In six pages this paper discusses the text's handling of the American presidency from the administrations of Lyndon Johnson through Ronald Reagan. There are no other sources listed.
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Reedys years of observing the White House. However, this book is not what one would expect simply by looking at the title, which suggests that the book will focus on
the presidents occupying the White House from the 1960s to the 1980s. In actuality, Reedys perspective is not that narrow, as he addresses aspects of the presidency from Washington forward.
The basic thesis that Reedy posits is that the US presidency is basically monarchial in character, and that the events in the latter half of the twentieth century were
causing a widening gulf between the person occupying the office of president and the people of the US. Reedys contention that American presidents act in a monarchial fashion is
quite convincing. He does not argue that presidents have the same power as the "Bourbons, the Hohenzollerns, the Hapsburgs, and the Romanovs," but rather that, as head of state,
the president is treated with the respect once accorded to absolute monarchs, and that this sort of treatment soon becomes accepted by the person in office as natural, not to
the office, but to himself personally. Certainly, this sort of reaction to the perks of the presidency rings true in some cases. Richard Nixon, for example, suffered his fall from
power because he placed himself above the law in authorizing the Watergate break-in. The tapes from the Nixon White House show a man who believed himself to be all-powerful and,
as Reedy suggests, this president did equate himself with the state. Reedy writes that the "fundamental quality of kingship" is the status of the monarch with the nation itself, or
as Louis XIV put it "LEtat cest moi" (I am the state) (Reedy 12). However, other assertions made by Reedy are more debatable. Reedy traces the status accorded to