Taft 2012 - Jason Heller [7]
Taft, his head buried in his chest and his sobs coming in gasps, felt thin, cool arms around him.
“Mr. Taft, please. Take a breath. Deep breaths, okay? Good. Are you all right now? My name is Susan. Susan Weschler. It’s an honor to meet you, sir.” Then the arms gripped him tighter. “Oh, you poor man.”
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If the election were held today, would you vote to reelect the president or vote for an unspecified Republican challenger?
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Undecided: 10 percent
From the official White House biography of former First Lady Helen “Nellie” Taft:
As “the only unusual incident” of her girlhood, Helen Herron Taft recalled her visit to the White House at seventeen as the guest of President and Mrs. Hayes, intimate friends of her parents. The fourth child of Harriet Collins and John W. Herron, born in 1861, she had grown up in Cincinnati, Ohio, attending a private school in the city and studying music with enthusiasm.
The year after this notable visit she met “that adorable Will Taft,” a tall young lawyer, at a sledding party. They found intellectual interests in common; friendship matured into love; Helen Herron and William Howard Taft were married in 1886. A “treasure,” he called her, “self-contained, independent, and of unusual application.” He wondered if they would ever reach Washington “in any official capacity” and suggested to her that they might—when she became Secretary of the Treasury!
No woman could hope for such a career in that day, but Mrs. Taft welcomed each step in her husband’s: state judge, Solicitor General of the United States, federal circuit judge … [and] Secretary of War. His election to the presidency in 1908 gave her a position she had long desired.
As First Lady, she still took an interest in politics but concentrated on giving the administration a particular social brilliance. Only two months after the inauguration she suffered a severe stroke.…
The capital’s famous Japanese cherry trees, planted around the Tidal Basin at her request, form a notable memorial.… Retaining to the end her love of travel and of classical music, she died at her home on May 22, 1943.
You’re listening to C-SPAN Radio. We now go to the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill for a live press conference with Massachusetts Republican senator Sean Brown of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, where a hearing earlier today determined that ex-president William Howard Taft is entitled to a federal pension. We join the event already in progress.
REPORTER: Senator, legal experts have suggested that if Mr. Taft is grandfathered into coverage under the Former Presidents Act, the government will be forced to grant him his pension back pay retroactively for the ninety-nine years since he left office. Isn’t this a hugely wasteful expenditure?
SEN. BROWN: It would be if it were true. Fortunately, it’s not true. I’m surprised that wasn’t made absolutely clear during the hearing. The committee has agreed with the General Services Administration that since Mr. Taft did not apply for coverage at any point before now, his pension and benefits will begin from their initial term of service this month.
REPORTER: Senator, these benefits include a two-hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year pension, a hundred-thousand-dollar annual budget for staff, an office, and a full-time Secret Service guard. Can you state, for the record, what’s the responsibility of a former president to continue qualifying for these benefits?
SEN. BROWN: The responsibility? I’m sorry, can you elaborate?
REPORTER: What does the former president have to give back to the American public in exchange for this ongoing compensation?
SEN. BROWN: Well—wow. I think the idea inherent in “former president” is that he’s already served the American public at the very highest level of commitment. A former president doesn’t need to requalify every year—he’s in the history books forever, you know? Next question.
REPORTER: Senator, Mr. Taft