llewellyn king, the host of "white house chronicle" which is coming right up. but first, a few thoughts of my own. one of the things i do is i write and broadcast about a particular disease. that disease is known by two names actually, michael vick and sap will -- myalgic -- or chronic fatigue syndrome, which dates back to the 1990's.

the disease has been around longer. it is totally disability -- debilitating and captures lives and keeps them hostage. there are no cures. it is hard to diagnose and people suffered tremendously. often they cannot leave their beds for months and even years. one woman wrote to me that she thought that she was lying in her coffin when she was on her couch. another very tragically wrote to me that she prayed each night that she would not wake up in the morning. so, i asked these suppers, i asked this community of 1,000,006 people, what helps you through the day -- 1 million sick people, what helps you through the day? i had inspiring and comfortable -- comforting responses. animals -- people who are well enough to say they get great comfort from dogs and cats. more cats because they take less

care for someone very sick. those who cannot leave their beds talk about the power of bird song in the morning and little things they do to get through the day. i find it really quite, quite amazing that there are these little comforts. the other thing that people do is they start -- the internet is a blessing and books on tape -- so they start books on tape and other serious novels and books, and the start of the popular ones but then end up with "war and peace" and find new layers and the literature. i find that marvelous because i always thought the purpose of literature is to say we have not taken the human program it alone. and these very sick people find it is the great books, the great minds of the literary past and present that help them through these terrible days through

struggle. i will be right back with a very special program today with two of the most brilliant wordsmiths in washington and, of course, our regular co-host, linda gasparello. all three of us -- four of us -- will be back in a moment. >> many have spoken out on the need to transition to a clean energy future. at exelon, we are acting. by 2020, we are committed to reducing, offsetting, or displacing more than 15 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually from greening our operations, helping customers and communities reduce emissions, and offering more low carbon electricity in the marketplace. at exelon, we are taking action and we are seeing results. >> "white house chronicle" is produced in collaboration with whut, howard university television. now, your program host, nationally syndicated columnist llewellyn king, and co-host

linda gasparello. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> hello again, and thank you for coming along. i didn't mention that i asked the started a youtube channel on mecfs and it can be seen on youtube. now to introduce you to these wonderful people i have here. linda gasparello, as i mentioned, co-host of the program and the lady who likes to wear a hat -- wear hats. and i am very glad to have on the program carl cannon from realclearpolitics, washington editor, the author of several books. with an incisive mind and beautiful writing skill.

and i am very, very glad indeed to have one of the great word sniffs of washington, paul dickson, who is the author, believe it or not, of 64 books and now there is a 65th book. i am not a baseball player. somehow i have gotten through my income life without knowing about that. tell me quickly about that book and then the absorbing subject of political words and the use of language in politics. >> he was an american original. he owns four baseball teams in his life. was a combat veteran in world war ii. he changed the way we perceive and financed baseball. he was an iconoclast, even going through the life of over 16 amputations based on a war wound. he made fun of it.

classic example of his ability to make light -- collapsed one day running through the baltimore airport and some renault and he said, -- and someone renault reston said, do you need a doctor, and he said, it is my wooden leg, i need a carpenter. he had a great, great ability to manage baseball teams and was a very early integration this. the racially integrated the american league. it is an american life and i spent about four years working on it and i am enjoying it immensely. it comes out in a couple of days. >> and yourself are an american original. carl cannon, an apprentice to original. how important in today's world is oratory in politics? >> we don't have great speechmakers anymore.

not really patient enough to listen to a well crafted speech. we are now into pages and words and twitter has done it to us and our short attention span. this computer that we all carry around with us. but in the last couple of weeks we have noticed that a single word can still drive the political discussion. rush limbaugh brought the word slut back to his regret, and president obama's people made fun of mitt romney for using the word marvelous. i thought of that because when you look at linda's had, you said marvelous. it turns out obama uses the word, too, because you can do a search. then the democrats decided to make an issue of housewives.

these awards you thought went away but in politics -- are words you fought with the way in politics. >> hope not any -- connection. >> this was a progression chronologically. what is the of the word -- choice? euphemism for abortion, a choice. but then ann romney, when she was accused of never working today in her life -- unfortunate description a democratic person close to obama had used, then ann romney came back and said it was my choice to stay at home. that was a loaded word and ann was no dummy. what it implied was, no, democrats actually want you to have an abortion -- they don't want you to stay home with kids. if you don't work you are sort of less of a woman. with that one word, she conveyed all of this and it started to help -- and romney needed help -- with women voters.

instead of a well crafted speech, people using words like shillelaghs -- an irish word. [laughter] >> you are writing a book now on words that presidents have actually coined. give us some of those. >> there are two great coiners, among presidents. jefferson, according to the oxford dictionary, originated 117 words -- the little. some of them lost. george washington. teddy roosevelt, a loose cannon, greater, bully pulpit, description of the whole package. he convinced the term pack rat, observing some rode in on one of his travels. >> not a knock at the

opposition. >> also gave maxwell house coffee its slogan, good to the last drop. >> really? >> he was at maxwell house -- at the maxwell house and was a very from a person and a prior to ask, what do you think of the coffee? he said, good to the last drop. but all the president's credit in vast numbers of words. i am of to close to 1000. and some are quite remarkable. john adams, for example, creates caucus but the second president also creates bobolink -- or the first derided down. it may have existed in full speech of the oxford english dictionary gives in the credit. my favorite is warren harding, who sort of brings back or popularizes normalcy, returning to normalcy. obloviate to get up --

>> of low va it is much in love on fox television -- obloviate. >> but the two who really surprises me -- harding created i think in his campaign, the term founding fathers. he said the founding fathers never meant for as to ban alcohol. the founding fathers never -- it was always done in a negative. before then, they were always before -- referred to as the framers. the one i found the other day that literally blew me out of the water that was so funny -- everybody knows roosevelt created things like pump priming, new deal, fireside chat. the one that got me was, at one point really early in his presidency he said, he referred to the supreme court decision as being iffy. the next day, the lead is in the papers -- the president of

united states created a new word yesterday, iffy. again, the oxford english dictionary, the ultimate arbiter on who created the word, they list was a look for creating iffy. and i am not even done with my research. i am up to obama's snowmaggedon. >> i am so fascinated -- how do you do the research? >> there are databases that are not available to the average person. the library of congress -- you can go back to every document from the colonial era. when i went to prove this point -- safire originally came up with this concept that harding created founding fathers, but now i can go back through all of these documents and i cannot find it earlier. it only shows up right at this certain moment. >> different categories -- a word like normalcy kind of existed but was never used. so, the president sort of

popularize the. fireside chat, that is actually applied to roosevelt. a third category of words of actually coined themselves. fascinating. >> sometimes popularization. shakespeare invented over 1000 words. a lot of those picked up on the streets of london. a lot of them were full accused juice before used them. -- usages before use them give them some more french words -- but they did not stick in english. >> the part of the american experience was, jefferson actually taught or greeted the word neologize -- to create a new word -- and jefferson loved to make of words, and he thought would abandon -- with benjamin franklin and no webster, to say we are different people, our language is descriptive as opposed to prescriptive. noah webster himself creates a

word plebiscites to some degree in order to put a pin in the side of the british. he would just put words in the dictionary -- indian words -- indiancreek instead of -- words like creek, is that a book. >> george w. bush very imaginative with words . with wemisunderestimate. >> changery was great. >> blended words but taking two different words. >> if you hold on a moment i shall do station identification or i will be in trouble. this is from the way for the benefit of our listeners on sirius-xm, channel 124, you are listening to all "white house chronicle" from washington, d.c., with myself, one thing, linda gasparello, carl cannon

from realclearpolitics, and paul dickson, the mass the words himself. will of the great speakers today? -- who of the great speeches today? >> it is not mitt romney. it is not barack obama. if you use a teleprompter, are you disqualified? >> this is an interesting thing. we were talking about george w. bush -- not a great speaker but he could read off of a teleprompter well. not everyone is a natural site read. >> let's bring bill clinton into the conversation then. in all seriousness, hillary rosen, a severed for president obama criticized ann romney for not having a job -- raised five kids, fought through multiple sclerosis, battled cancer. was a cheerless thing to say. not technically inaccurate but not sensitive. but bill clinton -- i was with clinton in 1994 and he was

working a rope line and was already president but continued to campaign. we were working a rope line on a rainy day and there was a woman there. she had two little boys and they were kind of disheveled, running down their nose. you know how little kids are. they just didn't want to be here. clinton comes at -- up to her. in those days, the white house -- would be right at the president's oval. and a woman says to bill clinton -- you know, i'm a lawyer. clinton says, yes. then turns to me and say -- what did she say? i said, i think she said, i'm a lawyer. quite a non sequitur. he said, yes, that's what she said. he went back and grabbed her hand and he said, let me tell you something. you went to law school, i went to law school -- the job you're doing now, and he points to the two boys, that is the more -- most of for a job in the world,

more important than my job. not making this up. this not ran up their nose like the red sea -- the woman was quite good looking. [laughter] it stopped raining. there was a rainbow. but i'm making a serious point. a person can speak without a speech writer and teleprompter and connect with americans. a rare talent. clinton had it. >> clinton was actively extraordinary in that way. we have all met him. and we both had our experience. he could talk to you. he seemed to be interested in you in -- and genuinely interested and everybody at the same experience, whether they were the head of state, whether they were the lady and the rope line. >> i remember always before an event he would assign somebody in the room to talk to. it a lot of information. and natural reporter that way.

completely forget what was put before him. the speech that was put before him. and he would say "you know, i just met katie gibbs over there and she told me all about her life." he would wind whatever she had said in to this wonderful introduction. the economy or something. >> he had a sense, clinton did, of who was hurting in a room and would go right to them. to truncates a rather elaborate story, i once had to dismiss somebody who worked for me. probably did it at the wrong time of the day, because i had forgotten there was a party over at the white house that afternoon for the press. i had a chat and i said, you know -- this fellow had been a great technical reporter, he had wanted to be a white house reporter and it was not working out. and i had to tell him. he wasn't feeling very good.

we go in and i am having a drink and talking to some people could i have this sense that somebody was looking at me. and i look up, and there he is, the poor reporter who lost his job with his new best friend, william jefferson clinton has his arm around him and his -- and is giving him a guided tour of the south lawn, which is way beyond anything i ever got. clinton could find you when you were hurting. >> and in terms of straight or ration -- he is not known yet very well but marco rubio, republican senator from florida, a speech, with no notes, teleprompter or text -- and you can find on youtube -- on immigration, a couple of months ago. it is predicting. if he is picked as of mid romney's presidential running mate they ought to just put this on an ad, 30 minutes. here is a guy who spoke.

aspirational speech in which he has to square republican conservatism on immigration and other issues with the aspirations of latinos, and it is a marvelous thing. he may be the next electrical speechmaker in american politics. >> author of the book -- ba hseballasroducedba inarticulate people -- or been beautifully -- >> yogi berra. >> he is a wonderful guy to talk to. some of the stuff makes sense. he lives in montclair, new jersey, and there is a concourse in the middle of the road coming to his house. so, you can get to his house going either way. so when he says when he comes to a fork in the road, take it, he claims this is where it came from. when you go to his house, you could go left or right.

baseball -- less so today -- but the owners, the players, they are bland, colorless, they don't have nicknames. baseball used to be staged like a grand opera. you had a roof, casey stengel, up and down the ride very funny -- up and down the line, very funny. great quotes, great excesses in public. and the managers, all these different characters played the game. now it is much more corporate, it is much more sanitized or something. >> so are the speeches, aren't they? speeches are sanitized by speechwriters. i once was hired by a corporation, along with some other people, much more important people that i am, to write a single speech. and they must have spent a small

fortune, more than what anyone at this table would in a year, on experts to contribute to the speech. my little contribution -- we all met separately. don't quote churchill, because it will only show you are not churchill, unless you can handle it. don't say "the challenge facing the industry is" because that is a cliche. and don't put up a lot of fans graphics if you are a small man because that will make you look smaller and grayer. when i went to see the speech delivered, all of these things they got wrong. he said, as churchill said, he went one better than me, throwing in shakespeare as well. it just showed you that the rest of the thing -- and he concluded, the challenge facing this industry is. i thought, my god, they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars flying people around the world to contribute to this. but the speech writers are both

looking for that phrase, new , gentler kindler america -- and tried to grind everything out so you don't know what the person things. rather than interview the people, and to be the speech writers so you might find something interesting. another of those who have become very successful columnists. >> remember, ronald reagan was called the great communicator. he didn't give himself that night. but in his farewell address as president he said -- they call me that come out take that, but really i was communicating the idea that came from the american people. that was an old constructs that made -- reagan had a way of doing it. we still remember the shining city on the hill. the city on the hill comes from the new testament but in our country it comes from john blunt threat and was quoted by many presidents, including john kennedy, massachusetts man. but when reagan included shiny

-- in that speech he actually defines it. windswept -- teaming with activity, if there have to be walls the walls have doors and the doors open to anybody who wants to come. >> another version of the sun -- >> from churchill. >> the one word can modify a very plebeian fought into a really great thought. >> and yet there are speech is that presidents can make that can just turn things upside down. but the speech that included the axis of evil. if ever things were turned upside down in our foreign policy it was due to the -- >> i think david frum wrote that and he was proud of it. i think it was a reach to far. one, axis -- a three part thing and three totally unrelated

countries do not constitute an axis but it did stick and it changed a lot. do you think the speech writers are trying to hard for the phrase? >> i think they are but did not always find it. i think the best of arms out of politics -- you mention in church hill, the ion curtain speech. the whole book about how the eye and curtains be defiant curtain -- iron curtain speech change the whole world and find it. >> churchill is interesting as a speaker because he memorized his speeches but he was a man who was very fast on his feet -- but yet he memorized because there was all courses in his very early days. he had a speech impediment, that people forget. he memorized them year he had that kind of mind capable of writing and memorizing a speech. extraordinary. >> ronald reagan, before taxes of evil -- axis of evil was

two, and attempted to fuse the thoughts of two presidents -- rose above, who talked about the aix, and used evil a lot, and ronald reagan, who called reston the evil empire. reagan was pilloried for desperate liberal intelligence, democrats, the press -- none of us like that. >> reagan liked it, and it was in fact bright and effective -- those who did not like it was wrong. you would be shocked to know that i was wrong ones. >> you remind me of my track coach in high school -- somebody once said to him, coach, at the ever been wrong? he said, yes. actually, i thought i was mistaken, but i wasn't. [laughter] >> take us out with one of the words you discovered. >> squatter was madison. >> how did that the written it? >> they just show up.

somebody took over a property and that was a squatter. president obama has two already -- he tried with a bunch of others but the two that will realistic -- remember the first summer, he says everybody in washington gets old and we -- up -- [laughter] experts in slag are committing hari-kari. >> that is our show for today. thank you for coming along. we think our sponsor from chicago. and we will see you next week at the same place and same time. cheers. >> many have spoken out on the

need to transition to a clean energy future. at exelon, we are acting. by 2020, we are committed to reducing, offsetting, or displacing more than 15 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually through greening our operations, helping our customers and communities reduce their emissions, and offering more low carbon electricity in the marketplace. at exelon, we are taking action and we are seeing results. >> "white house chronicle" is produced in collaboration with whut, howard university television. from washington, d.c., this has been "white house chronicle," a weekly analysis of the news with insight and a sense of humor, featuring llewellyn king, linda gasparello, and guests. this program can be seen on pbs stations and cable access channels. to view the program online, visit us at whchronicle.com. to view the program online, visit us at whchronicle.com.