Search results for ""Author Donald A. Ritchie""

Long before Wikileaks and social media, the journalist Drew Pearson exposed to public view information that public officials tried to keep hidden. A self-professed "keyhole peeper", Pearson devoted himself to revealing what politicians were doing behind closed doors. From 1932 to 1969, his daily "Washington Merry-Go-Round" column and weekly radio and TV commentary broke secrets, revealed classified information, and passed along rumors based on sources high and low in the federal government, while intelligence agents searched fruitlessly for his sources. For forty years, this syndicated columnist and radio and television commentator called public officials to account and forced them to confront the facts. Pearson's daily column, published in more than 600 newspapers, and his weekly radio and television commentaries led to the censure of two US senators, sent four members of the House to prison, and undermined numerous political careers. Every president from Franklin Roosevelt to Richard Nixon--and a quorum of Congress--called him a liar. Pearson was sued for libel more than any other journalist, in the end winning all but one of the cases. Breaking secrets was the heartbeat of Pearson's column. His ability to reveal classified information, even during wartime, motivated foreign and domestic intelligence agents to pursue him. He played cat and mouse with the investigators who shadowed him, tapped his phone, read his mail, and planted agents among his friends. Yet they rarely learned his sources. The FBI found it so fruitless to track down leaks to the columnist that it advised agencies to simply do a better job of keeping their files secret. Drawing on Pearson's extensive correspondence, diaries, and oral histories, The Columnist reveals the mystery behind Pearson's leaks and the accuracy of his most controversial revelations.

Read more less

Donald A. Ritchie, a congressional historian for forty years , takes readers on a fascinating, behind-the-scenes tour of Capitol Hill, pointing out the key players, explaining their behavior, and translating parliamentary language into plain English. He also explores the essential necessity of compromise to accomplish anything significant in the legislative arena. However, recent events show that political polarization has hardened and produced gridlock, as Ritchie explains in this new edition. The 2020 election also produced a more diverse membership in terms of gender, ethnicity, religion, and ideology, with primary elections resulting in the defeat of moderate candidates by opponents ranging from socialists on the left to conspiracy theorists on the right, making bipartisan compromise harder to achieve. Among the most significant events since the last edition, the Senate ignored President Obama's last nomination to the Supreme Court and then adopted a "nuclear option" to streamline future Supreme Court confirmations. The House also twice impeached President Trump, processes that starkly expose the differences between the majority-rule requirements of the House and the super-majority requirements of the Senate. This new edition explains how the parties have changed in light of the unprecedented politics of the past four years, culminating in the mob attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and how this development has affected both the House and the Senate.

Read more less

In the second edition of The U.S. Congress, Donald A. Ritchie, a congressional historian for more than thirty years, takes readers on a fascinating, behind-the-scenes tour of Capitol Hill, pointing out the key players, explaining their behavior, and translating parliamentary language into plain English. No mere civics lesson, this eye-opening book provides an insider's perspective on Congress, matched with a professional historian's analytical insight. After a swift survey of the creation of Congress by the constitutional convention, he begins to unscrew the nuts and pull out the bolts. What is it like to campaign for Congress? To attract large donors? To enter either house with no seniority? He answers these questions and more, explaining committee assignments and committee work, the role of staffers and lobbyists, floor proceedings, parliamentary rules, and coalition building. Ritchie explores the great effort put into constituent service-as representatives and senators respond to requests from groups and individuals-as well as media relations and news coverage. He also explores how the grand concepts we all know from civics class--checks and balances, advise and consent, congressional oversight--work in practice in an age of strong presidents and a muscular Senate minority.

Read more less

Had Elizabeth 'Bess' Clements Abell (1933-2020) been a boy, she would likely have become a politician like her father, Earle Clements. Effectively barred from that career because of her gender, she forged her own path by helping family friends Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson. As President Johnson's Social Secretary, Abell earned the nickname 'Iron Butterfly' for her graceful but firm leadership of social life in the White House. Afterward, she maintained her importance in Washington D.C., serving as chief of staff to Joan Mondale and co-founding a public relations company.Donald A. Ritchie and Terry L. Birdwhistell draw on Abell's own words and those of others close to her to tell her remarkable story. Focusing on her years working for the Johnson campaign and her time in the White House, this engaging oral history provides a window into Abell's life as well as an insider's view of social life in the nation's capital during the tumultuous 1960s.

Read more less