Earlier this week I asked him what he was reading. His reply:
A book I just finished and have already passed along to two colleagues is The Columnist (Harvest Book, 2001), a novel by Jeffrey Frank. It is the only Washington novel that I would dare call Swiftian. Brutally funny.Stephen Hess is Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Brookings Institution. A veteran staffer of the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations and an advisor to Presidents Ford and Carter, he focuses on the presidency, the news media, and the political culture of Washington.
About What Do We Do Now?, from the publisher:
The period from Election Day to Inauguration Day in America seems impossibly short. Newly elected U.S.--Marshal Zeringuepresidents have less than eleven weeks to construct a new government composed of supporters and strangers, hailing from all parts of the nation. This unique and daunting process always involves at least some mistakes—in hiring, perhaps, or in policy priorities, or organizational design. Early blunders can carry serious consequences well into a president’s term; minimizing them from the outset is critical. In What Do We Do Now? Stephen Hess draws from his long experience as a White House staffer and presidential adviser to show what can be done to make presidential transitions go smoothly.[read more]
Posts
