Bully Pulpit Research Articles

The Bully Pulpit and the Melting Pot: American Presidents and the Immigrant, 1897-1933

The Bully Pulpit and the Melting Pot: American Presidents and the Immigrant, 1897-1933

The bully pulpit and the melting pot: American presidents and the immigrant, 1897-1933

The bully pulpit and the melting pot: American presidents and the immigrant, 1897-1933

All professors as philosophers; not, all philosophers as professors

PurposeThe function of college degrees in general, and PhDs, in particular, seems increasingly, to serve as a measure of certification and, in some instances, control for entrance into a profession. Advanced degrees in the humanities seem to have lost credence outside of academic circles as hard scientists have assumed the bully pulpit on many issues once the domain of the philosophers, as students, increasingly, question the rhetoric of “The Academy” (and some in the private sector) promoting broad liberal studies, a, especially, as less of the cost is provided by public funds. The entire post secondary experience is becoming increasingly questionable when analysis shows, that for the foreseeable future, less than 30 percent of US jobs really require a college degree. The facts are that in the USA over 44 percent of faculty are adjuncts, often with less than a PhD, and less than 40 percent of current positions are tenure track. This editorial aims to alert readers to underlying trends which are reshaping the roll of the academic both within The Academy and the world at large. It may suggest the need to bring rhetoric of the past in line with the reality of the present/future and change the model of post secondary education.Design/methodology/approachLooks at the area of the PhD in the humanities in the academic world.FindingsAdministrators and policy analysts need to assess the changing roll of faculty and the implications for both the fiscal and structural soundness of the university in the digital age as well as its roll and position within the larger society.Originality/valueProvides information that is useful to administrators and policy analysts.

Yielding The Bully Pulpit: A Conversation With Tommy Thompson

In January 2005 Tommy Thompson relinquished the post of secretary of the U.S. Department of Human Services (HHS). Known as being an outspoken defender of his principles throughout his tenure at HHS, Thompson continues that tone in an interview conducted shortly after he left Washington. Topics covered include ways to curb Medicare spending; devote greater attention to preventive health and proper incentives for technology; improve the vaccine infrastructure of the United States and the world; and continue to infuse U.S. foreign policy with what Thompson has termed "medical diplomacy," in an effort to counter the messages of America's enemies.

On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit

On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit. By George C. Edwards, III. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. 320p. $35.00.The funeral of Ronald Reagan marked a celebration not only of the president's political accomplishments but also of the idea that the core of presidential leadership is mastery of the bully pulpit. Published shortly after Reagan was laid to rest, Bill Clinton's autobiography also reflects our modern preoccupation with rhetorical leadership. Clinton credits many of his political victories—most notably fending off an impeachment charge—to the power of rhetorical appeals. He also attributes many of his failures to an inability to communicate effectively. George Edwards thinks that Reagan, Clinton, and the conventional wisdom they exemplify are just plain wrong. In a thorough and forcefully articulated study, Edwards argues that public opinion is never altered by presidential speech. Efforts to advance a president's political agenda through rhetorical appeals over the heads of Congress to the people are futile wastes of time and energy.

On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit

On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit

On deaf ears: the limits of the bully pulpit

The typical legislative strategy for recent presidents has been to move Congress by winning public support. George analyzes hundreds of public opinion polls and finds that this strategy usually fails. He explains why presidents are frequently unable to move public opinion and suggests they use other means to achieve legislative success. That presidents use the 'bully pulpit' to exert influence in Washington is a truism of American Politics. What finds in this remarkable book is that the truism isn't true, that presidents--even those at the top of their form--persistently fail to move public sentiment in preferred directions.--James A. Stimson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Every serious scholar and student of American politics should read this book.--Robert Y. Shapiro, Columbia University Edwards has done it again! A bold, direct, convincing challenge to 30 years of literature.-Richard E. Neustadt, author of Presidential Power

The Rhetorical Presidency, Propaganda, and the Cold War, 1945–1955. By Shawn J. Parry-Giles. (Westport: Praeger, 2002. xxx, 230 pp. $61.95, ISBN 0-275-97463-4.)

Shawn J. Parry-Giles has written a well-researched, carefully conceived book of interest to students of the U.S. propaganda apparatus and students of presidential rhetoric and communications strategies. Pointing to the target audience, Parry-Giles argues that study of the rhetorical presidency must include greater attention to the modern presidential orchestration of both covert and overt propaganda strategies. Centering this study “on how the Truman and Eisenhower administrations strengthened the power of the rhetorical presidency through their institutionalization of a governmental peacetime propaganda program,” the author argues that both presidents restructured use of the bully pulpit and, most significant, “increased the clandestine means by which to thwart such congressional supervision over their … Cold War policies, relying on multiple media channels to achieve such ends” (p. xviii). Parry-Giles refers to that consolidation of presidential control as a militarization of propaganda policy. The book is divided into three main sections. Part 1 explores the successes and failures of the “journalistic paradigm” shaping the Truman administration's loosely coordinated postwar propaganda policy. President Harry S. Truman's use of journalists and prestigious news sources was necessary to legitimize peacetime propaganda activities, but eventually the journalistic paradigm seemed too ineffective, inviting congressional attacks and investigations. Both Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower faced those attacks, and both countered with greater centralization—“militarization”— of propaganda policies in the Oval Office. Part 2, titled “The Period of Militarization,” contends that increased Soviet propaganda, combined with the perceived ineffectiveness of U.S. strategy, led Truman to avoid congressional control through use of covert channels, especially the cia (Central Intelligence Agency) in 1947 and the National Security Council's Psychological Warfare Board (1951). Parry-Giles argues that by 1951 most psychological warfare activity was “subject to the guidance and control of the president as commander-in-chief ” (p. 55) and was known about by very few members of Congress.

Controversy Over Bullets and in the Bully Pulpit.

Nature leads with a story about the suspected double-whammy packed by bullets made of depleted uranium. A slew of new appointees in both houses of the U.S. Congress leads the news in Science this week.

BOOK REVIEWS

Journal Article BOOK REVIEWS Get access The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of Protestant Clergy. By James L. Guth, John C. Green, Corwin E. Smidt, Lyman A. Kellstedt, Margaret M. Poloma, University Press of Kansas, 1997. 221 pages. $19.95. Warren L. Vinz Warren L. Vinz Boise State University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume 68, Issue 4, December 2000, Pages 894–897, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/68.4.894 Published: 01 December 2000

The Prudent Professionalism of George Herbert Walker Bush

Just as the pre-presidential George Bush was described as a public servant who left no footprints, it is tempting to conclude that President Bush accomplished little or nothing during his time in the White House. In fact, he presided over the end of the Cold War and the largest United States military action since the Vietnam War, as well as a number of domestic achievements. Future presidents can derive positive lessons from Bush's often impressive political tactics, as well as cautions from his costly failures to make effective use of the bully pulpit and identify himself with a particular vision of the nation's future.

The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of the Protestant Clergy

When Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994, the Christian Right claimed a major role in their defeat and House Speaker Newt Gingrich credited the organized Christian vote with the Republican victory. Ministers from many political persuasions have long been active in American politics, but in the 1980s and 1990s it has seemed impossible to find any political controversy that did not involve the clergy-often on both sides of the issue. Bully is the first major study of clergy politics in more than twenty years. Drawing on two decades of survey research involving thousands of ministers nationwide, five social scientists explore the political lives of clergy in eight evangelical and mainline Protestant denominations, including the Assemblies of God, Southern Baptist Convention, United Methodist Church, and Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. They find that the competing theological perspectives of orthodoxy and modernism are increasingly tied to ideological and partisan divisions in American politics. In addressing the nature and extent of clerical participation, The Bully Pulpit asks the following questions: How do different groups of ministers see their role in politics? What activities do they approve or disapprove? How active are Protestant clergy in politics? What factors account for the level and kinds of participation? Do the patterns of clerical activism discovered in the 1960s and 1970s persist today? The authors discover that theological traditionalists emphasize moral reform and tend to specialize in making pronouncements in religious settings, while modernists stress social justice issues and engage in a wider range of political activities, inside and outside the church. They find that New Breed liberals have continued the mainline Protestant activism of the 1960s and '70s, but that Christian Right activists have become just as numerous, drawn from the ranks of previously inactive evangelical clergy. Their book offers a balanced assessment of political activity among both clergy at the end of the century and helps us understand the current relationship between church and state in America.

The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of Protestant Clergy

Political Science QuarterlyVolume 114, Issue 3 p. 535-536 The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of Protestant Clergy by James L. Guth, John C. Green, Corwin E. Smidt, Lyman A. Kellstedt, and Margaret M. Poloma Clyde Wilcox, Clyde Wilcox Georgetown UniversitySearch for more papers by this author Clyde Wilcox, Clyde Wilcox Georgetown UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 15 February 2013 https://doi.org/10.2307/2658234AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume114, Issue3Fall 1999Pages 535-536 RelatedInformation

The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of Portestand Clergy.

The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of Portestand Clergy.

The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of Protestant Clergy. By James L. Guth, John C. Green, Corwin E. Smidt, Lyman A. Kellstedt, and Margaret M. Poloma. University of Kansas Press, 1997. 224 pp. Cloth, $35.00; paper, $19.95

The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of Protestant Clergy. By James L. Guth, John C. Green, Corwin E. Smidt, Lyman A. Kellstedt, and Margaret M. Poloma. University of Kansas Press, 1997. 224 pp. Cloth, $35.00; paper, $19.95

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:William Howard Adams The Paris Years of Thomas JeffersonThomas G. West Vindicating the Founders: Race, Sex, Class, and Justice in the Origins of AmericaFrank J. Scaturro President Grant ReconsideredPeggy Samuels and Harold Samuels Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan: The Making of a PresidentAlexander L. George and Juliette L. George Presidential Personality and PerformanceMark J. Rozell and William D. Pederson, Eds. FDR and the Modern Presidency: Leadership and LegacyRobert H. Ferrell The Dying President: Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1944–1945Jeff Shesol Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud that Defined a DecadeSeymour M. Hersh The Dark Side of CamelotJohn Hellmann The Kennedy Obsession: The American Myth of JFKRobert B. Reich Locked in the CabinetCarol Gelderman All the Presidents' Words: The Bully Pulpit and the Creation of the Virtual PresidencyNathan Miller Star‐Spangled Men: America's Ten Worst Presidents

The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of Protestant Clergy

The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of Protestant Clergy

The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of Protestant Clergy

The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of Protestant Clergy

Richmond Award acceptance speech.

Richmond Award acceptance speech.

The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of Protestant Clergy. By James L. Guth, John C. Green, Corwin E. Smidt, Lyman A. Kellstedt, and Margaret M. Poloma. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997. 221p. $35.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.

The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of Protestant Clergy. By James L. Guth, John C. Green, Corwin E. Smidt, Lyman A. Kellstedt, and Margaret M. Poloma. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997. 221p. $35.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.