Bosworth balked and stormed out the door. The Gooch followed, yelling, "You're cute when you're mad, baby!"
For better or worse, there will never be another magazine publisher quite like him.
By-the-Book Speeches
Ted Widmer, a former Clinton administration speechwriter, sat down and read every word of every one of America's 54 presidential inaugural addresses and somehow lived to tell the tale.
"It's not a task for the fainthearted," he writes in a smart and witty essay in the American Scholar. "No one can enter those endless paragraphs about tariffs and civil service reform and emerge undamaged."
Widmer emerged undamaged enough to notice that "the typical inaugural can be broken down into specific set pieces; the thoughts arranged in a comforting sequence." As a public service, he reveals that sequence:
1. "I am not worthy of this great honor."
2. "But I congratulate the people that they elected me."
3. "Now we must all come together, even those of us who really hate each other."
4. "I love the Constitution, the Union, and George Washington."
5. "I will work against bad threats."
6. "I will work for good things."
7. "We must avoid entangling alliances."
8. "America's strength = democracy."
9. "Democracy's strength = America."
