Presidential Scholars Research Articles

ANTI-CANCEROUS POTENTIAL OF POLYSACCHARIDES DERIVED FROM WHEAT CELL CULTURE

There is a global need to discover effective anti-cancerous compounds from natural sources. Cultivated wheat cells can be a valuable source of non-toxic or low toxic plant-derived polysaccharides. In this study we evaluated the antitumor ability of seven fractions of wheat cell culture polysaccharides (WCCPSs) in the HCT-116 colon cancer cell line. Almost all (6/7) fractions had an inhibitory effect on the proliferation of colon cancer cells, and two fractions (A-b and A-f) had considerable therapeutic indexes. The WCCPS fractions induced cell cycle arrest in the G1 phase and induced different rates of apoptosis (<48%). Transmission and scanning electron microscopy revealed that WCCPS fractions caused apoptotic changes in the nucleus and cytoplasm, including damage to mitochondria and external morphological signs of apoptosis. In addition, the WCCPSs induced an increase in the levels of Bax, cytochrome c, caspases 8 and 3, indicating that cell death was assessed through intrinsic and extrinsic pathways of apoptosis. Furthermore, some fractions caused a significant decrease of c-Myc, b-catenin, NFkB2 and HCAM (CD 44) levels, indicating enhanced cell differentiation. Thus, for the first time, our results provide a proof of concept of the anti-cancer capacity of WCCPS fractions in colorectal cancer. This research was supported by the FEDER Operational Program 2020/Junta de Andalucía-Consejería de Economía y Conocimiento/ Project (B-CTS-562-UGR20) and the Chair “Doctors Galera-Requena in cancer stem cell research” (CMC-CTS963); Erasmus+ Mobility Program; “Bolashak” Presidential Scholarship of the Republic of Kazakhstan for scientific work abroad; Scottish Government’s Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services (RESAS) division.

Mary V. Thompson. “The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret”: George Washington, Slavery, and the Enslaved Community at Mount Vernon. Matthew R. Costello. The Property of the Nation: George Washington’s Tomb, Mount Vernon, and the Memory of the First President.

Who was George Washington? How has he been remembered? Two senior presidential scholars, ­­Matthew R. Costello and Mary V. Thompson, provide answers in two carefully crafted books. Washington, says Costello, was an aristocratic, affluent Virginian who found the concept of democracy “worrisome” (1). Fearing that demands for democratic expansion would destabilize the nation, he worked for a ­­republic grounded in social and political hierarchy. But soon after his death in 1799, Washington’s reputation metamorphosed into that of a champion of democracy, an image that still holds. Thompson depicts Washington as a slaveholder whose military experience informed his style of ­­plantation management but who “changed into ­­someone who saw that slavery was wrong” (329) and made an end-of-life decision to free the ­­people he enslaved at Mount Vernon, who endured the ­­deprivation and brutality common to Virginia’s large eighteenth-century plantations. Thompson hopes her honest rendering of Washington’s slaveholding will “give readers...

Connections between the RNAPII degradation, DNA damage response, and mRNA processing

Eukaryotic cells have evolved multiple mechanisms to deal with DNA damage in order to prevent disease. In the presence of helix distorting DNA damage, RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) blockage at damage sites can lead to RNAPII degradation and activation of the DNA damage response (DDR), if the damage is not repaired promptly. Our hypothesis is that proteins involved in RNAPII degradation, such as Elc1, Def1 and Rpb9 in yeast, are also involved in regulating the DDR and other related cellular processes like mRNA maturation in response to DNA damage. Our data suggest that Def1 and Rpb9 could be involved in activating the DNA damage response through Rad53 (a protein involved in DNA damage signaling) while Elc1 is involved in blocking mRNA maturation after UV‐type DNA damage. We are currently exploring the role of Rpb9 and Def1 in regulating mRNA maturation following helix distorting DNA damage, using a PCR based assay. We will present these unexpected interconnections between RNAPII degradation, the DNA damage response, and mRNA processing.Support or Funding InformationKilmer Grant for AH. Presidential Scholars Funding for AH. Kilmer Grant for MS. Research Grant and Sponsorship for FN.

President Moon Jae-in at Midterm: What Affects Public Support for Moon Jae-in?

Despite the unsuccessful outcomes of his policies on economic growth and North Korea, Moon Jae-in at midterm has received relatively high levels of job approval ratings compared to his immediate predecessors. What made it possible for him to maintain these ratings? To analyze this puzzle, we employed the three commonly noted leadership qualities—effective communication, political skill, and organizational capacity—suggested by presidential study scholars. We found that Moon Jae-in’s leadership qualities are not the compelling reason for his relatively high approval ratings. Instead, there are three alternative reasons for Moon Jae-in’s relatively high approval ratings: (a) better handling of the media; (b) collapse of the conservatives; and (c) multiple summit meetings with Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un. The latter two reasons are contextual factors, which are our theoretical contribution to the literature.

The Contemporary Presidency: Digital Resources to Support Quantitative Scholarship in Presidential Studies

With the increase in digitized content available, new presidential research avails itself to more quantitative analysis. More digitized resources from government agencies and private and university repositories allow presidential scholars access to a broader universe of content. Data for analysis include digitized documents, oral histories, and data sets. Presidential scholars and researchers have the option to collaborate with programmers, computer scientists, and graduate students to become acquainted with current repositories and experiment with new technologies such as text mining and the R programming language.

The Unfinished Presidencies: Why Incumbent Presidents May Lose Their Re-Election Bids

With the conclusion of the 2016 presidential election in the US, presidential scholars have shifted their attention not only to the Trump presidency, but also towards his possible re-election campaign. Throughout the history of the United States incumbent presidents have usually won their bid for a second term in office. The presidency offers incumbents several inherent electoral advantages – e.g., party nomination and unified party base, name recognition and political experience, access to government resources. However, some incumbent candidates have been unable to capitalize on these advantages. The current paper analyzes the electoral bids of Presidents Ford, Carter, and Bush, identifying the factors that can invalidate the advantages intrinsic to holding the office of President of the United States.

Hepatitis C virus infection in vulnerable populations: a seroprevalence study of homeless, people who inject drugs and prisoners in London, UK

BackgroundInjecting drugs substantially increases the risk of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and is common in homeless people and prisoners. Capturing accurate data on disease prevalence within these groups is challenging, and this problem hinders efforts to develop targeted strategies to reduce HCV transmission. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of HCV in these vulnerable populations. MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional study between May 1, 2011, and June 30, 2013, in London, UK. Using the National Health Service Find and Treat service, we recruited participants from 39 hostels for the homeless, 20 drug treatment services, and a prison. Inclusion criteria were age over 18 years, capacity to consent, and being identified as homeless (living in a homeless hotel), having a history of drug use (using services at drug treatment centres), or being a prisoner at the time of the study. A questionnaire was administered and blood samples were collected to be tested for HCV. FindingsWe recruited 1207 individuals, of whom 491 were homeless (40·7%), 205 were drug users (17·0%), and 511 were prisoners (42·3%). 98 (8·1%) of the 1207 participants had active HCV infection and 38 (3·1%) had a previous HCV infection. Among HCV-positive individuals, 77 (56·6%) had a history all three risk factors (homelessness, imprisonment, and drug use), 37 (27·3%) had two risk factors, and 22 (15·4%) had one risk factor. Multivariate logistic regression identified three factors associated with increased risk of HCV infection: duration of injecting (odds ratio for <1 year 12·62, 95% CI 6·22–25·57; 2–9 years 50·04, 24·80–100·95; and ≥10 years 67·34, 32·29–140·46), age more than 30 years (3·00, 1·33–6·76), and UK-born non-white (0·38, 0·15–0·99). Separate multivariate analysis showed that alcohol problems (2·92, 1·24–6·89), age 30–49 years (8·29, 1·06–64·73), and age more than 50 (13·85, 1·67–114·85) increased the risk of HCV infection in individuals who were not injecting drugs. InterpretationHomeless services, drug treatment services, and prisons provide good opportunities for identifying HCV-positive individuals. More than half of HCV-infected individuals had the three intersecting risk factors, highlighting the vulnerability of these patients. Reducing the burden of HCV among these vulnerable groups is fundamental to lessen HCV transmission. FundingNational Institute for Health Research (NIHR) under the Programme Grants for Applied Research programme (reference number RP-PG-0407-10340). RWA is funded by a Wellcome Trust research training fellowship (097980/Z/11/Z). DNA is funded by an Indonesia Presidential Scholarship.

Energy and Catalysis Research in China

Energy and Catalysis Research in China

Simple mechanical model reproduces complex calls in a fish vocal system: Implications for the evolution of vertebrate acoustic communication systems

A mathematical model has been developed for vocalizations of the three-spined toadfish (Batrachomoeus trispinosus) and the plainfin midshipman (Porichthys notatus); acoustically active fish species that have served as model systems for studying acoustic communication mechanisms among vertebrates. The toadfish has a vocal organ comprised of a pair of bilaterally separated swim bladders that generate acoustic nonlinearities similar to those found in tetrapods. Midshipman have one swim bladder with sounds lacking the nonlinearities. We modeled the toadfish mechanism as a system of two harmonic oscillators coupled with a tendon-like string, and the midshipman one by the same system without the coupling. The coupling in the toadfish model, along with nonlinear oscillator position and velocity dependent terms, generates signatures of nonlinearity such as deterministic chaos and bifurcating harmonics. The system generates sounds that simulate naturalistic calls of both toadfish and midshipman depending on the input parameters. We built an optimizer to minimize the difference between the power density spectra of the simulated call and an empirical recording. We successfully computed optimal toadfish and midshipman calls and simulated transection experiments, together leading to a deeper understanding of the diversity of vertebrate vocalization mechanisms. [Research support from Rawlings Cornell Presidential Scholars and NSF IOS 1120925.]

Network Analysis of Immigrants’ Social Interaction in Diaspora. A Case Study of Zimbabweans at University of Fort Hare Alice Campus South Africa

Zimbabwean students ‘populace at the University of Fort Hare consists of the Shona, Ndebele, Kalanga, Nambya, Tonga, Shangani and Venda. However, Shona speaking students are the majority. The Ndebele- Shona relations are cordial due to the factors such as academic interactions, church relations, drinking and partying relations and some other factors related to the University context of communication. Ndebele- Shona trouble relations are minimised by academics, hostel relations, church relations found at University of Fort Hare. The fact that many Zimbabweans are sponsored by one sponsor (the Zimbabwean Presidential Scholarship) means that, they share common financial and academic challenges. However some of the Ndebele- Shona differences remain buried and unattended. Some of the Ndebele associate better with South Africans rather than their fellow Zimbabwean- Shona speaking people. The cause being that communication between a Shona and Ndebele is still problematic because most of the Shona cannot speak Ndebele, yet the Ndebele can speak Shona. Some of the Ndebele mentioned that Shona people do not want to learn the Ndebele language yet they (the Shona) want the Ndebele to speak their language. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n23p1541

Signing Statements, Gridlock, and Presidential Strategy

During George W. Bush's second term, controversy emerged over president's perceived handling of hundreds of duly enacted congressional statutes. Phillip Cooper (2005) was among first to call attention to Bush's propensity for using signing statements as a way to construe intent of a bill he had just signed, and others quickly followed suit. Charlie Savage of Boston Globe reported in early 2006 that President Bush has quietly claimed authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, and a year later, American Bar Association (2006, 1) released a report decrying the misuse of presidential signing statements, urging a different course of action that would limit undue presidential influence. A surge in research on presidential signing statements followed in wake of controversy (Berry 2009; Conley 2011; Kelley and Marshall 2008, 2009, 2010; Korzi 2011; Ostrander and Sievert 2013; Sollenberger and Rozell 2011). The belief that Bush's usage of signing statements was unprecedented (Savage 2006) was significantly overstated, but nevertheless, focus among many presidential scholars, especially scholars of unilateral presidential power, began to shift to causes and consequences of signing statements. Signing statements are not new, but perception at least is that their use is consequential, prompting many to ponder when and why will use these statements. Extant research has advanced two theories about use of presidential signing statements. The first is a political perspective, which holds that signing statements are at least in part a reaction to ideological differences with Congress (Berry 2009; Kelley and Marshall 2008, 2010; Whitford 2012). The second view is a separation of powers perspective, which takes signing statement as a presidential reaction to infringement by Congress on powers of president (Evans 2011; Ostrander and Sievert 2012). This view holds that political considerations can be secondary to more fundamental presidential concerns about encroachment of Congress on president's prerogatives. As Ostrander and Sievert (2012, 10) write, presidents and Congress are interested not only in policy outcomes but also in their relative balance of power vis-a-vis one another. These two views are not mutually exclusive. Berry (2009) and Kelley and Marshall (2008) contend that institutional prerogatives matter to president when it comes to use of signing statements. Thus, signing statement is, as Ostrander and Sievert suggest, a story of multiple considerations, meeting together to shape presidential strategy. However, scholars have not adequately considered ideological differences between president and Congress as well as gridlock within Congress when developing models to test usage of signing statements. Principally, measures of separation between two branches have largely been dichotomized to represent differences between unified and divided government (Berry 2009; Kelley and Marshall 2008; Ostrander and Sievert 2012). When ideology is considered (Kelley and Marshall 2010), it is done independent of gridlock within Congress. This article argues that varying levels of legislative gridlock interact with nature of Congress's relationship to president (i.e., whether government is unified or divided) to change presidential motivations and use of signing statements. Gridlock and Presidential Strategy Gridlock and divided government, when visited in conjunction with study of legislative productivity and government action, received quite a beating in realm of public opinion and among scholars for years before David Mayhew's (1991) groundbreaking study. James Sundquist (1988, 629) captured conventional wisdom of time when he described divided government as both unhealthy and debilitating. However, with Mayhew (1991) came argument that divided government hampers legislative productivity (at least in face of important legislation) either not at all or not as much as is expected. …

“‘Do This! Do That!’ and Nothing Will Happen”

How effective is unilateral presidential power? Recent developments have shifted presidential scholarship in the direction of a more institutional approach, and one of the most important tenets of this work holds that the president has the ability to make policy on his own. However, there is significant anecdotal evidence suggesting that agency responsiveness to executive orders is not at all guaranteed. This study leverages a unique data set tracing the implementation of executive orders across 10 government agencies, and the results indicate that despite conventional wisdom, presidential directives are not universally implemented, and a host of factors come to bear on an agency’s decision as to whether they will respond. This project represents among the first quantitative empirical assessments of the utility of unilateral power and suggests that the field may benefit most from shifting toward a bargaining-based model similar to those used in legislative scholarship.

Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics. Edited by Justin S.Vaughn and Lilly J.Goren. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. 2012. 324 pp.

Women and White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics. Edited by Justin S. Vaughn and Lilly J. Goren. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. 2012. 324 pp. Women and White House: Gender; Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics is a first-rate collection of essays on in which popular culture both reflects and shapes perceptions of female political leadership. While previous research has addressed this topic for specific candidates, this book is first to comprehensively study it. 'Women and White House fills a hefty gap in presidential scholarship, and editors carefully situate analysis in this literature along an extensive discussion of study of popular culture, advent of mass media, and rise of new media. The rich examples and accessible writing make this an ideal book for both graduate and undergraduate students studying presidency, gender, and political communications. The volume is structured around four themes. The first is candidate framing, the in which messages about candidates are conveyed, controlled, altered, and framed, particularly different that male and female candidates are presented to and try to present themselves to public (p. 16). Linda Beail and Rhonda Kinney Longworth find that Sarah Palin reframed expectations that female candidates must conform to traditional femininity through her complex gender performance during 2008 election. Mary McHugh examines framing of Palin and Hillary Clinton in sketches from Saturday Night Live and The Colbert Report, and concludes that these comedy shows humanized candidates and led press and voters to consider issues of bias and sexism more directly but less confrontationally than in almost any other forum (p. 54). The second theme of book is portrayals of American presidency in traditional popular culture outlets (film and television) with an aim to discern what these productions teach us about how presidency is integrated into consciousness in deeply gendered ways (p. 17). Goren meticulously compares representations of race and gender in film, and concludes that men of color have been portrayed as viable presidential candidates for over two decades, while women are virtually absent and shown only as accidental presidents. Goren concludes that this disparity was influential in 2008 election. Joseph Uscinski identifies a fear of femininity in representations of women's leadership in film, and Vaughn and Stacy Michaelson generate a useful typology of in which presidential masculinity is reinforced in this medium: Hollywood screenwriters frequently wield femininity like a weapon, reinforcing cultural presumption of inappropriateness of female and using it to show weakness of feminine male presidents (p. 155). The third theme of Women and White House is portrayals of American presidency in less conventional popular culture outlets: daytime talk shows, tabloid magazines, and viral videos. …

PETER RUSSELL KOWEY, MD: a conversation with the editor

Peter Kowey was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania, January 4, 1950, and that is where he grew up. He graduated from Bishop Kendrick High School in June 1967 as Salutatorian and received a Presidential Scholarship to St. Joseph's College in Philadelphia where he graduated in May 1971, Cum Laude with a BS in Biology and was a member of the Alpha Sigma Nu honors program. From there he went to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia for medical school graduating in 1975. His internship in internal medicine was at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Philadelphia, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and his fellowship in cardiology was at the Harvard University School of Public Health and Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, finishing in June 1981. His major mentor was Dr. Bernard Lown. After completing his cardiology fellowship, he returned to Philadelphia, joining the Medical College of Pennsylvania as director of the coronary care unit and of the cardiac arrhythmia service. He rose to full Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology by 1990. He became chief of the division of cardiovascular diseases of the Mainline Health System, Bryn Mawr, Lankenau and Paoli Memorial Hospitals in 1999 and has remained in that position to the present. He also occupies the William Wykoff Smith Chair in Cardiovascular Research. From 1990 until the present he is also Professor of Medicine and of Clinical Pharmacology at Jefferson Medical College of The Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. He was Clinical Professor of Medicine at MCP/Hahnemann/Drexel University College of Medicine from 1992 - 2003. He also serves as president of The Heart Center of Lankenau, Bryn Mawr, and Paoli Memorial Hospitals.

The Law Connecting Presidential Power to Public Law

When political science developed in the United States in the 1880s, the study of politics incorporated public law. Upon its founding in 1903, the American Political Science Association linked the discipline of government studies to law. Presidential scholar Edward S. Corwin was regularly invited to testify before Congress on constitutional matters, as were other political scientists. By 1963, however, behavioral studies topped the list of fields in which significant work was being done. Located at the bottom was public law. Presidential scholars, giving little attention to legal and constitutional analysis, generally promoted broad trust in presidential power with few checks. That orientation has been rejected by a number of political scientists who remain committed to public law. Part of the political science discipline remains divorced from legal analysis.

Putting Hoover on the Map: Was the 31st President a Progressive?

If any U.S. President is in need of a public image makeover, surely it is Herbert Hoover. Although not considered the nation's worst president, Hoover continues to serve as an object of derision in contemporary debates over economic policy. But is the textbook portrayal of Hoover as an unrelenting conservative historically accurate? A number of scholars assert that Hoover was a progressive president. Given Hoover's status in our political consciousness, the stakes in this debate are significant. Political science can inform this debate with rigorous ideological measurement. I complete a record of Hoover's legislative positions and use W-NOMINATE to estimate Hoover's ideal point relative to the 71st and 72nd Congresses. I demonstrate a design to improve presidential ideal point estimation. The results fill a gap in presidential scholarship, show that Hoover was a conservative Republican, and suggest that efforts to portray Hoover as a progressive leader are misinformed.

The Practice of Implementing International Scholarships: Experience of the Republic of Kazakhstan

Bolashak Kazakhstan International Presidential Scholarship was introduced to provide citizens with access to advanced knowledge in newly emerging fields when economy was being restructured and manufacturing industries were being pushed out by innovational ones. The Bolashak Project was launched in 1994 and involved 6,282 people by 2013. The initiative-related experience is analyzed based on the documents regulating participation in the program and on a survey among administrators, scholars and graduates conducted by the Graduate School of Education of Nazarbayev University between 2011 and 2013. Throughout the twenty years of existence, the program has enhanced its effects in the following aspects: providing equal access to participation in the program for all citizens of the country; identifying the priority areas for degree programs; developing the list of foreign higher educational institutions to provide an opportunity for learning abroad; determining the levels of education that need financing under the program; creating conditions to make scholars of the program return to the Republic of Kazakhstan.

On Becoming Themselves: The 1964–1968 Presidential Scholars 40 Years Later

Every year since 1964, approximately 120 high-school seniors have been selected for presidential recognition, from across the United States. As the first cohort of Presidential Scholars enters their 60s, we wanted to hear what they think about the roles that academic, professional, and personal achievement have played in their lives and to reconsider sex differences found in earlier studies. Our findings are reported here both as summary data of the responses of 145 Scholars from the 1964–1968 cohort and as selected excerpts, in their own words. Participants in this study share their wisdom about giftedness and talent as it develops across the life span and offer advice to parents, educators, and highly capable young people. They emphasize the importance of hard work, perseverance, and personal relationships and suggest that success is more about self-acceptance and personal fulfillment than it is about formal recognition and prizes.

Dead Last: The Public Memory of Warren G. Harding’s Scandalous Legacy (review)

Reviewed by: Dead Last: The Public Memory of Warren G. Harding’s Scandalous Legacy Donna M. DeBlasio Dead Last: The Public Memory of Warren G. Harding’s Scandalous Legacy. By Philip G. Payne. (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2009. 267 pp. Cloth $49.95, ISBN 978-0-8214-1818-5.) Presidential scholars and other opinion makers consistently rank presidents of the United States based on their performance in office. Historian Arthur Schlesinger, in 1948, was the first to poll scholars, asking them to rank the U.S. presidents in categories from “great” to “failure.” Since that time, such findings have appeared on a regular basis from various sources including Siena College, Time magazine, and CNN. Ohio’s Warren G. Harding, if not always “dead last,” is consistently ranked in the bottom five—clearly a failure. Philip G. Payne, in his new book Dead Last: The Public Memory of Warren G. Harding’s Scandalous Legacy examines the evolution of his subject’s legacy since his death in 1923. The core of Payne’s work is his assessment of how the public remembers the past—most specifically the presidency of Warren G. Harding. The role of the scandals plaguing the Harding administration—ranging from the political intrigue of Teapot Dome to Harding’s own sexual encounters—is significant in shaping the public view of the twenty-ninth president. When Warren G. Harding ran for president in 1920, he was a virtual unknown to the American electorate. During the election campaign, the construction of the Harding legacy began. His handlers effectively posed him as the inheritor of the log cabin myth; he eventually rose to the highest office in the land. The personable Harding was going to return the nation to “normalcy” following the turmoil of the Great War and the labor and political unrest that ensued at war’s end. When he died in 1923, the interpretation of his reputation began to take a different direction. As the political scandals that marked his administration became public knowledge, Harding’s character came under close scrutiny. It did not take long for historians and the general public to embrace the excoriation of his character, aided by his own personal moral lapses and poor judgment in selecting and defending friends. [End Page 127] Payne is not trying to rehabilitate Harding’s reputation but is more interested in answering the question “What does Harding’s reputation mean for the American civic religion and our understanding of the role of the presidency in it?” (2). Payne believes that many people were responsible for constructing an image of Harding that is part true, part myth, and part conjecture based on flimsy evidence. Professional academic and public historians, Marion civic boosters, journalists, and others all had hands in shaping an image of Harding that has persisted for almost ninety years. Payne begins his examination of the creation of the Harding legacy in his hometown of Marion, Ohio, which played an important role in his rise to the presidency. In the aftermath of Harding’s death, Marion became a symbol of what went wrong with the late president. The small town naïveté that Marion supposedly bred “was blamed both for limiting the political vision of Harding and for his shortcomings” (47). Payne examines other facets of the Harding legacy, including the rumor that he was part African American as well as, paradoxically, a member of the Ku Klux Klan. His affairs, notably with Carrie Phillips and Nan Britton, along with Britton’s love child purportedly fathered by Harding, also play a large role in how he is remembered and his presidency interpreted. As the author notes, not only is Harding himself the object of such one-dimensional characterizations, but his wife, Florence, is also cast in an unfavorable light. Where he is seen as the charming, naïve, “he-harlot,” she comes off as a shrewish, manipulative, and—quite possibly—her husband’s murderer. Payne also examines how the Harding legacy has continued into our time. In the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, pundits, journalists, and others drew comparisons between these presidents and Harding. With all of this baggage, it is no wonder that a fair and accurate...

Stonewalling and Suspicion during Presidential Scandals

Scholars possess little theoretical understanding of how presidents behave during scandals. Existing presidential scholarship has focused on “offensive” communication, aimed at achieving legislative or policy goals, whereas the authors’ interest is in “defensive” communication. Using a game-theoretic signaling model of the president–media relationship, the authors identify conditions affecting White House stonewalling and media feeding frenzies. The president’s optimal behavior changes depending on circumstances, particularly the level of presidential involvement in the alleged misdeeds. The authors illustrate this with a case study of the Iran-Contra scandals and an empirical analysis of scandals from the Nixon through the Bush administrations.