Jeff Ragan’s Reviews > The American President > Status Update

"...all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and on conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors" (444).

"Elected governor in 1978, thirty-two-year-old Bill Clinton bristled with ideas and energy. But he also made a series of political miscalculations. By seeming not to listen to his constituents, by raising licensing fees, and by giving an impression of intellectual arrogance, in 1980 he lost his bid for reelection...'I think [the loss] was good for me...If you survive it, you normally come out ahead'" (432).

"Roosevelt's ambitions cast a pall over the second half of Taft's presidency, as did the disastrous midterm elections, which went decisively to the Democrats. As the pressures mounted, Taft reacted by overeating more and more, eventually ballooning to 355 pounds. To escape the anxiety, he played endless rounds of golf, took long trips across the country, and grew crankier by the day" (420).

"...there was the subject dearest to his heart: American expansionsim and 'manifest destiny.' Polk was determined, here too, to carry on a balanced national program, dividing his efforts between the Northwest and the Southwest. His twin goals were the settlement of the Oregon boundary with Britain, and the acquisition of Mexican-owned California, a subject closely linked to the Texas issue" (410).

"The Constitutional Convention was Madison's moment of special destiny, just as the Declaration of Independence had been Thomas Jefferson's. It was Madison who proposed the all-important Virginia Plan, outlining a tripartite government with separate legislative, executive, and judicial branches, with the legislature divided into a House and Senate" (401-2).

"'It's very difficult to psychoanalyze oneself,' Richard Nixon once said. 'Most people would give me rather low grades as far as "charisma" and "gregariousness" and all that sort of thing that the politician is supposed to have...But the essence of every great leader I have known - and I'm not saying I'm great - he was a lonely man'" (386).

"Roosevelt let solitude and open spaces and intense physical labor heal his broken heart. But more important, he taught himself how to channel his aggression into a new form of energy with a purpose. 'The only thing...to do is treat the past as past'" (375).

"'I remember well my early days,' Cleveland once wrote 'I have always felt that my training as a minister's son has been more valuable to me than any other incident of my life'" (361).

"At six feet one inch, and weighing less than 140 pounds, Andrew Jackson cut a strange figure in the presidency. He wore thick coats to lend the illusion of substance, and he was often sick in the White House, coughing up blood caused by the old dueling bullet still lodged near his heart. To ease his pain he sometimes bled himself, using his penknife to open the veins" (352).

"His father, Prescott Bush, was a successful businessman who went on in later life to become a Senator. Bush credited him with passing on his core values: 'Tell the truth, be honest, work hard, try to see the other guy's point of view while sticking to your own principles. These were truisms, you might say that my three brothers and my sister and I had inculcated into us growing up'" (337).