Joe Biden with Ham coming soon
45th PRESIDENT
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is the 45th and current President of the United States, in office since January 20, 2017. Before entering politics, he was a businessman and television personality.
Trump was born and raised in the New York City borough of Queens; he earned an economics degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Trump took over running his family’s real estate business in 1971, renamed it The Trump Organization, and expanded it to involve constructing and renovating skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses. He also started various side ventures, including branding and licensing his name for real estate and luxury consumer products. He managed the company until his 2017 inauguration. Trump also gained prominence in the media and entertainment fields. He co-authored several books, including The Art of the Deal, and from 2003 to 2015 he was a producer and the host of The Apprentice, a reality television game show. Trump owned the Miss Universe and Miss USA beauty pageants from 1996 to 2015. According to Forbes magazine, he was the world’s 544th richest person as of May 2017, with an estimated net worth of $3.5 billion.
SOURCE: Wikipedia.
44th PRESIDENT
NAME: Barack Hussein Obama. He was named after his father, Barack Obama Senior, a Kenyan who herded sheep as a child.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Obama stands 6 feet,1.5 inches, although when photographed next to Bill Clinton who is listed as 6 feet 2.5 inches, Obama looks taller. Obama is an unusual presidential candidate in that he appeared to lose weight on the campaign trail. He probably best described himself at a Denver rally acknowledging the city’s mayor, John Hickenlooper. Obama said it was great being on a podium with another tall, skinny guy with a funny last name. Like George Herbert Walker Bush and Bill Clinton Obama is left-handed. His doctor pronounced Obama to be in “excellent” health, though noting a history of intermittent cigarette smoking.
PERSONALITY: Anyone, foe or friend, of Barack Obama’s will attest to his strong, charismatic, and powerful personality. Much was made of his laid-backed coolness – this was not a man easily ruffled and who stayed focused on what he considered important. There were many who urged him to change the tone of his campaign – against Hillary Clinton when she went negative and against Republican opponent John McCain when the Obama attacks from McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, became especially vitriolic. (To McCain’s credit, he defended Obama) Obama refused to change the positive attitude of his campaign.
Adjectives often used to describe Obama are “calm,” “down to earth,” “scholarly,” “assured,” “confident.” Being down to earth was noted by one writer after Michelle and Barack Obama were interviewed on television’s 60 Minutes. When asked if the president-elect would do “dish” duty in the White House, Michelle shook her head aghast, “No.” “Barack was secure enough in his manhood to pipe up, without batting an eye. ‘I like doing dishes.’ According to the wiry Democrat, the chore was a ‘soothing’ one.”
PRIMARY SOURCE: DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. 7th ed. Fort Lee: Barricade Books, 2009.
43rd PRESIDENT
NAME: George Walker Bush. He was named for his father, George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st president, and paternal great-grandfather, George Herbert Walker. He is often referred to as “George W” and “Dubya” (i.e., “W,” “double-you, or as they say in Texas, “Dub-ya”). He is never called “George Jr.” Like Ronald (Wilson) Reagan and his son, Ronald (Prescott) Reagan, George W. and his father have different middle names. He was known as “Bushtail” as a child in Midland, Texas, and “the Bombastic Bushkin” as a young adult. In prep school at Andover, he was called “Lip,” and “Tweeds Bush.” When he joined Yales University’s Skull and Bones Society he was called “Temporary” because he couldn’t come up with a better secret name for himself.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Bush is often described as handsome and resembles his father, complete with the Bush family trademark uneven grin. He has his father’s blue eyes and brown hair which is graying, but he isn’t quite as tall. George W. stands 6 feet tall and weighs 192 pounds. He has an athletic build and runs several miles a day, five days a week. Bush’s pace is about 7.5 minutes per mile. His pace is so fast that his security detail need bicycles to keep up with him. He has been exercising regularly since 1972. Bush had an appendectomy at age 10, minor surgery to his chest wall at age 13, arthroscopic knee surgery in 1997, and two benign polyps removed from his colon in July 1998. Bush has excellent cardiovascular fitness and displays no signs of coronary artery disease.
Bush has mild hearing loss in high-frequency range due to flying jets, but his hearing is excellent in the speech frequencies. He is farsighted, which was advantageous when he was a pilot. According to his doctor in a 1999 report, “he has totally abstained from alcohol for the past 13 years. He has no history of any alcohol, drug, mental, or psychiatric treatment or rehabilitation.”
Bush dresses conservatively, but often sports a silver belt buckle and cowboy boots and hat. He never dresses down for public appearances, but he sometimes dresses casually to meet reporters, and, of course, wears a jogging suit when he runs. When he was younger, he did not always take as much care in his dress. His post-college dressing style has been described as “indifferent,” “careless,” “wretched,” and “ratty.” Perhaps his careless dress came as a result of a rebellion against having to follow jacket-and-tie dress codes in prep school and college. His sartorial epiphany came, apparently, when he first ran for public office.
Bush is a good public speaker, but, like his father, he occasionally mangles the English language. He has a history of malapropisms, bizarre grammar, and statements with a sort of backward logic. The following are a few notable quotes by George W. Bush during the 2000 campaign: “I understand small business growth. I was one.” “They misunderestimated me.” “Rarely is the question asked: is our children learning?” “I think if you know what you believe, it makes it a lot easier to answer questions. I can’t answer your questions.” “I do know I’m ready for the job. And, if not, that’s just the way it goes.”
Despite his verbal gaffes, Bush is considered a good communicator. He speaks with something of a Texas drawl and is his best when he reads from a TelePrompTer and is more likely to misspeak when he ad-libs or answers questions.
PERSONALITY: George W. Bush is lively and outgoing. He has a quick wit and tells frequent jokes, thus enabling strangers to feel at ease in his presence. When he was younger, George W. was considered the life of the party, going to great lengths to generate fun. Friends of Bush think that he took on this fun persona while trying to cheer up his mother after his sister’s death from leukemia when he was seven years old. He is often described as a “late bloomer” since he had a devil-may-care attitude toward life until he was about 40 years old.
When he was a young man, president Bush generally lived the life of a playboy, dating a variety of women and partying hard. He was apt to make outrageous statements, once telling the Queen of England that he wwas the black sheep of the family and asked her who was the black sheep of her family. He could be obnoxious when he drank too much and once challenged his father to a fight, to which the elder Bush only expressed his disappointment in his son. After his marriage and the birth of his daughters, Bush began to mature. He admitted he had been drinking too much because of the reversals that his oil company was then undergoing.
His wife, Laura, warned that she would leave him if he did not ease up on his drinking. After a particularly bad hangover following his fortieth birthday party, Bush quit drinking and says he hasn’t had a drink since. The year before, he had rekindled his interest in religion.
About this time, Bush also found direction in his life by participating in politics. First, he helped in his father’s campaign and then he ran for office himself. George W. Bush is intensely loyal, especially to his father. He does not allow anyone in his presence to speak ill of his father.
Despite reversals in his life, such as those he suffered in the oil business, Bush’s self-confidence has never flagged. He is well-centered person, knowing who and what he is and what he is capable of accomplishing. Bush is punctual and expects others to be also. He likes to maintain schedules that he sets and his life falls into routine patterns, such as getting up and feeding the family animals in the morning and running at lunch time. He allots only five minutes for each appointment and allows almost no interruptions of his meetings with others, giving them his full attention.
Bush is fiercely competitive, and if he cannot best an opponent in a sport, he may use psychological distractions, especially humorous ones, in order to win. When he was young, friends said that you had to keep playing until George won.
PRIMARY SOURCE: DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. 7th ed. Fort Lee: Barricade Books, 2009.
42nd PRESIDENT
NAME: William Jefferson Clinton. He was born William Jefferson Blythe, 4th, having been named after his late father. At age 16, he legally changed his last name to that of his stepfather. As governor, he signed his name Bill Clinton. In issuing his first executive orders as president, he signed his name William J. Clinton.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Clinton stands 6 feet 2.5 inches tall and has intense blue-gray eyes and thick hair, which was mostly gray by the time of his election as president. His weight fluctuates between 205 and 230 pounds; at the time of his election, he weighed 215; on reelection, he reportedly was significantly trimmer. Like his predecessor, he is left-handed. He suffers from chronic laryngitis, caused by inhalant allergies and the leaking of stomach acid into his throat. During acute attacks, his vocal chords swell to the point where he loses his voice. To alleviate the problem, he drinks plenty of water, takes antacids and antihistamines, receives allergy shots regularly, and sleeps with his head slightly elevated. He is allergic, in varying degrees, to dust, mold, pollen, cats, certain greenery (including Christmas trees) and dairy products. He is slightly hard of hearing. In 1984 he was diagnosed with bleeding hemorrhoids.
PERSONALITY: “Bill Clinton has a very true compass,” observed Dick Morris, a former Clinton political advisor who also worked for Republicans. “I don’t think that varies much with public opinion. But within the general proposition he wants to go north, he will take an endless variety of routes. He’s constantly maneuvering, constantly picking the routes he wants to get there, maneuvering his opponents into positions where they can’t get a clear shot at him. That is what leaves a legacy of ‘Slick Willie.'” (New York Times, September 28, 1992). The nickname Click Willie was coined by Paul Greenburg, a columnist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, who was a frequent critic of the governor’s tendency to compromise on state issues. Clinton’s instinct for compromise is often linked to an unwillingness to offend others. Like Franklin D. Roosevelt before him, he at times leaves people on opposite sides of an issue believing that he stands with them. Some have inferred that his aversion to making enemies is rooted in a childhood marred by the abuse of an alcoholic stepfather. Clinton concedes that he had to learn “not to overuse the peacemaking skills that I developed as a child.” (U.S. News and World Report, July 20, 1992). But he insists that his early trials also provided him with a special empathy. “I can feel other people’s pain a lot more than some people can. I think that is important for a politician. I think you literally have to be able to sit in the quiet of a room and accurately imagine what life must be like for people growing up on mean streets, people living their lives behind bars, people about to face death’s door.” (New York Times Magazine, March 8, 1992).
Clinton, personable and outgoing, seems to genuinely enjoy campaigning and talking to voters on a wide variety of topics. He is particularly persuasive in small groups, with whom he maintains strong eye contact. He is a tactile politician, who commonly strokes, pats, or hugs those with whom he is dealing. Out on the stump, Clinton can be a folksy speaker, with a ready store of down-home phrases laced with the rich Arkansas accent of his youth. His defense of a citizen’s right to privacy, for example, can emerge as a call for the government “to give people a good lettin’ alone.” In more formal settings, however, his English straightens a bit and he has a tendency to become both long-winded and mired in statistical detail.
PRIMARY SOURCE: DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. 7th ed. Fort Lee: Barricade Books, 2009.
41st PRESIDENT
NAME: George Herbert Walker Bush. He was named after his maternal grandfather, George Herbert Walker, an investment banker. Because his grandfather was called “Pop,” young George was soon nicknamed “Little Pop” and “Poppy”; the latter stuck through his college years.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Bush stands 6 feet 2 inches tall, weighs about 195 pounds, and has blue eyes and straight brown hair streaked with gray, which he keeps in place with styling mousse. His most distinctive feature is an uneven grin, a Bush family trademark borne by his father and eldest son. He bears a scar on his forehead from a prep school soccer accident and another on the back of the hand from a bluefish bite. He is left-handed. He has been slightly hard of hearing ever since he piloted noisy aircraft during World War II. He is allergic to bee stings and suffers from mild arthritis of the hips, a mild form of glaucoma and a slightly enlarged prostate. In 1960 he underwent surgery for an intestinal ulcer. In 1989 he had a benign cyst removed from the middle finger of his right hand. In May 1991 he was hospitalized for two days for an irregular heartbeat caused by Graves Disease, a disorder in which the immune system attacks the thyroid gland, which in turn becomes hyperactive. Mrs. Bush suffers from the same disease. Medical estimates of the odds of a husband and wife both coming down with Graves Disease ranged from one in 10,000 to one in three million. After undergoing radioactive treatments to destroy his thyroid, Bush was required to take thyroid hormone pills indefinitely.
Bush speaks with a slight lisp and tends to talk rapidly in a moderately high-pitched voice, which drops naturally when he forces himself to slow down. The spare syntax of his speech, commonly devoid of first-person pronouns and replete with phrases posing as complete sentences, was the object of widespread parody. Bush dresses conservatively.
PERSONALITY: “George is not John Wayne,” observed Republican media consultant Roger Ailes. “He’s more like Gary Cooper in High Noon. He’s very gentle. He would much rather talk than fight. But he’s capable of taking care of himself.” After eight years of quiet loyalty to Ronald Reagan, during which he developed a reputation for reserve and deference, Bush emerged as a tough, tenacious campaigner in 1988 and as president earned a grudging respect even from longtime critics for his resolute leadership in the Persian Gulf War. During such times of crisis, Bush pointedly hewed to a normal work and recreation schedule to avoid the appearance of a president under siege. In preparing for a televised wartime address to the nation, he had to delete certain references to civilian causalities, according to Newsweek (January 28, 1991), because he choked up with emotion on the lines during rehearsals and did not want to convey an image of weakness to Iraq. Bush adopted an informal diplomatic style, building personal relationships with other world leaders and keeping in frequent telephone contact with them. As president he was more accessible to the press and less scripted than his predecessor. He liked to hold impromptu news conferences with very little formal preparation. He was more persuasive in small groups than before large audiences. He maintained many of the friendships of his wartime and college years for the rest of his life. Longtime friends described him as warm, witty, engaging, generous, considerate, unpretentious, and unerringly polite, but also flighty at times. “He gets giddy when he’s on a roll,” noted John White, a friend from Texas and former Democratic national chairman. “George has always been kind of like popcorn on a hot griddle.” His awkward gestures, often restrained in public were liked by one observer to those of an errant toy soldier from a Nutcracker ballet chorus. Bush described himself as practical, pragmatic, and down-to-earth. During his twenties and early thirties, Bush was a classic Type A personality, maintaining a breakneck schedule as an independent oilman and worrying constantly over business details. He changes his lifestyle only after a bleeding intestinal ulcer attack literally knocked him to the floor and Dr. Lillo Crain of the Texas Medical Center warned him that he was headed for an early grave. After that he learned to pace himself and ignore problems outside his control.
PRIMARY SOURCE: DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. 7th ed. Fort Lee: Barricade Books, 2009.
40th PRESIDENT
NAME: Ronald Wilson Reagan. Wilson was his mother’s maiden name.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: The oldest president in history, Reagan was just shy of his 78th birthday on leaving office. Yet throughout his term he was surprisingly vigorous and relatively youthful in appearance. He stood 6 feet 1 inch tall, weighed about 185 pounds, and had blue eyes and thick brown hair with only a touch of gray. Severely nearsighted since childhood, he began wearing contact lenses as early as the 1940s. He was hard of hearing ever since another actor fired a pistol near his head during the making of a motion picture. He began wearing a hearing aid in his right ear in 1983, his left ear in 1985. In 1957 he nearly dies of viral pneumonia. At a celebrity baseball game a few years later, he shattered his right thigh bone in six places sliding into first base; he spent months in traction and never regained complete flexibility in the leg. As president, he suffered from hay fever, an enlarged prostate (corrected in 1987) and diverticulosis. In July 1985 President Reagan underwent surgery for colon cancer. In an operation lasting nearly three hours, doctors excised a two-foot section of the upper large intestine containing a malignant tumor about two inches in diameter that had grown into the intestinal wall but had not yet penetrated it. Small benign polyps appeared in the colon from time to time thereafter and were surgically removed. In 1985 and again in 1987, he had a small malignant growth, a basal-cell carcinoma, removed from the outside surface of his nose. Two weeks before he left office, he underwent surgery to correct Dupuytren’s contracture of his left hand, a harmless but progressive condition that had left him unable to straighten his ring finger. President Reagan spoke in a soft, though clear, well-modulated voice developed during his years as a radio broadcaster.
PERSONALITY: The only professional actor to become president, Reagan earned the nickname the Great Communicator for his effective use of television in presenting the administration’s program. He was a gifted raconteur with a seemingly endless store of anecdotes of his days in Hollywood. By all accounts, he was affable, cheerful, even-tempered, and forever optimistic. According to Hedrick Smith of the New York Times, “His aw-shucks manner and charming good looks disarm those who from a distance have thought of him as a far-right fanatic.” Anne Edwards, chronicler of Reagan’s early years, described him as aloof, intensely private, and reluctant to reveal much about himself to those outside his family. In a rash of so-called kiss-and-tell books by such administration insiders as Budget director David Stockman, press secretary Larry Speakes, White House chief of staff Donald Regan, deputy chief of staff Michael Deaver, and Secretary of State Alexander Haig, the president was portrayed as a remarkably passive figure, disengaged from day-to-day operations, timid about asserting his authority, inept at personal confrontation, and lacking at times even basic understanding of major issues. His impatience for detail and his willingness to delegate much authority to his staff came in for sharp criticism in the wake of the Iran-contra affair. As president, he permitted his schedule to be influenced by an astrologer consulted by Mrs. Reagan but denied that policy issues were ever based on astrological forecasts. Reagan confessed to being claustrophobic.
PRIMARY SOURCE: DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. 7th ed. Fort Lee: Barricade Books, 2009.
39th PRESIDENT
NAME: James Earl Carter, Jr. He was named after his father. He signs his name Jimmy Carter.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Carter is 5 feet 9.5 inches tall and weighed about 155 pounds as president. He used to part his sandy hair on the right but changed to the left during his term as president. He has hazel eyes and wears a soft contact lens in his right eye for reading. His most distinctive feature is his broad, toothsome grin. He suffers from a bad knee and a permanently bent finger, the latter the result of a cotton gin accident. He speaks in a soft Georgia drawl. He dresses simply, often wearing his “lucky” red tie. He prefers his denim “peanut clothes,” however.
PERSONALITY: Carter is introspective, always ready to confront his own shortcomings and seek self-improvement. He is industrious and self-disciplined and believes strongly in the power of positive thinking. He has said that his greatest strength is an inner peace. Disarmingly unpretentious, he brought an informality to the White House typified in photos of the president toting his own suit bag aboard Air Force One. Yet for all his outward simplicity, Carter is a complex personality. Bruce Mazlish, a historian trained in psychoanalysis, concluded that a “fusion of contradictions” runs deep in the Carter character and added, “The ambiguities that could tear another person apart are held together in Jimmy Carter.” Indeed, Carter has been described variously as shy yet supremely self-confident, compassionate and tender but also at times inconsiderate and steely. Only occasionally did he explode in anger in front of others. Usually he expressed displeasure with an icy stare or a searing bit of sarcasm.
PRIMARY SOURCE: DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. 7th ed. Fort Lee: Barricade Books, 2009.
38th PRESIDENT
NAME: Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. He was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr., named after his biological father. He was renamed after his adoptive father, Gerald Rudolph Ford, Sr. He later changed the spelling of his middle name. Except in formal signature, he signed his name Jerry Ford.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Ford stood 6 feet tall and weighed about 195 pounds as president. He had blond hair, which he combed straight back, and small blue eyes. With age, he retained the trim, muscular figure of his youth. His handsome features were characterized by a square jaw, somewhat fleshy nose, and generous mouth. His broad grin revealed large, straight teeth. Except for weak knees, the result of football injuries, his health generally was sound. Although he took a lot of kidding in the press and from comedians for lack of coordination, he described himself as “the most athletic president to occupy the White House in years.” Ford was a righ-handed sportsman but wrote and ate with his left hand. He dressed sporty.
PERSONALITY: By all accounts, Ford was open, friendly, forthright, honest, and considerate. He appeared to generally like people and, although a more than 30-year veteran of political wars, made remarkably few enemies along the way. “He never in his life tried to outsmart anybody,” observed Bud Vestal, a Grand Rapids reporter and longtime Ford watcher. “But if from intellectual hubris a tormentor gave him a chance, Jerry would outdumb him, swiftly and deadpan. It might be days before the attacker would realize he’d been had.”
PRIMARY SOURCE: DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. 7th ed. Fort Lee: Barricade Books, 2009.
37th PRESIDENT
NAME: Richard Milhous Nixon. Milhous was his mother’s maiden name.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Nixon was 5 feet 11.5 inches tall and weighed 175 pounds. He had brown wavy hair, brown eyes guarded closely by thick eyebrows, a prominent ski nose, sagging jowls, and a slightly protruding jaw. From childhood he suffered from motion sickness and hay fever. Near the end of his term as president, he developed phlebitis in the leg. Nixon dressed conservatively, typically in dark suits.
PERSONALITY: The Nixon personality has become the subject of extensive psychology inquiry. In Nixon vs. Nixon (1977), Dr. David Abrahamsen, a psychoanalyst, described him as a man torn by inner conflict, lonely, hypersensitive, narcissistic, suspicious, and secretive. In In Search of Nixon (1972), Bruce Mazlish, a historian trained in psychoanalysis, concluded that the predominant characteristic of the “real” Nixon behind the public figure was a fear of passivity, of appearing soft, of being dependent on others. In Richard Nixon: The Shaping of His Character (1981), historian Fawn Brodie painstakingly sought to demonstrate that he was a compulsive liar and concluded: “Nixon lied to gain love, to shore up his grandiose fantasies, to bolster his ever-wavering sense of identity. He lied in attack, hoping to win…And always he lied, and this most aggressively, to deny that he lied.”
PRIMARY SOURCE: DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. 7th ed. Fort Lee: Barricade Books, 2009.
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