Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

June 01, 2009

Nancy Reagan on the Obamas, Bushes

Vanity Fair interviewed Nancy Reagan for her perspective on a wide range of subjects, including her view of the Obamas and the Bushes.

On the Obamas:

Michelle Obama called Nancy Reagan for "advice" and "suggestions," and in the course of a 45-minute conversation, Mrs. Reagan encouraged Mrs. Obama to have lots of state dinners. In contrast, the Bushes were "famously averse" to entertaining at the White House.

She feels President Obama missed an opportunity when he did not invite her to the ceremony announcing his reversal of Bush's policy on embryonic-stem-cell research. Said Mrs. Reagan: "I would have gone, and you know I don't like to travel. Politically it would have been a good thing for him to do. Oh, well, nobody's perfect. He called and thanked me for working on it. But he could have gotten more mileage out of it."

On the Bushes:

Mrs. Reagan says she felt George H. W. Bush served her husband well as vice president, but she reserved judgment on Barbara Bush: "I never got to know her very well. Our lives just took different tracks."

When asked if she ever tried to discuss the stem-cell issue with George W. Bush, Mrs. Reagan says, "I think once I did, and then I didn't anymore."

She was embarrassed when her son Ron wrote a screed against George W. Bush in Esquire in 2004, and she called Barbara Bush to apologize.

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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