Bill Clinton was a notorious last-minute tinkerer, even when it came to major speeches. Yet it never got him in too much trouble, thanks to his talent for off-the-cuff oratory.
But in his new book on White House speechwriters, “White House Ghosts,” Robert Schlesinger tells of one instance where Clinton’s procrastination nearly led to an embarrassment of legendary proportions.
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In 1993, Clinton was en route to Annapolis, where he was going to lunch with midshipmen at the Naval Academy before giving a big address on Russia to the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
Still editing his draft, Clinton held his coffee cup in his teeth when, sure enough, it spilled all over his shirt. Did he have a spare? Nope. Could he try a department store in Annapolis? Sorry, said his security detail, it’s too problematic. National security adviser Anthony Lake offered his, but it was too small. Finally, Schlesinger writes, “The Secret Service agents radioed up and down the motorcade until an agent whose shirt matched Clinton’s was found. At a hastily arranged stop, the president donned the agent’s shirt in the back of the limousine.”
So it was in the early years of the administration, which was Clinton’s first-ever experience working with speechwriters. Clinton gave himself time for only one practice read-through of his first State of the Union message. His first address from the Oval Office, two days prior, wasn’t finalized and loaded into the TelePrompTer until 8:48 p.m.
Afterward, then-Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos stopped by a meeting of former presidential speechwriters, who had watched the address. According to Schlesinger, whose father, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., was in the room, the group ripped into both the process and the final result. “George, you guys are bungee jumping without a rope,” said Tony Snow, who was then a journalist and former speechwriter to Bush 41.
The book hits shelves early next month.
