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Tuesday, May 13th, 2008
Subject:
Live From DC - Mother's Day
Time:
7:12 am.
Had brunch on Mother's Day at Martin's in Georgetown. Martin's was a favorite hangout of Senator Kennedy. He often took Jackie there, where they sat in booth number 3, pictured below. This will begin my first of reviews of restaurants that Jack and Jackie enjoyed. I had the "hot brown' and it was great. Served in a small cast iron skillet, it was turkey smothered in rarebit and then topped with tomato and bacon, The side potatoes were standard. The atmosphere is typical dark tavernish, but the windows help bring light in. More of an adult place, some tourists with kids dropped in and they did not fit. Staff were friendly and handled a large post wedding brunch crowd well. Living off the Kennedy legacy and other presidential visitors probably does them well, without that pedigree they would be similar to any other tavern pub in most cities...but history and good food mix well, so I give them a 4 out of 5 rating.
Jack and Jackie's Booth at Martin's in DC (photo by Steve Brawley)
The "Hot Brown" at Martins (Turkey Smothered in Rarebit Sauce) (photo by Steve Brawley)
Visited the Woodrow WIlson House on May 10. The Presidential China Exhibit was very interesting. I got a private tour in that it was raining and no on else was on the tour. Here are a few snaps, will post more later. Here is a Monroe theme....The Monroe China and one of Monroe's Bellange Chairs (now in White House Blue Room, covered in blue of course). Jackie Kennedy tried to get the chair back, but was unsuccessful. Great to see history so up close.
Monroe China (photo by Steve Brawley)
Monroe Bellange Chair at Wilson House (photo by Steve Brawley)
President's daughter Jenna married Wedding, gown reflected her preference for the elegant over the grandiose
MSNBC staff and news service reports updated 4:44 p.m. CT, Sat., May. 10, 2008
CRAWFORD, Texas - Jenna Bush and Henry Hager said "I do" Saturday at President Bush's ranch in Crawford, in a private ceremony attended by family and close friends.
Jenna, 26, wore an Oscar de la Renta gown — organza, sheer fabric, embroidery with matte beading. Her earrings: 18-carat white gold and platinum, chain-framed minted iced quartz teardrops. The ring: Platinum with a round diamond from the groom's maternal great grandmother. The diamond is flanked by sapphires.
The president and the bride picked "You Are So Beautiful" for their father-daughter dance, according to band leader Tyrone Smith of Nashville, Tenn. Smith and his 10-piece party band, The Tyrone Smith Revue, was asked to do "Lovin' in My Baby's Eyes" by Taj Mahal for the newlyweds' first dance.
Smith, who witnessed the wedding ceremony, said afterward the groom was dressed in a dark blue suit with powder-blue tie and the bride wore a "very simple and elegant" white dress, but did not wear a veil.
Smith said Jenna Bush's paternal grandparents, President George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush, spoke during the wedding, though he could not hear their comments.
"The wedding details will be reported on for generations, influencing both present-day and future brides-to-be," says Millie Martin Bratten, editor-in-chief of BRIDES magazine and student of first family weddings.
Maid of honor Jenna's twin sister, Barbara, was maid of honor and 14 other women were part of the "house party." Barbara Bush wore wear a long, moonstone blue dress with a low-cut back. The women in the "house party" were in seven different styles of knee-length dresses in seven different colors that match the palate of Texas wildflowers — blues, greens, lavenders and pinky reds.
The best man was the groom's brother, John "Jack" Hager. Also part of the "house party" were 14 ushers, who walked with the 14 women down the aisle to their seats, but did not participate in the ceremony.
More than 200 family and friends converged here for the nuptials on the 1,600-acre ranch where a tent was erected for the post-ceremony dinner and dancing.
The ceremony began about a half hour or so before sunset. The couple married at a cross, made of beige-colored Texas limestone, that was erected near the ranch's man-made lake. It will serve as the altar and a landmark at the ranch for years to come.
Festivities began Friday with a bridal lunch, rehearsal dinner and "Texas-sized celebration" in Salado, a tiny tourist village, which used to be a stagecoach stop, more than an hour's drive south of Crawford. Jenna and her sister and mother were in Salado all day and the president arrived in the evening by motorcade.
The rehearsal dinner for about 100 people was hosted by the parents of the groom, who turned 30 on Friday. Hager's father, John Hager, is the chairman of the Virginia Republican Party and is former lieutenant governor of Virginia and former U.S. assistant secretary of education.
The rehearsal dinner crowd, including the president, then walked down a street in Salado with the Belton High School Marching Band from Belton, Texas, to a "Texas-sized celebration" at another establishment. All the wedding guests were invited to this event. They were entertained by the five-member Duke Merrick Band from Charlottesville, Va., which performed classic Texas songs and original pieces by Merrick, a relative of the Hager family.
The groom's family also hosted a barbecue lunch Saturday in Salado ahead of the wedding.
Why did they pick the ranch? Away from the glare of television cameras that have beamed other first family weddings into American living rooms, Jenna's outdoor wedding at the ranch reflects her family's penchant for privacy and her preference for the casual over grandiose.
Even without the prying eyes of strangers, Jenna's marriage to her longtime boyfriend Henry Hager will make presidential history. It will be remembered as an upbeat moment of Bush's two-term presidency beset by terrorism, war and the nation's current limp economy.
"This is a joyous occasion for our family, as we celebrate the happy life ahead of her and her husband, Henry," Bush said in his Saturday radio address. "It's also a special time for Laura who this Mother's Day weekend will watch a young woman we raised together walk down the aisle."
Jenna is the 22nd child of a president to get married while their father was in the Oval Office. Their ceremonies have ranged from Tricia Nixon's extravagant wedding broadcast live from the Rose Garden in 1971 to the 1992 Camp David wedding of Jenna's aunt, Dorothy Koch. That one was kept so secret that the press didn't find out about it until it was over.
"All of them are different. This one really reflects the personality of both Jenna and the George W. Bush family," said Doug Wead, a former aide to President George H.W. Bush and author of a book on presidents' kin.
"If they'd have gone on TV, the wedding would have been shown all over the world and Jenna Bush would have been an international celebrity — and she would have been a target. They're preparing the transition to private life and they're not particularly interested in seeing Jenna Bush become a huge celebrity."
The rehearsal dinner was hosted by the parents of the groom, who turned 30 on Friday. Hager's father, John Hager, is the chairman of the Virginia Republican Party and is former lieutenant governor of Virginia and former U.S. assistant secretary of education.
Henry Hager met Jenna during her father's 2004 re-election campaign. He graduated from Wake Forest University and worked as an aide to Bush's former top political adviser Karl Rove. He is set to receive a master's degree in business administration later this month from the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business.
Between February 2005 and January 2006, he was an economic policy aide in the office of Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and regularly briefed the secretary on economic data. "He was widely regarded as a super star," said Ann Marie Hauser, press secretary at Commerce.
The couple is rumored to be honeymooning in Europe, although the White House would not comment. After that, they plan to live in a two-bedroom, two-bath town house on the south side of Baltimore. She plans to return to teaching and he will work for Constellation Energy, a power supplier based in Maryland.
This is big doings for Crawford, home to about 700 central Texans. They likely will not get a glimpse of the bride and groom, but the couple's photo is plastered across coffee mugs, mouse pads, key rings and other Western White House trinkets for sale at a few stores along the main drag.
A rusty, metal sculpture of an angel, a gift to Crawford after Bush's re-election, is adorned with a veil and a bouquet of white flowers for the occasion. A white and red banner above a storefront offers congratulations to the couple.
Few if any Crawford residents have been invited, but they say they don't feel snubbed. They respect the first family's desire for privacy.
"That's exactly why she's not having it at the White House," said Jo Staton, who sells wares at The Red Bull souvenir shop and gallery.
WASHINGTON - Talk about hush-hush wedding planning. First daughter Jenna Bush was the last in the family to know she was getting married.
Months ago, her fiancé, Henry Hager, told Jenna's twin sister that he wanted to propose. Then at the Camp David presidential retreat, Hager asked President Bush and first lady Laura Bush for their daughter's hand in marriage.
For weeks, the president and Mrs. Bush kept their lips zipped.
Then on Aug. 15, 2007, Hager rousted Jenna at 4 a.m. to go hiking on Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park in Maine. "It was freezing," Jenna recalled. "But we got up, and we hiked in the dark for an hour and a half, and then when we got towards the top — with the sunrise — he asked me."
Officially, the wedding is a private, family affair. The White House has issued no press releases, but the president and first lady have gradually dribbled out details about the nuptials Saturday at their 1,600-acre ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Here's the lowdown: Jenna, 26, will wear an Oscar de la Renta gown with a small train. More than 200 friends and relatives will attend the outdoor ceremony with dinner and dancing. A tent is being erected at the Western White House. The bride has 14 attendants, who are known not as bridesmaids, but members of the "house party." Barbara Bush, Jenna's twin, is the maid of honor. She helped Hager make decisions about the ring. The diamond, a Hager family heirloom, was reset in a ring that also features sapphires.
Limestone cross as altar On Monday, the president disclosed that Jenna will say "I do" near a lake at the ranch — in front of a giant cross made of Texas limestone that will serve as an altar. The cross will be a landmark at the ranch for years to come. The president said that was his contribution to the wedding that the Bushes are trying to keep a low-key affair.
Doug Wead, a former aide to President George H.W. Bush and author of a book on presidents' kin, calls Jenna's ceremony "the anti-Alice Roosevelt wedding." Former President Theodore Roosevelt's daughter was married in 1906.
"That wedding took place during a time of prosperity and peace; this one at a time of economic struggle and war," Wead said. "The Roosevelt family was outgoing, flamboyant; this is a private family. That was one of the most popular presidencies in American history. Even John Adams didn't go on Mount Rushmore, but Teddy Roosevelt went on Mount Rushmore. This is an unpopular presidency. Alice had no bridesmaids. Jenna has 14."
Jenna, the 22nd child of a president to marry while their fathers were in office, has come a ways from her dad's first year in office when she had a run-in with the Texas law for underage drinking. It was her second offense. Then, during her father's re-election campaign in 2004, she was photographed sticking her tongue out at the media at a campaign stop in Missouri. The widely circulated photo reinforced the playful side of her personality.
In 2004, she graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in English. She taught third grade at Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School in Washington, D.C.
These days, Jenna has been doing book tours. After a UNICEF internship in Latin America, she wrote "Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope," about a single mother with AIDS. In recent weeks, she's been traveling the country with the first lady promoting their book "Read All About It!" a story about a boy who discovers the joys of reading.
Groom has GOP credentials The groom, son of the head of the Republican Party in Virginia, met Jenna during her father's 2004 re-election campaign. Hager, who graduated from Wake Forest University, worked as an aide to Bush's former top political adviser Karl Rove and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. Hager, who will turn 30 the day before the wedding, is set to receive a master's degree in business administration later this month from the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business.
After the wedding, the couple plans to live in a two-bedroom, two-bath townhouse on the south side of Baltimore, where she plans to return to teaching and he will work for Constellation Energy, a power supplier based in Maryland.
Jenna's mother said Monday that she's not nervous — and the president isn't, either.
"I'm very, very excited," the first lady told reporters. "It's a very interesting passage of life when you get to that time in your life when your child — first child is getting married. And we're getting, for us, our first son."
Laura Bush admits that she half hoped Jenna and Hager, whom she calls "soul mates," would get married at the White House. But Jenna said she was raised in Texas and having a White House wedding just wasn't her style.
"It means a lot to Henry and me to be outdoors," Jenna said in an interview with Vogue magazine. "We wanted something organic and low-key."
"There's a glamour to it, I know," she said of White House ceremonies. "But Henry and I are far less glamorous than the White House."
Her wedding gown, however, was the creation of Oscar de la Renta, a top New York designer and favorite of the first lady's. It's made of organza, a sheer fabric, with embroidery and matte beading. Jenna has described the dress as "simple and elegant."
For the bridesmaids, New York designer Lela Rose, a native of Dallas, has made silk crinkle chiffon, cocktail-length dresses all adorned with handmade chiffon flowers. There are seven different styles of dresses in seven different colors that match the palate of Texas wildflowers — blues, greens, lavenders and pinky reds — that currently are in bloom.
"No two girls will be in the same dress," said Rose, whose father and Bush were general managing partners of the Texas Rangers.
The maid of honor will wear a long, shimmering, moonstone blue silk gown with a fluttered open back. "It's very soft blue," Rose said. "It really matches Barbara's eyes." The dress is accented with a silver sash to complement those used for the bridesmaids' dresses.
Bush may be commander in chief, but outnumbered by three women — his wife and twin daughters — he hasn't gotten to weigh in much on the wedding planning.
"They're letting me spend money," Bush joked in February.
Bush played the role of broke father of the bride again in March, joking: "I had to face some very difficult spending decisions, and I've had to conduct sensitive diplomacy. That's called planning for a wedding."
When he first talked about it, the president didn't seem all that nostalgic about seeing one of his daughters marry. When Hager said "I want to marry your daughter,' Bush said he replied, "Done deal."
Today, Bush is a bit more wistful. With just nine months left in office and his popularity sliding, Bush jokes that GOP presidential candidate John McCain isn't the only one who wants to distance himself from him.
A table is set for the dinner in honor of Cinco de Mayo hosted by Bush's in the Rose Garden Monday, May 5, 2008, at the White House. White House photo by Chris Greenberg
For the first time in history, the first lady of the United States will guest host the TODAY show morning program.
Laura Bush will join America's first family for the 9 a.m. hour of TODAY on Tuesday, April 22.
She will also be joined by her daughter Jenna earlier in the broadcast for a special look at their new children's book, "Read All About It!" (published by HarperCollins). Jenna and her sister Barbara will also discuss what it's like to grow up as a twin.
During her day as a TODAY guest host, Mrs. Bush will learn the ins and outs of hosting a morning show, and she will participate in several segments and interviews.
In addition to her hosting duties, Bush will also give Ann Curry a rare look inside the Bush family ranch in Crawford, Texas.
She will give Curry a tour of the ranch, and explain the "green" eco-friendly design of the home.
Laura Bush has always been passionate about reading. An honorary ambassador for the U.N. Literary Decade, she hosted the first-ever White House Conference on Global Literacy in 2006, which ignited international cooperation to build free societies through literacy.
In 2001 she joined with the Library of Congress to launch the first National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.
As first lady of Texas, Bush founded the statewide Texas Book Festival in 1995. She taught in Dallas, Houston, and Austin public schools.
Jenna Bush's wedding not so top secret now THE NEW YORK TIMES
CRAWFORD, Texas -- The bluebonnets are beginning to bloom here on the central Texas prairie, just in time for Jenna Bush's wedding on May 10 at her parents' 1,600-acre ranch. The kitschy tourist shops on Main Street, hoping for an influx of visitors, have ordered commemorative coffee mugs featuring Jenna and her fiance, Henry Hager.
Yet Crawford, like the rest of America, is likely to see little of the Texas social event of the season.
"They're keeping it pretty quiet," said Vicki Martin, who works the cash register at the Coffee Station restaurant here, where George W. Bush used to drop in for hamburgers.
So quiet, in fact, that the joke in Washington has been that the planning is a state secret, as tightly held as preparations for a presidential trip to Baghdad. Now, though, the Bush family has begun releasing some details -- strategically timed to coincide with Tuesday's release by HarperCollins of a children's book, "Read All About It!" that Jenna, 26, wrote with her mother.
The May issue of Vogue, on the stands last Wednesday, features a splashy interview with Jenna Bush. It discloses that the outdoor wedding is called for 7:30 p.m., so that the bride, in a "very structured" organza Oscar de la Renta gown, and her 14 attendants (not bridesmaids) in pastel chiffon Lela Rose dresses, won't wilt in the Texas heat. Jenna's twin sister, Barbara, will be the lone bridesmaid. Of the 200 guests, more than half are family.
On Tuesday morning, "Today" show viewers will get a pre-wedding tour of the ranch by Laura Bush, who will also guest host the show from its New York studio. Jenna Bush will drop in for a book discussion and a little wedding chatter.
But press coverage of the Big Day? Forget it. The White House says it will release a photograph. Sally McDonough, Laura Bush's press secretary, calls the ceremony a "private family event."
As Jenna Bush tells Vogue: "I was raised in Texas, and it just felt right. It means a lot to me and Henry to be outdoors. We wanted something organic and low key."
Preference Aside,Cindy McCain Handles Limelight Candidate's Wife Fills Several Roles In Public, Private
By MONICA LANGLEY NY TIMES April 17, 2008; Page A8
SEDONA, Arizona -- On a recent balmy Sunday, John and Cindy McCain hosted the national press corps at their ranch here. Mrs. McCain's touches were evident -- the ceiling fans hung from tree branches, the art of their children displayed on the cabin's walls, the Budweiser beer tap from her family's business. Dogs she has adopted ran about.
Cindy McCain regularly introduces her husband at events, but often retreats when her duties are done.
Showing off his barbecue skills, Sen. McCain pulled sizzling ribs off the grill and dispensed them on the sweeping porch. Mrs. McCain, in skinny jeans with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, stood nearby and just smiled.
The 53-year-old wife of Sen. McCain doesn't seek the limelight. While the picture-perfect Mrs. McCain regularly introduces her husband at campaign events, she often retreats after her duties are done, donning her fully loaded iPod and typing away on her silver BlackBerry.
"The campaign gets to be a little too much for me," she said in an interview. "I take some time off occasionally...and then I get back out."
As the wife of the expected Republican nominee, Mrs. McCain will face intensifying scrutiny. Both of Sen. McCain's potential opponents have high-profile spouses who have assumed very public roles in the campaigns -- and have at times undergone fierce criticism and media attention.
The pressure already has begun. Recently, Mrs. McCain faced the press with Sen. McCain to deny news reports that her husband of 28 years had an affair with a lobbyist.
Although she says she wants to be a "traditional" first lady, Mrs. McCain has led a life that by any measure has been untraditional.
She heads one of the nation's largest beer distributorships, an Anheuser-Busch Cos. franchise inherited from her father. She has sported "MS BUD" on her license plate, and from the campaign trail she uses her BlackBerry and cellphone to oversee this region's rollout of Bud Lite Lime and to expand her corporate empire.
Last month, while Sen. McCain was touring Europe and Iraq to show his foreign-policy credentials, Mrs. McCain flew into postwar Kosovo on a mission to clear land mines. It was the latest of several trips she has made in recent years as part of a detonation team. She also supports the charity arranging the trips by serving on its board and making donations.
"Cindy is a private person with her own stresses and commitments -- apart from her public role in John's campaign," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close friend of the McCains. "She juggles bowling balls."
Sen. McCain, 71, calls his wife "a real trooper." After knee-replacement surgery following a fall in a grocery store a few months ago, Mrs. McCain, always meticulously dressed and coiffed even on crutches, quickly hit the trail. "Sometimes when we get in bed at night, I hear her groan" from the pain, the senator said in an interview.
When John McCain met his future wife, Cindy Hensley was a 24-year-old only child on vacation with her parents. In Phoenix, she had been her high school's rodeo queen, sporting a cowboy hat complete with a crown. After earning education degrees at the University of Southern California (which Sen. McCain has called "University of Spoiled Children"), she became a special-needs teacher.
She also got involved in the beer distributorship started by her father. Art Pearce, who worked at his own family's company, a Coors distributor in Phoenix, frequently ran into her at industry events. "You could tell by her air that she was very proud of her family's business," Mr. Pearce said.
Her focus shifted as soon as she met John McCain, a dashing Navy officer in his dress whites, at a cocktail party in Hawaii, where she was vacationing with her parents. They had "instant chemistry," Mrs. McCain has said. She didn't know he had been a prisoner of war in Vietnam for five years. She has said that they both lied about their ages: He said he was four years younger; she said she was three years older.
At the time, Sen. McCain was separated from his first wife, with whom he had a daughter. He had adopted his wife's two sons. After a divorce, he married Cindy Hensley in 1980. Having signed a prenuptial agreement that her assets would remain separate, he left the Navy to join her father's business, Hensley & Co., as a public-relations manager for $50,000 a year. His young wife brought home much more from company distributions.
Her family provided some of the funding when he ran for Congress in 1982. After his election, the couple began a commuter marriage, with Mrs. McCain staying in Phoenix to raise their growing family.
"We really feel that one of the smartest things we ever did was have our kids grow up in Arizona," Sen. McCain said recently on the trail. "It's very tough to be a relative of a politician in Washington, because of the fishbowl effect." Although the commuter marriage continues to this day, Sen. McCain said the family took two vacations together every year and Mrs. McCain "is the one that always made that happen."
In 2000, when Mrs. McCain's father died, she inherited the beer distributorship. Hensley's chief executive, Bob Delgado, said he sat down with Mrs. McCain to ask what she wanted to do with the business. He expected her to put it up for sale.
"I want the employees and their families to know that I will take care of them the way my dad has," she recalls telling Mr. Delgado. "I'm not going to sell just because he died." Mrs. McCain said she wanted the company her father built from scratch to go to her children someday, Mr. Delgado said.
Mrs. McCain assumed her father's position as chairman. She began focusing on strategic issues and big-budget items, leaving day-to-day operations to Mr. Delgado and Chief Financial Officer Andy McCain, her stepson.
"I have good people in place...I trust them and I love them," Mrs. McCain said, adding that she speaks to Mr. Delgado almost daily. "I'm the ultimate person who makes the large decisions; major changes, growth decisions."
Since James Hensley's death eight years ago, the distributorship has nearly doubled, holding a significant portion of the Phoenix-area market share. It has 700 employees and annual revenue of about $300 million. Mrs. McCain has approved the buyout of another distributorship, helping bring sales last year to 23 million cases of beer.
Mrs. McCain (who can tell a beer's freshness by tasting it, according to her daughter Meghan) declines to say what percentage of the company she owns or its value. Industry experts estimate her stake at about $100 million.
She owns a private jet, which Sen. McCain's campaign pays to use on the trail. She started the Hensley Family Foundation, largely committed to children's causes, to which Sen. McCain donates some of his speaking fees and book proceeds.
In 1991, Sen. McCain became embroiled in the "Keating Five" scandal, in which five senators were probed for ties with a thrift executive. The Arizona lawmaker wasn't charged with any ethics violation.
That same year, Mrs. McCain underwent two back surgeries, and she said she became addicted to painkillers. She resorted to stealing some drugs from a medical charity she had started and using others' names for prescriptions, according to news reports at the time.
"I was trying to be the perfect woman," Mrs. McCain said in interviews at the time. "That was the darkest period of my life."
The Drug Enforcement Administration began an investigation of Mrs. McCain in 1994, but she avoided prosecution by paying a fine, performing community service in a soup kitchen and joining Narcotics Anonymous. She had to close her medical charity.
"Cindy faced up to her addiction," Sen. McCain said.
Since coming clean, "I've never been secretive about it at all, because [talking about addiction] is part of the recovery process," Mrs. McCain said. "It's part of my life; it has made me a better person and certainly made me a better mother."
The past year has been particularly stressful because their 19-year-old son, Jimmy, did a tour of duty in Iraq. Their son Jack also is in the military, attending the Naval Academy, as did his father, grandfather and great grandfather. Meghan, a recent Columbia University graduate, travels and blogs for the campaign, while the younger daughter, Bridget, attends high school.
One day, Mrs. McCain answered her son Jimmy's call from Iraq as the campaign bus pulled up to a town hall where the McCains were scheduled to appear. The phone line suddenly went dead; she grew teary. Two minutes later, she stepped onto the stage and calmly introduced her husband.
In 1991, Mrs. McCain came across a girl in an orphanage in Bangladesh. Mother Teresa implored Mrs. McCain to take the baby with a severe cleft palate; the senator's wife did so without first telling her husband. The couple adopted the girl, named her Bridget, and has seen her through some dozen operations to repair her cleft palate and resolve other medical problems.
When Bridget drops into the campaign, Mrs. McCain goes out of her way to point her out. "I want to make sure everyone knows she's a part of us, too," she said. (The dark-skinned child was the subject of a "dirty trick" during Mr. McCain's presidential run in 2000, when unknown operatives spread the rumor that Bridget was the product of an affair.)
These days, Mrs. McCain is active in charities specializing in war-ravaged and developing countries. This summer, Mrs. McCain will join an overseas mission of Operation Smile, a charity she has long supported that travels the world to perform corrective surgery on children's faces.
Her reticence about the spotlight is why she surprised some friends and advisers recently by wading into a controversy involving Michelle Obama. The wife of Sen. Barack Obama had commented that her husband's run for the presidency made her proud of her country for the first time in her life. Mrs. McCain declared on the stump that she always has been, "and always will be, proud of my country."
"It wasn't planned," Mrs. McCain said. "It wasn't about my stepping out on my own, but I do have opinions." However, she's more likely to keep them to herself.
"My husband's the candidate," she said. "I'm not."
Read recipes by Nelly Custis Lewis, George Washington's adopted daughter, as written in the language of the time.
To Preserve Pears
To ev'ry lb. of Pears, 1 lb. of sugar beaten & sifted, put your sugar into your preserving pan, & add as much water as will be sufficient to cover your parts, let it boil, then put in your pears & stew them gently until they are done, & of a pretty pink color, then take out your fruit & let the syrup boil until it is as thick as you like, then pour it over the fruit & let it stand until cold.
Oyster Soup
Take 2 quarts of Oysters, drain them in a cullender, take the liquor, put it in a stew pan with a few slips of bacon, when the Bacon is done, put in the Oysters, a bunch of sweet herbs, a pint of milk, or a pint of cream, a spoonful of butter rolled in flour, season to your taste.
Cabbage Pudding
Take a bit of stale bread & grate it, 2 or 3 slices of Bacon, also of veal of any cold meat, chop it fine, sweet herbs sliced fine, a large onion, yolks of 3 eggs, pepper & salt, of boiled cabbage a large bit chopped up with it. Beat all well together, take a large Cabbage, cut a hole at the end, where the stalk was, get out all the inside, then put in the above ingredients, tie up the cabbage in a napkin, let it boil for three hours.
Founding Mothers The Women Who Raised Our Nation By Cokie Roberts
Cokie Roberts’ book presents a fascinating perspective of the women before and during the American Revolution. The book presents interwoven biographies of many women including Eliza Lucas Pinckney, Abigail Adams, and Martha Washington. The stories are presented in chronological order, and Roberts paints a convincing and lifelike portrait of each woman by explaining the historical context. Some women display traces of modern feminism, some are content to let the men shine, and some act behind the scenes to work their influence through the men. Roberts quotes extensively from letters the women wrote to each other and to the men of the time and from essays and plays some women published. Well researched, well documented, and with a clear subject, this book is a great reference and a surprisingly original study of a much-studied time period. The book contains a valuable “Who’s Who” list linking the women to their more famous husbands, brothers, and sons as well as an appendix of recipes from the women’s own kitchens
Living History With HBO's 'John Adams' Miniseries stars Oscar nominated actors Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney By Matt Hurwitz Associated Press
Playing America's second president in HBO's "John Adams" was quite the hands-on experience for Paul Giamatti.
On a break from his governmental duties at his Massachusetts farm, Adams shows his son, John Quincy, the finer points of working with manure — manually. "He was obsessed with coming up with a better kind of manure," the actor explains. "And that was real manure ... of some kind."
As unpleasant as it might have been for the actor, Giamatti insisted the producers keep the scene intact. "It was eccentric," he says, "but Adams took great pride in the fact that he was a real farmer, and it was emblematic of his being a real person."
The seven-part miniseries premiering 8 p.m. EDT Sunday is, in fact, loaded with realistic portrayals of both the people and the period which, its creators feel, will depict the American Revolution in a way not previously available to audiences.
"I think it's as close as anything has ever been to bringing those people and that time alive in a fashion that I don't think people will ever forget," says historian David McCullough, on whose book about Adams the series is based.
"Anything else would have been a waste of time," adds executive producer Tom Hanks, shaking a bag of John Adams golden dollar coins he keeps on his desk.
Everything from the Boston Massacre and the vote for independence to the Adams family's primitive farm life, smallpox outbreaks and barbarous practices like tar and feathering are portrayed with gritty accuracy.
"It was very important to all of us that it be a sensory experience," explains Laura Linney, who plays Abigail Adams. "It was not an elegant time."
Adds director Tom Hooper, "Anyone who thinks it was a 'golden age' need only look at the smallpox sequence to be reminded what a tough age it was." In that scene, a doctor attempts inoculation of one of Adams' children by transplanting tissue from a writhing, boil-infested victim he totes from house to house in a cart.
In another scene, a mob pours a large kettle of boiling hot tar on a British sympathizer. "You can't watch that scene and ever think of tar and feathering again as some sort of high school prank," McCullough notes. "That was torture. People died from it."
Perhaps most important, though, is the portrayal of America's founding fathers as more than the one-dimensional, schoolbook images.
"We tend to think of them as godlike characters — marble deities or folk figures," explains McCullough.
"We have stereotypes about what the Declaration of Independence was and who these men were," Linney adds. "We know they were great men — but why were they great men?"
The most intriguing, of course, is Adams himself, who, says HBO Films President Colin Callender, was nothing short of the complicated figure Giamatti portrays.
Adams was a "rational man," he notes, "and yet a man who's impetuously impulsive and often acts without thinking. He's humble, yet madly ambitious. He was a simple man, who was very vain. He was a man who loved his family, yet spent half his life away from them. And Paul is fearless in portraying all of this, warts and all."
As if those weren't enough personal issues for one founding father, Giamatti adds that Adams was "neurotic and he was depressive. And he was a hypochondriac. He would have complete collapses, and it was never entirely clear what was wrong with him."
Balancing out Adams' shortfalls were the strengths of his wife, Abigail, who suffered those long gaps away from her husband — as long as five years — forcing her to run the farm and family alone.
Despite such separation, however, the two maintained a durable and relatively close relationship, as evidenced by their letters to each other — all of which Linney read in her prep for the role.
"From the letters, you not only get the deep affection that they had for each other, but also that they were true partners," the actress notes. "She understood where he was and why he had to be there. But it was tough on her. She wasn't a saint."
Though not formally educated, Abigail was extremely intelligent, something which, though potentially threatening to other men, Adams found most appealing. "He was ahead of his time enjoying intelligent women," Giamatti notes.
Abigail was known to be her husband's biggest supporter and confidant in all matters — something not lost on figures such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. In one scene in the film, when asked by Abigail if Washington would mind delivering her letters to her husband, Washington respectfully answers, "The sooner he receives these, the sooner we'll be beneficiaries of your wisdom."
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. Hillary Clinton was in the White House on multiple occasions when her husband had sexual encounters with Monica Lewinsky, according to newly released documents.
The National Archives released 11,000 pages of Hillary Clinton's schedule as first lady.
The National Archives on Wednesday released more than 11,000 pages of Clinton's schedule when she was first lady.
Sen. Barack Obama's campaign pushed for the documents' release, arguing that their review is necessary to make a full evaluation of Clinton's experience as first lady.
But the documents also provide a glimpse into Clinton's life during her husband's publicized affair.
The scandal involving former president Bill Clinton and Lewinsky, first broke in the national media on January 21, 1998.
According to the documents, Hillary Clinton started that day at a private meeting in the White House.
She later made an appearance at a college in Baltimore, Maryland, and stayed there until late in the afternoon before returning to the White House for a black-tie dinner. Watch where Hillary Clinton was during the scandal »
The schedules reveal where Clinton was, but provide no indication of how she dealt with the controversy.
Carl Bernstein, who wrote a biography of Hillary Clinton, said there was much more going on behind the scenes.
Schedules: Clinton dove quickly into health care
"She was on the telephone with her aides, she was trying to learn more about what the press was doing, she did not want to give the impression of a firestorm that was raging outside," he said.
On the day her husband made his first public admission -- August 16, 1998 -- she was on a trip to Martha's Vineyard.
She had no public schedule for the days that followed. And on December 19, 1998 -- the day the House voted to impeach her husband -- the calendar shows a holiday party.
A dance between the president and first lady is listed as "optional."
The papers show Hillary Clinton had no public schedule on the day independent counsel Kenneth Starr was appointed to investigate Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, or on the day Bill Clinton was deposed in the case.
On the day the affair began -- November 15, 1995, according to Starr's report -- Hillary Clinton had a private meeting and a meet-and-greet with then-Vice President Al Gore and Nobel Prize winners.
Lewinsky said she and the president had an encounter in the bathroom outside the Oval Office study on January 7, 1996. This is the same day the president and his wife had a small dinner gathering at the White House, according to the documents.
The president and Lewinsky also had a sexual encounter on February 4, 1996, according to Lewinsky. On this day, the president and Hillary Clinton went to the National Governors Association annual dinner.
Hillary Clinton kept up a busy schedule as the affair spiraled into impeachment.
Thousands of pages are marked by redactions -- blacked-out information like the names of people who attended meetings.
"This is not about someone who is eager to shine a light on her full record. That's the point. And at the same time, some of this is understandable -- when you're running for office, the slightest thing can be misinterpreted," Bernstein said.
But the schedules also show her involvement in policy -- she dove into health care reform just three days after her husband's inauguration in 1993, and dozens of related events followed.
Despite her efforts, the Clinton health care reform foundered in Congress.
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said the trove of documents "shows she was a co-president," revealing an "extraordinary extent of meetings for an unelected official to be meeting with cabinet officials."
The documents cover nearly 2,900 days. An additional 27 days will be posted in the near future, the archives said.
The documents are among those at the center of a legal battle between the archives and Judicial Watch, a conservative public interest group that has long urged a speedier release of files from the Clinton White House years.
In a court motion this month, the archives promised to release the schedules by the end of the month but said it will need "one to two years" to process remaining documents, including more than 20,000 pages of call logs -- well after the November 4 presidential election.
A Clinton spokesman said the lawsuit had nothing to do with the release, and the Clinton team had nothing to do with the redactions. A key aide to the Clintons actually fought to un-redact some parts, the spokesman said.
According to the archives statement, 4,746 of the schedules have redactions that largely relate to privacy concerns including Social Security and telephone numbers and home addresses.
"We'll look them over, and may ask the court for relief if it looks like something important is missing," Fitton said of the redacted information. He said Judicial Watch continues to demand phone logs from Clinton's time in the White House.
The documents are from the files of Patti Solis Doyle, director of Clinton's scheduling as first lady, the archives said in a statement.
Doyle stepped down as Clinton's presidential campaign manager in February after a string of poor showings in primaries.
"Arranged chronologically, these records document in detail the activities of the first lady, including meetings, trips, speaking engagements and social activities for the eight years of the Clinton administration," the archives said.
The records were simultaneously released on CD-ROM at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas, and at the archives in Washington.
The documents are also available for view on the Clinton Library's Web site. E-mail to a friend
Jack Worthington's Mom Says NO LOVE With JFK Occured
Time:
12:45 pm.
Alleged Kennedy love child shocked by family's denials 'My mother is not telling the truth'
By Denise Ryan, The Vancouver Sun Published: Saturday, March 01, 2008
VANCOUVER - The family of Jack Worthington, the Victoria man who claims to be the illegitimate son of former U.S. president John F. Kennedy, released a statement to Vanity Fair magazine yesterday flatly denying that Mr. Worthington is related to JFK.
"It is our understanding that Jack R. Worthington Jr. has made the statement that he is the son of John F. Kennedy and that his mother, Mary Evelyn Worthington, was introduced to president Kennedy by Lyndon B. Johnson."
"It is the position of the family that the above statements are unequivocally false and have been fabricated by Jack R. Worthington Jr. for reasons unknown to his family."
Jack Worthington, a Victoria man, claims that he's the illegitimate son of John F. Kennedy, above. However, a newly released statement says that Mr. Worthington's mother never met Mr. Kennedy.
The statement also says that his mother, Mary Evelyn Worthington, has never met either JFK or Lyndon B. Johnson.
"Jack R. Worthington Jr. is the natural-born son of Jack R. Worthington Sr. and Mary Evelyn Worthington," said the statement.
Mr. Worthington, who until yesterday was unaware his family had released the statement, spoke to the Vancouver Sun within minutes of getting the news that his family had spoken out against his claims.
"My mother is not telling the truth," said Mr. Worthington, who stands by his story. "She has reservations. She just doesn't want to deal with it now, the publicity."
Within hours of receiving the statement from Mr. Worthington's family, Vanity Fair circulated it to media, and published an article by David Friend on their website entitled "A Claim to Camelot," with the overline "The Man Who Would be Jack."
Mr. Friend's article positions Mr. Worthington as a possible poser whose approach to the magazine through his lawyer Douglas Caddy immediately rang "alarm bells."
News about the story of a possible JFK love child living in the wilds of British Columbia first surfaced when the New York Post ran an item in its well-read Page Six gossip column a few weeks ago. The report suggested that Vanity Fair had spiked a political hot-button item on the alleged JFK son, caving under pressure from Ted Kennedy.
The article published on their website yesterday gives Mr. Worthington a starring role as a man of "conflicting assertions and motives and press conferences," a man whose mother denies him and who "was told (by Vanity Fair) that he was free to take his story elsewhere."
Mr. Worthington admits he does not have a close relationship with his mother, but said he was surprised by her press release and shocked by the tone of the Vanity Fair article.
He said David Friend had told him last week, before receiving contact with his mother, that Vanity Fair was "coming forward with the article, and that it would be fair and balanced."
Vanity Fair spokeswoman Beth Kseniak would not comment on whether the story was tweaked after receiving the statement from Mr. Worthington's family, or on the coincidental timing of their web publication.
"We did hear from the family today. Our story is about Jack Worthington. It speaks for itself," she said.
One Month Left for WH China Exhibit at First Ladies Library in OH
Time:
2:13 pm.
(Rachel Jackson's Dinner Plate)
ONLY ONE MONTH LEFT FOR WHITE HOUSE CHINA EXHIBIT AT THE NATIONAL FIRST LADIES LIBRARY
The NFLL is thrilled to be hosting a special exhibit this summer featuring a collection of White House China. The select pieces are from the private collection of Carter administration diplomat Set Momjian. Other contributions to the exhibit were made by the Benjamin Harrison Home, the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center and the Massillon Museum. The collection featured includes china pieces from the Monroe, Polk, Lincoln, Hayes, Harrison, Roosevelt, Wilson, Eisenhower, Johnson, Reagan and Clinton administrations. Each unique design has an equally as unique story behind its creation and pattern.
China for the White House state affairs is traditionally chosen by the First Lady. Included in the china exhibit will be artifacts and clothing from these First Ladies to help illustrate the story of their association with the selection of china for the administration.
The exhibit is highlighted by a custom designed display case featuring a replication of a dinner table set for a White House formal occasion.
Visitors will be able to learn about the history of the china selection and view these historical pieces in a lavish setting. The exhibit opened on April 3rD 2007. The exhibit runs for 12 months until the end of March 2008. This is a must-see exhibit proudly presented by the NFLL for our patrons.
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