't like her but she is so famous such as elaborately that people pay attention to her. it is absurd to challenge them in positive ways and will see how that plays out. so far it has not worked out very well. she hasn't entered the race yet.

jeb bush because clinton had the dynasty situation with the bill who is president. to president bush now jeb bush must be for president bush. he has his own dynasty question. he's not nearly the celebrity that hillary clinton is. people are drawn to him because they were interested in him in a unique resume he has a part of this dynastic family. what he has to do is go to the celebrity in positive ways and channel it in ways that call attention to his positive agenda and that remains to be seen. >> host: what about the republicans? >> guest: and i see a lot of real glamour or juice there so far. there's a lot of coverage of scott walker. scott is a governor who has risen to the top of a lot of republican polls. we don't know how long this will

last. he would be almost an anti-celebrity. he's not a guy who goes for glamour. he is sort of a tough guy governor. coming up to president obama seeking another term of course by the constitution. this could be a whole different change. i wouldn't guess that scott walker would do interviews with you to pose which president obama did. scott walker would be much more of a traditional communicator i believe. he has to bring up the celebrities in positive ways and we get to see that. >> host: year as a cover of the book. "celebrity in chief: a history of the presidents and the culture of stardom" next call for ken ken ken walsh. male mutt in norman, oklahoma. republicans. >> caller: yes i was wanting to ask if in my opinion than

news media and print media are the ones who may them into celebrities. i don't find obama the least bit glamorous or hillary or bill clinton. i think the ones you mention reagan and jfk have wit and humor that went beyond the media. i don't think the media was fascinated with reagan, but they were with kennedy because of his hollywood connection with the wit and humor. so i was just wondering -- >> host: thank you for calling in from norman, oklahoma. response from ken walsh.

>> guest: reagan and kennedy were the people i talk about in the book of celebrities in chief certainly qualified in all the basic ways. our caller made the reference to candidate. a lot of people in the media interested in kennedy. he played upon the contrast and kennedy had been a hero in the pacific. pt 109 the celebrated in the media. his hair was in that situation. he brought glamour to the white house. formal events. he had a beautiful wife. he had matinee idol good looks themselves and so did his wife, jacqueline. his lovely children in the white house laid upon that. they used the glamour of the canadians to tailor his appeal into the idea that he was a new kind of president, a vigorous energetic young leader.

the torch hasn't passed as hasn't passed its kennedy sent sent from one generation to another and the white house is very clever in many ways and using the media television, which was emerging at the time and is a burst of other wonderful photographs that the kennedys and you've seen some of them now. the wonderful events at the white house, pictures of the children in the family and young john junior hiding under the president's desk while the president was working. an opening under the desk a little boy could get into. they release that photographs and many times of the kennedys. .. always fascinated by that world. he was interested in the

intersection of politics. that all came out during the kennedy administration. president reagan, the caller said the 80 did not seem as interested. i think the media was very interested. i covered reagan. he understood the media of his time the three broadcast networks. this was b and he was able to come up with strategies to brilliantly really manipulate the media in ways that make it look good in something called the line of the day. so he would get great coverage on television which he did and in those days the television networks were impossible to ignore wonderful pictures, wonderful images and he was terrific as generating wonderful images.

his staff was his media adviser and he was able to come up with wonderful venues and places for the president to speak. the television networks found it irresistible. there is less of that today but in those days if you look at some of these events, they were brilliantly staged and understood the television very well and ronald reagan was very good at television and even though people criticized his acting in the movies he played in as president as people have said he played the role of a lifetime. again i'm not saying that critically. he understood as someone that would bring about the optimism which he did. >> host: abraham lincoln where they celebrities in and their day a-qwex >> guest: washington

absolutely. the first president with a celebrity but of course we didn't have the media we have today. it was a whole different world. but this was a case of george washington was probably the most famous person in the continental united states when he was elected president unanimously by the way by the electoral college. the country felt that no one could read the new country that washington. he led the forces in the revolution and he was a man of integrity, the people recognized him as a man of integrity and he could hold the country together which he managed to do. many examples of this he made the trip from rome to burn in his home in virginia to the temporary capital of the new york and it was almost like what we think of today as a rock star cavalcade. everywhere he went people turned out to see him. people greeted him. he delayed his trips to cause she had so many people that

wanted to see him and he was accommodating to this. so he was a tremendous celebrity in his time. they have many images of washington distributed and people use the admire him so much that he was the first celebrity president. the world was different then but washington certainly qualified as the guy who was a celebrity in his time. lincoln was a different situation. he was very divisive and controversial. we read those words a lot but of course he was elected by the north, completely by the north because the south had succeeded because of his election and so he was very controversial but what happened with lincoln he

didn't understand the idea of the image at the time. when he was running for president in the 1860, he felt it was such a image he didn't think people would find sophisticated enough to be the president are smart enough that he had matthew brady a famous photographer at the time take his photograph. they would take head shots of people in this relatively new situation called photography that he realized when he saw lincoln he was not a good-looking man. he showed up in wrinkled clothes. his eyes were sunken, his eyes were obvious. so you could still see the picture was taken before the game and cooper union which would be important in the campaign and you can see the photograph. what he did is have a full length picture of lincoln so you

couldn't see the close-up of how he looked at his facial features and so on. he put his hand on the table to give a sort of area image. that was used for many years after that as the president's official photograph in many ways the photograph was actually retouched because it was so famous and after he died is when his celebrity really triggered. after his assassination, what was happening then is he was becoming a feature of almost spiritual importance particularly in the african-american community because of the end of slavery and winning the civil war becoming more popular because the war was being won so when he was assassinated he was elevated almost to the divine status in many ways and he then you see

all these pictures that were distributed of the drawings of him being welcomed into heaven by angels at george washington. he just had a whole new plateau for a very awful reason because he was assassinated and lincoln is now seen as one of the greatest in the ratings. he is basically in the top three all the time of franklin roosevelt and washington but lincoln was a growing celebrity especially after the war was being won and his wife was cut by the assassination we don't know how he would have handled all of the difficult issues on the reconstruction but he's issued this whole pantheon of spiritual leaders and political leaders over our history since then.

>> i think what you're making is the president more human. i have kind of a concern. we have a president in my opinion he is a great entertainer that but my disappointment has been that the policies don't seem to come to fruition or seem to get and acted the way they should and everything kind of shapes up. so what i would like to know is which president do you think of not only been great entertainers are celebrities but the celebrities and policy may curse and i will hang up and listen. >> thank you. >> this is a controversial question the president to answer these days we live in a celebrity driven culture more than in my lifetime certainly and more than ever i believe and they have to acknowledge that

and i think president obama has. a lot of people or cobra with us especially the more traditional thinking people about how a president should behave but resident obama's argument is that he needs to go where the voters are. he and his brilliant pollsters. so they understand that people get their information from different places. it's not the people just getting their information as they used to from people like me white house correspondents, from the news conferences and interviews with the mainstream media but basically people go to the late-night talk shows, a lot of young people have gone to john stuart the very famous comedian who's run his dalia show for many years and has become three popular.

it's shoving about the commemoration of the selma alabama 50th anniversary of the terrible bloody sunday for the civil rights devastation 50 years ago. and president bush is also going to be there right away. president obama does participate and understand he has to be something of an entertainer. this was very clear in his first year in office because of his ability to bring people into the rhetoric he won the nobel peace prize only a few months after he was elected and he hadn't done anything yet. he won it because of the promise of hope and change and that he would listen to the countries around the world. the other part of the question

is though that would be most effective and that understood how to run the government. you have to roosevelt right up there in the top tier. he had a way of not only understanding how the government should work but also what the country wanted from the government the reassurance people needed in those difficult times. coming up with an anniversary next month because he turned his outpouring of grief in the united states for franklin roosevelt and a man was approached on the funeral train when he was making his way up to his home and was often being brought to his home in new york and he was weeping inconsolably and asked did you know president

roosevelt and his answer was no what he knew me and that's really the essence of franklin roosevelt. he had a tremendous sense of empathy and he used his celebrity to convey to the country that he understood what was going on and what people wanted and needed. he could deliver that and the government. the only president elected in four terms and he died shortly after. so i would say president roosevelt combines many of these traits and effectiveness in a very historic way. >> the president has become so sent her to the national identity but nearly everyone wants to know what the president say and think the weaknesses and intentions. we tend to think of them as a superhuman or extra normal but the power to change our lives come alter the course of the world. no wonder we are deeply interested in what they do and who they are.

>> caller: i question is you know we have all these -- >> host: i can't tell i apologize that we are going to put you on hold for a minute and somebody is going to come on and talk to you about turning down the volume on your tv and listening just through the telephone. the next call is of the so he shot -- alicia. >> caller: i have a few comments. i've lived through a lot of presidents. the first one i remember it's eleanor roosevelt and i remember more from the news reels at the

movies and i remember eisenhower and from there on. these are my opinions i think that he was a very excellent president and he was a real person and it showed through and it wasn't just all an act. jfk did a few things and i think everyone will always remember him and i think that he was elected because he was young. all of the rest of them have been lethal that were there and i think when he was murdered that is when the respect for the president of the united states took a nose dive and it came out for the lack of respect for the office of the president started going downhill and it's more or less gone down hill since then.

>> host: there's three things on the table. first of all it's striking that we mentioned eleanor roosevelt. the first ladies have been very important in the concept of celebrity. eleanor roosevelt was a celebrity and first lady. she had her own constituency. she was devoted to civil rights, helping people in need in the depression hit. that case to her husband. because her husband had polio and couldn't get around her out of the country very well, she became what he called his eyes and ears and traveled on his behalf and became very known for that so she was a celebrity and she went to the coal mines of pennsylvania and was a celebrity

couple. i remember very fondly was an actor as i mentioned earlier and they operated on a public stage but he did capture the mood of the country in many ways at the time. he was very polarized and controversial also and liberals thought he was taking them in a conservative direction to quickly slowing the growth of government and come fronting the soviet union and so on. but by the end of the presidency he was very popular and part of the reason is that he was able to channel that celebrity and

the ways that people just like him and that is another thing people tended to forget in evaluating the presidential candidates like ability. and i remember those days the democrats really complaining very deeply that they couldn't come up with candidates or spokespeople who were as likable and that really hurt them. president kennedy's assassination deepened in america in many ways about whether things would turn out for us whether we were just about being confident in the future where this president was struck down. it's deep end and citizens in the presidency deep and was vietnam and the countries felt wide to. president nixon and johnson

where they felt we were not being told the truth about where it was going into the second and the second is the watergate scandal where the president had to resign as impeachment was moving closer. those are the two things that i think really undermined the faith in the presidency. and we never fully recovered from that. >> host: you have a chapter in your book. jackie kennedy is it fair to say has an almost mystical quality as a first lady but at the same time spent half her time in the white house. >> host: that she did. jackie kennedy didn't like the political side of being first lady. president kennedy understood this and gave her remarks about the way so she would go on vacation with her children or friend or sister of the world and their she made a huge splash

wherever she went because she had such a glamour persona and a celebrity sense about her that she was of course very young and a substantially younger than her husband. she was very cultured and brought a lot to the white house and people were really entrenched by this in the policy. she was just sort of a modern media person basically. she had a tremendous impact on fashion. a lot of women sort of copied the fashion that she wore and the hairdo and so on and so she was a true celebrity first lady not on the policy terms but as an individual and the other thing i might add is the assassination intensify the mystique of jackie kennedy because of her grace under this terrible adversity and people of

a certain age remember jackie kennedy handle it up with enormous grace and people remembered about and added to a positive mystique. you are on with kevin walsh. >> caller: i tried to call in earlier on the statement that it was some type of and understand as the only president to be impeached. according to my observation, andrew johnson was also in mph. they were both acquitted by the united states senate and richard nixon also would have been impeached. and i would like to know if you know why andrew johnson was impeached.

>> guest: toward understanding is the same as mine on why that happened. andrew johnson was a rambling than's vice president who i believe came from tennessee. he was not the kind of commentator and brilliant politician. and so after lincoln was killed and the civil war was one of the johnson had a tremendous fight with congress. he wasn't very adept at this and had problems with appointments and assisting unemployment and the senate, and it was a rather technical issue of his handling of appointment as i remember that caused the impeachment but under that was this tremendous stirring of animosity towards him because of his handling,

rather his ham-handed handling of the reconstruction because he was letting the south do things with former slaves battling gimlet and have allowed for all we know and a lot of people felt he was letting the south off too easily so there was a sense of animosity in his handling of the reconstruction and that's why the impeachment occurred. you are right about clinton. he was impeached by the house. basically the house brings charges and the senate decides what the punishment should be moving a president from office, but in this case the senate decided not to remove him from office, so that is the acquittal and of course mixing the only president we've ever had resigned so he sold the impeachment coming and rather

than go through that different kind of the thing re-signed a cause of the watergate scandal and so i think that you've got that pretty much exactly right. >> host: chapter 13 presidents and reading can a president sell a book if he announces he is reading? >> guest: yes i would welcome him to read my book and talk about it. but it is a case where some presidents have this mystique to just carry the book from one meeting to another or off of the stairs of air force one and people will be interested in reading it. also that can happen to the presidents of all attention to television shows, two to movies to other types of books other than the bottles for instance rather than nonfiction. so yes they can drive sales and

interested in different types of things and music too. but they've had a different orders different orders at the white house and this adds to the whole celebrity of the president and adds to the celebrity of the artists, too if you look at beyoncé as a big fan of president obama, but president clinton had a lot of hollywood entertainment figures in the white house so it worked as a synergy to add to the celebrity of these individual presidents. >> host: what about jfk you write the staff probably exaggerated the extent of his reading in order to project the intellectual ended up president clinton you wrote he not only like to read what he wanted americans to know what he was reading as an effort to expand the celebrity and impress different constituencies that he was paying attention to their history and concerns and taking a broader look at american culture always trying to update.

>> they were exaggerating the amount that he would read and what he would read the cultural paper of the classical performance to the white house including the catholicism was a famous cellist and he didn't even understand half of what he was listening to. they didn't even know what he was supposed to applaud. he had to be scripted on data to explain don't get up to sue mr. president is greatly another number here. he wasn't familiar with the repertoire. he was interested in the popular culture and we saw that day after day. >> host: lee summit is very go ahead with your questions or comments. >> yes good morning. i am proud of a lot of the

presidents and some of them i'm not so proud of but i am proud of barack obama with both his guts. he is the guts to stand up and he has been good for the history of america. we don't know how good he is but we well know and he's been a great example. michelle obama is a great example and i think them that i live to be 70-years-old to see this happen. and it's a wonderful subject this weekend. thank you for the buck. >> guest: an example about president obama, he's a young man as compared to some of them, president reagan of course was much older. he is very unstoppable you rarely see the weakness in the

sense of his ability to conduct his office during adversity and him as an individual carrying out the office. the other thing that struck me about president obama is the role model side. he understands he uses his celebrity to call attention to that. the people in the community will see him as an example of what they can achieve. if they tried a continued education and so on. he is very much devoted to that premise. and i know i talk to a lot of people throughout the political spectrum. one thing a lot of people say both critics and friends and foes and so on, democrats and republicans is you couldn't ask for a better family role model than obama. he does appear to be devoted to his wife michelle and his

children can answer even republicans will say as far as the family values, you can't do better than the obama family coming and i think that is something that a lot of people recognize and i'm glad for him. >> host: next call maryland, good morning. >> caller: good morning gentlemen. my question for mr. walsh is during his lifetime who does he think has been the most narcissistic president and why. thank you. >> guest: ice covered five and i have that perspective. i think that before that of course this was before my time i think that he was a very narcissistic president. i think that president clinton was as well. i covered all eight years of his presidency and he's a very self-indulgent person. i will let you decide. i'm not an editorial writer.

.. is an individual, clinton loved the intention --attention. -- attention. he they the saxophone and wore his sunglasses during his campaign. it connected him very much to popular culture. people felt he was a cool guy and he loved that impression of himself, that he was with it and connected to popular culture. it was self-indulgent personality that he had. we saw that in the monica lewinsky scandal. it resulted in his impeachment and acquittal by the senate. i think that kennedy and clinton were pretty narcissistic. other presidents were narcissistic in other ways but terms of being self-indulgent, i think it was kennedy and clinton.

host: last call for our guest ken walsh comes from guy in california. caller: >> caller: good morning, mr. walsh. i want to know how you face a crossover between entertainment and the culture the presidency damages are triply ices the officer met the first letter president should take to minimize the damage. >> host: what do you think first of all before we get an answer. >> caller: i think you two been speaking before the super bowl can bring a lot of attention for the presidency but i think internationally it can make a scene sort of trivial and it might not be the best way for a president to approach public relations i want to know what you think over all. >> guest: president obama's testing the boundaries that this question. he enjoys being part of popular

culture. he enjoys popular culture itself. he's very interested in movies and music and television and so on and books in his own role in this. you see that in many ways. he's testing the boundaries of how far a president can go. as is michelle, the first lady. presenting an oscar from washington during the academy awards ceremony couple years ago. that is an example of how they are into popular culture. you see that many ways with president obama, the interviews he does come in the offense he cares to talk about and so on. we have to realize we are in a different world now. many ways for presidents to communicate, so we have to be careful in concluding a president is trivializing