Word: begala
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...weeks earlier, the President had called Paul Begala, the aide who greeted him as he emerged from the shower every morning from New Hampshire on, and asked him to duplicate the campaign war room at the White House, this time to sell his economic plan to the country. One of Begala's worst moments came when he, communications director George Stephanopoulos and Gene Sperling, deputy assistant for economic policy, met with the President in the Oval Office on Tuesday evening with less than 24 hours to go to review the latest version of the speech. Sperling, who had barely slept...
After furiously scribbling down every change Clinton wanted, Begala and company returned to the Old Executive Office Building, where they propped Sperling up in a soft chair and covered him with all the jackets and scarves in sight. Throughout the night, the slumbering economist, who had begun to resemble Franklin Roosevelt at Yalta, would be consulted. "Hey, Gene," communications deputy David Dreyer would shout, "how much does a surcharge on millionaires pick up?" Sperling would mumble some number, and they would let him go back to sleep...
...Begala and the team got together with the President after he wrapped up his lunch in which he prespun the network news anchors who would be giving instant analysis on a speech that at that point consisted of pieces of paper scattered the length of the table. At 2 p.m. there was little economics in the first 11 pages. The President talked through a passage about having to play the hand you're dealt after 20 years of exploding debt. "A big part of the job," says Begala, "is being able to take dictation. I always remember...
...President came to the screening room in the residence with time for only one run-through. The tough passages about taxes and spending had been moved up four pages, but the President laughed at the new ending. "I had written about 'these precious moments,' " Begala recalls, "and he says, 'Paul, do you want me to start dancing up there?' " Begala had inadvertently written in a line from a popular song in the '70s, When Will I See You Again. Clinton told Begala to play with the notion of CARPE DIEM, written across a sweatshirt Begala's mother had given...
...time the computer disk was ready to be hand-carried to Capitol Hill, where it would be fed into the TelePrompTer, Clinton had already climbed into the limo with Hillary. They reconciled the penultimate draft with Begala's last attempt at a conclusion as they rode to the Capitol. Begala got into the van with Stephanopoulos, grateful that Clinton is always his own best speechwriter...