Analogies: Clinton v. Nixon | Newsweek Periscope

THE BIG IDEA
The Price of Loyalty
Jacob Weisberg 11/29/2008 12:00:00 AM
Critics of Hillary Clinton's possible appointment as Secretary of State have focused on the issue of whether she'll be faithful to her new boss. The senator, we are reminded, has her own interests and a tendency to put her own ambitions first. Perhaps so, but I doubt President Obama will have much trouble with disloyalty in his administration, from Clinton or anyone else, for the same reason it wasn't a problem in his campaign: he doesn't spend a lot of time worrying about it.
POLITICS
Just One More Frame!
Suzanne Smalley 11/22/2008 12:00:00 AM
The White House may be the most important center of power in the world. But it's also just a home, a place that can make kids feel happy and comfortable, or not. When Michelle Obama brought her daughters to visit last week, they were seeing that White House, the place that's potentially good for sleepovers and hide-and-seek. Laura Bush had invited them, and the First Lady also made sure that her own daughters, Jenna and Barbara, were on hand. Bedrooms were high on the agenda. The Bushes escorted Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, to the suite of rooms traditionally used by White House children, including the Kennedys, Amy Carter and Chelsea Clinton. The girls spouted typical-kid questions: "Can I get a new bed?" "Where can I put a picture of the Jonas Brothers?"
Hillary Rodham Powell?
Michael Hirsh 11/18/2008 12:00:00 AM
For the last few days, the blogosphere has been ablaze with speculation about the kind of damage Hillary Clinton could do to the Obama presidency if she becomes secretary of state. She doesn't have the job yet (the vetting of both her and her husband is said to be raising some questions). But for many commentators, the key question is whether Hillary would be controllable. "If President-elect Barack Obama taps Sen. Hillary Clinton to be his secretary of state, he would be giving her oversight of an area where the two former rivals diverged sharply during their prolonged primary battle," warned Scott Helman of The Boston Globe on Tuesday. Obama "will be forced to the left," opined Dick Morris. "Selecting Hillary Clinton as secretary of state will just cede more of his authority." Or as ABC's George Stephanopoulos put it on his blog: "Which meme will win out: Team of Rivals or Too Much Clinton?"
THE TRANSITION
Life With The Secret Service
Katie Paul 11/13/2008 12:00:00 AM
How would you feel if a frowning man in dark sunglasses and wires in his ears grabbed the back of your pants every time you walked into a crowd? That's just one of many less-than-enjoyable aspects of presidential life that the Obama family have been living with, ever since they were christened with their recently-released official Secret Service code names: Renegade (Barack), Renaissance (Michelle), Radiance (Malia), and Rosebud (Sasha).
CHAPTER 4
Going Into Battle
Evan Thomas 11/6/2008 12:00:00 AM
McCain was not a natural orator on the stump. He had trouble reading from a teleprompter, and he had an odd way of smiling at inappropriate times, flashing an expression that looked more like a frozen rictus than a friendly grin. During one early debate, he smiled broadly as he discussed crushing the enemy in Iraq. McCain could be moody, and he did not try very hard to disguise his moods. One of his advisers used the word "heady" to describe the candidate. He meant that his speaking style was easily swayed by his emotions. McCain could look hot or riled up (his traveling buddy Lindsey Graham particularly affected his moods, for better and for worse), or he could appear wooden, even sullen. McCain was bored by dreary presentations of his own polling data, but he could get agitated reading about other people's polls in the press. His staff tried to keep away overstimulating distractions, but it was hopeless. During the campaign's low-budget period, when the candidate was traveling on the cut-rate airline JetBlue, he would get wound up watching political talk shows on the small video screen facing his seat.
HOW HE DID IT 2008
The Age of Obama
Jon Meacham 11/5/2008 12:00:00 AM
He was, once, the consummate outsider. The first time Barack Obama saw the White House was a quarter century ago, in 1984, when he was working as a community organizer based at the Harlem campus of the City College of New York. President Reagan was proposing reductions in student aid. The young Obama, just out of Columbia, got together with student leaders—"most of them black, Puerto Rican, or of Eastern European descent, almost all of them the first in their families to attend college"—to take petitions protesting the cuts to the New York delegation on Capitol Hill. Afterward, Obama wrote in "The Audacity of Hope," the group wandered down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Washington Monument and then to the White House, where they stood outside the gates, looking in.