Presidential Studies Quarterly articles from December 2007

Presidential Studies Quarterly archives from December 2007

The 2008 George C. Edwards III Dissertation Award.(ANNOUNCEMENT)
December 1, 2007... The Presidency Research Group (PRG), an organized section of the American Political Science Association (APSA), has established the George C. Edwards III Dissertation Award, to be granted annually for the best dissertation in presidency...

Shadows of democracy in presidential rhetoric: an introduction to the special issue.(Editorial)
December 1, 2007... This special issue of Presidential Studies Quarterly adopts a rhetorical perspective to focus attention on the presidency as it operates in the hyper-symbolic political milieu that is contemporary public culture. It asks us to consider the...

Hunting the devil: democracy's rhetorical impulse to war.
December 1, 2007... America's chronic impulse to war is provoked by democracy's shadow, which lurks at the far reaches of the nation's political soul. Democracy casts a dark veil of anxiety over the public disposition--so much so that it constitutes a national...

"A discovered dissembler can achieve nothing great"; or, four theses on the death of presidential rhetoric in an age of empire.(Essay)
December 1, 2007... Writing in 1757 as the advice-spewing, joke-flinging, humble yet wise Poor Richard, Benjamin Franklin warned his readers that lying was an efficient route to ruining one's career. "Since no man can engage the active Assistance of others without...

Bushspeak and the politics of lying: presidential rhetoric in the "war on terror".(George Bush)
December 1, 2007... The September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon were a great shock to the American people and a global media spectacle that captured the attention of the world. Osama bin Laden and various groups denominated "Al...

George Bush, <human rights>, and American democracy.
December 1, 2007... Disaster is always interesting to scholars, not least because serious mistakes always demand explanation and, if nothing else, research can lay some claims to being able to provide such explanations. Indeed, the troubled history of the American...

"The means to match their hatred": nuclear weapons, rhetorical democracy, and presidential discourse.
December 1, 2007... In the summer of 1987, the American poet Donald Hall published a poem in the Paris Review. Entitled "Prophecy," Hall offered in this work a grimly lyrical vision of the nuclear apocalypse. Hall's poem expressed an ache that had been steadily...

Dangerous supplements, inventive dissent, and military critiques of the Bush administration's unitary executive theories.(George Bush)(Essay)
December 1, 2007... Our strength as a nation will continue to be challenged by those who employ a strategy of the weak, using international fora, judicial process, and terrorism. (Department of Defense 2005, 5) [T]he invasion of Iraq [was] an...

The contemporary presidency: the Carter White House communications operation: lessons for his successors.
December 1, 2007... President Jimmy Carter had the most ambitious communications program of any modern president. The quality of government policy depends on the involvement of the public in its outcome, Carter believed. Early in his presidency, he explained he...

The law: contextualizing the signing statement.(Legislation)
December 1, 2007... In June 2007, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that described an apparent connection between the constitutional challenges in the Bush presidential signing statements and the implementation among executive branch...

Elections: the politics of the permanent campaign: presidential travel and the Electoral College, 1977-2004.
December 1, 2007... Bill Clinton made headlines on December 8, 2000, when, with a mere six weeks remaining in his second presidential term, he set foot on Nebraskan soil for the first time in his presidency. With this trip, he had at long last visited all of the...

The Values Campaign?: The Christian Right and the 2004 Elections.(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Values Campaign? The Christian Right and the 2004 Elections. Edited by John C. Green, Mark J. Rozell, and Clyde Wilcox. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2006. 273 pp. The Values Campaign? is divided into two sections. The...

Winning Elections with Political Marketing.(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Winning Elections with Political Marketing. Edited by Philip John Davies and Bruce I. Newman. New York: Haworth, 2006. 239 pp. Philip John Davies and Bruce Newman assemble an impressive transatlantic group of experts who concur that what...

The Final Arbiter: The Consequences of Bush v. Gore for Law and Politics.(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Final Arbiter: The Consequences of Bush v. Gore for Law and Politics. Edited by Christopher P. Banks, David B. Cohen, and John C. Green. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. 284 pp. "Struggles over power that in Europe call...

Hillary Rodham Clinton: Polarizing First Lady.(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Hillary Rodham Clinton: Polarizing First Lady. By Gil Troy. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006. ix, 263 pp. In Hillary Rodham Clinton: Polarizing First Lady, presidential scholar Gil Troy adds to the literature on the U.S. first...

Bush's War: Media Bias and Justifications for War in a Terrorist Age.(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Bush's War: Media Bias and Justifications for War in a Terrorist Age. By Jim A. Kuypers. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. 197 pp. As President George W. Bush continues to suffer from a particularly bad case of the second-term public...

Before the Next Attack: Preserving Civil Liberties in an Age of Terrorism.(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Before the Next Attack: Preserving Civil Liberties in an Age of Terrorism. By Bruce Ackerman. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006. 240 pp. In the latest of a string of thoughtful and challenging public-policy proposals, Bruce...

Turf War: The Clinton Administration and Northern Ireland.(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Turf War: The Clinton Administration and Northern Ireland. By Timothy J. Lynch. London: Ashgate, 2004. 180 pp. Anyone interested in Irish affairs would likely be acquainted with "turf" as Irish slang for "peat" (a piece of soil used as...

The President's Speeches: Beyond "Going Public."(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The President's Speeches: Beyond Going Public. By Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Press, 2006. 221 pp. It seems to be time to think more carefully about the theory of "going public." Theoretically, "going public" asserts...

Judgment Days: Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Laws that Changed America.(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Judgment Days: Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Laws that Changed America. By Nick Kotz. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. 528 pp. Nick Kotz is a distinguished adjunct professor at the American University School of...

Conservative Conservationist: Russell E. Train and the Emergence of American Environmentalism.(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Conservative Conservationist: Russell E. Train and the Emergence of American Environmentalism. By J. Brooks Flippen. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006. 278 pp. Can a conservative be a conservationist? In the politics that...