Family. Nine members of the family have worked at the white house. I talked to one of the butlers who works every week at the white house. His uncle was the head butler. He told me my uncle ram the white house. They brought him in when he was 17 years old in 1959 during the eisenhower administration. He is still working there. He described how he used to work in the kitchen and they kept on giving him ice scream ice cream because he was skinny. It is incredible he remembers how the eisenhowers word. They are a dying breed. Tonight at 8 00 eastern and pacific on cspans q a. Over the next four hours, we are giving you a special mothers day presentation with the children and grandchildren of former first ladies, sharing tales of life in the white house. We begin with the grand daughter of lou hoover, the grandson of breast truman, and a daughter betty ford. Good evening everyone and thank you for being here. It is always a pleasure to be here. If what happened in the last few minutes back
The red and green. Bruce stringstein santa claus is coming to town. Brian and i were singing this earlier. Yes, we were. Look at that. A beautiful sunrise. Pretty, pretty pink. Thank you for joining us on mornings on 2. I am pam cook. Being told to guess the Christmas Songs this morning. I am not the doing too well. We are doing okay. I am brian flores. Tori and dave are off today. Gets let your Christmas Day started this morning. Rosemary in for steve. The picture is great. Its pretty. Its cold throw. We have some chilly weather behind that system that pulled through. A little bit of rain yesterday. Now we have High Pressure Building Back in. You may have seen atop that Tribune Tower building that we have the flag flapping around. The winds are blowing this morning. Because of it we are drying out. We dont have much fog to speak of. A little bit of rain just here on the north corner of california. But for us we are mostly clear and we are dry for today. On the back side of this system
Dolley madison who presided other the first inaugural ball in 1809. What did we think about Dolley Madison and the impact she had . Its taking us back. Way back. Way back. Dolley madison was criticized. People criticized here, didnt they, and thought she was too fancy and too much into fashion and too aristocratic, not democratic enough. Not democratic enough, but you could come to Dolley Madisons parties as long as you were appropriately dressed, so for their time very democratic. They did that in versailles as long as you were properly dressed. When you think Dolley Madison grew up as a quaker, so when she married james madison, she broke from this quaker background, so a woman who had been very demurely dressed suddenly had this ability to really just blazen out in amazing clothes and shes fond of reds and yellows and turbans, maybe a nod to that quaker cap. Shes able to fulfill this dazzling vision you have to wonder if this is what she longed to look like as a little girl. Yeah. A
A little too much looking down and i think it was a little too fast. You were dropping her voice at the end of the sentences. There was a considerable pickup in drama and interest when the questioning began. Your voice would build up and her facial expressions i thought your answer on vietnam was good. I really didnt like the answer on jobs. [inaudible] and therein lies the reason why we should talk about first ladies. Because what other advisor could be that candid to a president . Stu spencer maybe. Wasnt there a family they owned television stations or something so she of the background and so as an advisor because first ladies in some ways are to their husbands whether its in their official capacity or not. They bring that because she wants him to be as successful as he does. I think that clip show shoot, we talk about this rule of first ladies, the various attributes that as simply as human beings that they bring to the table. Mrs. Johnson, i think like mrs. Obama, things in a ver
Preeminent historians and biographers. In the recently released, informative book, these experts paint intimate portraits of all 45 first ladies, their lives ambitions and unique partnerships with their president ial spouses. This series and the book provides an up close historical look at these fascinating women who survive the scrutiny of the white house sometimes at great personal cost while supporting their families and famous husbands and sometimes changing history. Our program tonight will feature a live discussion with some of these contributing historians who we will hear about shortly. To moderate the program we are pleased to welcome susan swain the moderator of cspans first ladys influence and image. Susan swain is president and cozy e o of cspan sharing responsibilities for all operations of the Public Affairs cable network. She oversees programming and marketing for cspans three Television Channels and cspan radio and she helped launch the washington journal booktv and Ame