How to Be President: What to Do and Where to Go Once You're in Office [Paperback]

Stephen P. Williams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2004

Congratulations! You've won the election and taken your oath. You wake up on your first day in the White House—now what do you do? Where's the bathroom? How do you get breakfast? What time is your first meeting? When can you use Air Force One? Can you order a pizza from the Oval Office? What line do you use for personal phone calls? This fully illustrated, how-to, hands-on handbook explains the nuts and bolts of being the President of the United States. Discover how to read a teleprompter, greet foreign dignitaries, and light the White House Christmas tree. Learn where to sit at Cabinet meetings and whether you need to bring your own ball to the White House bowling alley. Your job benefits, vacation schedule, and all the other perks and duties are clearly explained in this indispensable manual. It's a tough job, and somebody's got to do it.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dubya may already know the ropes, but John Kerry might find this handbook useful should he find himself residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue next year. If the general state of affairs hasn’t improved from today, he may want to skip right to chapter four: "Getting Serious—Dealing with Crises and the Press." Among its handy tips is this piece of cynical advice: embarrassing news should be released on Friday afternoon because people pay less attention to the Saturday news. Elsewhere, Williams answers the FAQ how does the president get snacks? But even readers who have no plans to become POTUS will find unusual info here, such as detailed maps of the West Wing and Air Force One, and an explanation of what the "nuclear football" is. Sometimes funny, sometimes informative, this volume will amuse anyone obsessed with presidential trivia.
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About the Author

Stephen P. Williams has written for the New York Times , Newsweek , and Martha Stewart Living . He lives in New York City.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (May 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811843165
• ISBN-13: 978-0811843164
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #280,920 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #17 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Photo Essays
  • #29 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Entertainment > Humor > Political
  • #37 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Political Science > General

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining little guide, probably best for young adults, May 20, 2004

By 

Andrew S. Rogers (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How to Be President: What to Do and Where to Go Once You're in Office (Paperback)

This is an interesting overview of the responsibilities and perks of being the president of the United States. I don't think it's something Sam Donaldson is going to wish he'd had when he was skulking around the White House. And if anyone actually elected chief executive needs a book like this to find his (obligatory: "or her") way around, well, we're in worse shape than I thought. But for a general audience, it's not a bad, or time-consuming, way to get a better picture of what being president actually entails.

I'm not entirely clear on whether this book was explicitly written for a juvenile audience (the cataloguing info doesn't seem to indicate that), but it reads that way. Some of the questions it addresses are childish (Do I have to make my own bed? Who walks my dog?) or else things the president probably need not concern himself (obligatory: "or herself") about, like how do I order a new desk chair, or do I get to keep the pens. Other sections, though, like the discussion of the president's daily schedule, the interaction with the Secret Service, and the layout and functions of various White House spaces, were pretty interesting. But does the Secret Service really refer to the "First Spouse," or "FS"?

"How to be President" is a quick and easy read that many people may find entertaining and broadly illuminating. I would categorize it as best suited for young adults for whom So You Want to be President? Revised and Updated Edition by Judith St. George (2000) is a little too lightweight. Adults looking for something with more depth, but not heavily weighted by politics, might want to check out a title mentioned in this book's bibliography, Real Life at the White House: 200 Years of Daily Life at America's Most Famous Residence by Claire and John Whitcomb (2002).

22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars vapid, ugly, and wrong, April 2, 2005

By 

perch1 (Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Be President: What to Do and Where to Go Once You're in Office (Paperback)

This slim, poorly written, poorly illustrated, poorly referenced paste-up might have a few interesting tidbits, but it's so error-filled that it should not even be idly browsed. A few examples:

* "There is no official White House barber" (p 16). Don't tell Milton Pitts.

* "Offices in the West Wing are usually ... windowless" (p 49). Huh? On Williams' own diagram, 3 executive offices are windowless and 16 have windows.

* "The oval shape of [the Blue Room] inspired the shape of the Oval Office, when the West Wing was constructed in 1902" (p 21). In 1902 the president's new office was a rectangle. The oval-shaped ones were later additions.

* He says Nixon filled in FDR's pool (p 49). Almost right: it's still there, just floored-over.

* He calls the Eisenhower Executive Office Building by its former name, then says it's accessible by tunnel (p 45). It's not. There is a tunnel to the Treasury Building.

* He gives a chatty but wrong history of presidential bowling lanes (p 113).

With so many patent errors and no references, the rest of his "info" has the ring of guesswork. (Williams has "written for the New York Times"? Written what!)

The book is lousy with fillers: A box on the colors in the U.S. flag. An entire page on HOW TO PUT YOUR HAND OVER YOUR HEART. Pages advising how to tell a joke, tie a tie, remember names. A list of some White House paintings - not photos of them, mind you, just a list.

The illustrations by Nancy Leonard are a computer graphic disaster.

* She cannot be bothered to draw a round oval, but ends up with flat parts in the oval rooms, the south portico, the elliptical drives, and the Oval Office rug. Fireplace and furniture icons are grossly oversized and oddly angled.

* Her colonnade pillars come in bunches between gaps.

* Her graphic program apparently could not handle tricky angles in rooms, so these are represented by what look like potato chip outlines.

* She clearly relied on the Independent Counsel's West Wing map and uses that labeling (and mis-labeling). The famous press briefing room, therefore, is called "West Terrace Upper Level" without a hint of its actual function.

* For decorative facing pages, she colors her floor diagrams to look like old-fashioned blueprints, but neglects to reverse the colors of the white and gray squares she used to make "holes" for doors in the wall lines, leaving a floor with weird, massive boxes all over it.

* Other illustrations are worse than clip-art. The TelePrompTer diagram implies that the president stands on a glass screen.

Williams doesn't mention the East Wing, the third residential floor, or the sub-basements, apparently because these were not in the Zweifels' "White House in Miniature" book and so do not exist for him. For that matter, bills, vetoes, executive branch appointments, judicial nominations, treaties, and other stuff a president should know how to "do" aren't explained. (For example, can you veto a bill by phone? Don't ask Williams.)

A book like this could have been delightful. This one is vapid, ugly, and wrong.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not worth the money, August 20, 2009

By 

B. Orzechowski - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How to Be President: What to Do and Where to Go Once You're in Office (Paperback)

I don't recall what possessed me to order this book, but it was a waste of money. Not much of interest that's even worth mentioning.