Prisoners of the White House ─ The Isolaton of America's Presidents and the Crisis of Leadership

Walsh, a White House correspondent and columnist for US News & World Report, considers how modern US presidents become isolated in the White House and how they fight to stay in touch with the public. He examines the conundrum of how the president can solve the country's problems and help everyday people if he is distant from American life, discussing successful and failed attempts by Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, John F. Kennedy, George W. Bush, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. He details four ways that presidents stay in touch, through intuition, polls and other forms of opinion research, information from the media and other sources, and through contact with members of Congress, friends, and associates. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)