fred mcclure's transcript is useful. it is based on other primary and secondary resources, including my own interviews with members of congress, congressional staffers and other knowledgeable folks i interviewed in the bush administration. if the spirit of full disclosure, i'm a congressional scholar so my paper probably does have a kind of congressional skew of perspective. now, i argue here and elsewhere that presidential legislative success, while certainly in part a function of the president's and his administration's political skill is much by the context in which he operating. in other words, how the president plays his cards does make a difference, but the hand he is dealt is more important. what was bush's hand? i'm arguing it was not really a hand conducive of policy making on a heroic scale. what specifically? well, he won election with a very respectable 54% of the vote. but his party lost seats in congress. so he faced an opposition-controlled house and senate. it was controlled by democrats in substantial ma

fred mcclure recalls that unlike sutter, thomas han't been immersed in the intricacies of the law and you have to work with him on that because he hasn't spent a whole lot of time studying how the court had dealt with bake error mou reverses madison, or all those dudes because that has not been his life. he has been in a political world. he had a good awareness of the political discussions of the day, but how you connected those with constitutional law issues that the court could be in a position to decide is where we had to spend a lot of time with clarence, end quote. thomas attempted to use the evasion technique that had served justice sutter and other prior nominees so well, also called the ginsburg routine. the senate judiciary committee voted 7-2 in his vote on the nominee and his name headed to the full senate without the committee's endorsement. before the senate could vote, however, the knox's yet compelling anita hill side show had to be played out. for his part, thomas vehemently putting him through such an ordeal, called the proceedings in his now famous phrase "a high tec

fred mcclure worked on capitol hill for senator tower. worked in the congressional liaison for presidents reagan and bush. in that role, i actually checked and this man only weighs 110 pounds. this is all battle garb. congressional liaison people have to know the congress, know well on both sides what it is they want and how it is they make decisions and how it is you can work with them. convey that information back to the white house and, yet, participate in trying to sell what the white house is trying to get sold on capitol hill. this is difficult work. there is no punching the clock. just because of the nature of the work. bobby, why don't you go first. >> thank you, chuck. my legal name is barbara. the only time my parents ever used it is when they were angry at me. please refer to me as bobbie today. secondly, i was head of public liaison as deputy assistant to the president. i tried to stand on end on anne's shoulders. she was an extraordinary person. she took the office of public l liaison to carter. she took that position to new

the white house operator says i have a phone call for fred mcclure. can you get him for me, please? the president thought that was kind of funny. let me tell you a bit about my job. that probably gives you a feel for the prism through which, at least i view, the president's relationships with congress. there wasn't an office of legislative affairs until 1954. it occurred after president eisenhower woke up after the mid-term elections and realized for the first time the political party control in congress was different from him. at that point in time, the numbers changed from 203 to 232 in the house of representatives and 47 to 49 in the united states senate. no, alaska and hawaii were not states yet. that office was created 57 years ago. it was designed to create a low-key approach as it was originally described of communicating the president's views to congress. i had 20 predecessors when i started working with the president in '89. frankly, only one served a full four-year term. the reason being, it is a high turnover job that is created by a situation where, believe it or not, yo