Archives Extra: Biden’s Battle and the Unbearable Weight of the Presidency

Trump Not Welcome • Obama’s Daily Headaches • Bush’s Time of Crisis

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Archives Extra: Biden’s Battle and the Unbearable Weight of the Presidency

Good morning and happy Presidents’ Day. With Joe Biden weighing a second White House bid, the Hive is pulling from its archives to look back on the personal obstacles he and his predecessors faced both before and during their terms. Biden’s life in particular has been marked by tragedy, as David Kamp chronicled in his 2017 feature on the president’s book, Promise Me, Dad, which reveals how Biden’s 2016 presidential ambitions were upended by the death of his 46-year-old son, Beau. Meanwhile, if you’re looking for a glimpse into the everyday challenges of the commander in chief, consider Michael Lewis’s six-month ride-along with Barack Obama, who gave Lewis the skinny on the “bizarre emotional demands” of the job. “He spends his day leaping over ravines between vastly different feelings,” Lewis wrote of Obama in his 2012 feature. “How does anyone become used to this?”

The extraordinary weight of the presidency was also felt acutely by George W. Bush, particularly in the wake of September 11, Christopher Buckley documented in his juicy feature during the lead-up to the Iraq War. “What is he thinking behind those astonished eyes?” Buckley writes of Bush, who learned of the terrorist attack while sitting in on a reading to a group of elementary school students in Sarasota, Florida. “He is president of the United States, the most powerful man on earth, but in this moment, sitting there surrounded by seven- and eight-year-olds, he looks alone.”

While Bush and Obama retreated from public life with some degree of grace, the same could not be said for Donald Trump, who, as Kate Andersen Brower divined in 2020, would not go on to be welcomed into the “so-called Presidents Club,” members of which have been known to lend an ear to one another in times of crisis. And in case you’re a history buff, dive into Sam Kashner’s lengthy item on the emotional turmoil behind The Death of a President, William Manchester’s 1967 account of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, which Jackie Kennedy asked him to write just months after her husband’s death.

Joe, Mourning

In a cruel twist, Joe Biden’s planned 2016 presidential campaign was upended by the death of its foremost booster, his 46-year-old son, Beau, from brain cancer. Will the former vice president make a run in 2020? With the publication of his book Promise Me, Dad, recalling that tragic period, Biden opens up to David Kamp about the emotional—and political—challenges he is facing

Club Rules

When the commander in chief departs the White House, he’s typically welcomed into a close-knit brotherhood of former presidents. In an exclusive excerpt from her new book, Team of Five, Kate Andersen Brower reveals why Donald Trump will be left out of the world’s most elite fraternity.

Obama’s Way

To understand how air force navigator Tyler Stark ended up in a thornbush in the Libyan desert in March 2011, one must understand what it’s like to be president of the United States—and this president in particular. Hanging around Barack Obama for six months, in the White House, aboard Air Force One, and on the basketball court, Michael Lewis learns the reality of the Nobel Peace Prize winner who sent Stark into combat.

War and Destiny

To understand how air force navigator Tyler Stark ended up in a thornbush in the Libyan desert in March 2011, one must understand what it’s like to be president of the United States—and this president in particular. Hanging around Barack Obama for six months, in the White House, aboard Air Force One, and on the basketball court, Michael Lewis learns the reality of the Nobel Peace Prize winner who sent Stark into combat.

A Clash of Camelots

Within months of JFK’s death, the president’s widow asked William Manchester to write the authorized account of the assassination. He felt he couldn’t refuse her. Two years later, nearly broken by the task, Manchester found himself fighting a bitter, headline-making battle with Jackie and Bobby Kennedy over the finished book. Sam Kashner chronicles the toll Manchester’s 1967 best-seller, The Death of a President, exacted—physically, emotionally, and financially—before it all but disappeared.