AP On January 13, after a televised debate in which [Scott] Brown scored points by describing the open Senate seat as «the people’s seat,» not the Kennedys’, a quote appeared in the middle of a Boston Globe story that would soon be remembered as one of the great gaffes of…
Bettmann/CORBIS After McChrystal got the job in June, Gates said casually at a White House meeting, «By the way, Stan thinks he should do a reassessment. He thinks he should do a full-blown report and tell you what’s happening because things are worse than Stan thought they were.» Obama just…
AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File Obama prided himself on respecting the intelligence of the voters but he sometimes needed help connecting with the average person. During the 2008 Pennsylvania primary he claimed that the mistake he made in saying some voters «cling» to guns and religion (his only major gaffe of…
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images A few weeks after the first family finally got a dog, Rahm Emanuel ripped into Bo, whose household accidents were consuming valuable presidential time in cleanups. “I’m going to kill that fucking dog,” the chief of staff barked, only half-joking as usual. “He’s off message! They said…
For weeks before the Inauguration Obama had been playing bad poker on the stimulus. Instead of holding his cards close, then sweetening the pot for the Republicans with tax cuts in the final negotiations, he offered more than $300 billion in tax cuts at the front end of the process,…
That Sunday morning Ted Kennedy phoned both Clintons to inform them that he too would be endorsing Obama. Bill, who had already heard the news, called back first. As he began to outline his decision Kennedy heard nothing at the other end of the phone. «Mr. President, are you there?»…
Obama and Robert Gibbs had a ritual after every debate. When Obama came off stage at the end, Gibbs would give him a fist bump to signify that he had done well, not «the terrorist fist jab» of Fox News’s fevered imagination, just a nice tap. After the Nevada and…
Campaigning in Jacksonville, Florida, on Monday, September 15, the very day of Lehman’s demise, McCain started rambling about unemployment. He noted that Americans were struggling but added fatefully, “The fundamentals of our economy are strong.” Afterward he claimed to have been quoted out of context, but coming only weeks after…
