http://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/politics/news/a8435/patti-davis-political-daughter-election/
TOWN&COUNTRY
Ronald Reagan's Daughter Patti Davis On the High Cost of Being a Political Daughter
She's one of the few people who know exactly how Chelsea and Ivanka feel.
By PATTI DAVIS OCT 31, 2016
In 1980, on election night, I stood on stage at the Century Plaza Hotel with my family, smiling at the assembled crowd as news commentators introduced us—the "new First Family." I'd borrowed a black dress from a girlfriend; I held my mother's hand and had one arm around my brother. I knew the images being recorded that night would be in every newspaper the following morning. It was an impression that might have endured if I had made different choices from that point forward. But I would soon replace those images with my anti-nuclear activities, my strident criticism of my father's policies, my decision to write about the discord in my family. The smiling girl in the black dress was replaced by a rebellious daughter acting out her issues in the public eye.
Neither image was the whole story.
In this current political season, we have seen Chelsea Clinton and Ivanka Trump sitting ringside at the meanest presidential debates America has ever known, each of them resolutely supporting their respective parent. They have both given carefully worded interviews, even campaign speeches. There are other enduring images of Chelsea from the past, of course. Remember the photo of her walking between her parents across the White House lawn during the Monica Lewinski scandal? She was the "bridge over troubled waters."
None of those images were the whole story.
When a good portion of your life is lived out in the public eye, you come to accept that the public will decide that certain images of you have told them all they need to know. Strangers will assume they now have insight into the parent-child relationship, the inner workings of the family, and they'll even imagine what private conversations are like. All of this is based on bright images captured by cameras under one of the biggest spotlights on earth. Moments in time, moments in a life, but absent of all the nuances, shadows and tangles that make up a life.
Some have found it strange that Chelsea and Ivanka could be friends when their parents are embroiled in such a bitter war. I haven't found it odd at all. They are members of the same tribe—people who are observed, judged, commented upon whenever they step into the spotlight, but who know all too well that who you are in the spotlight is only a small piece of your life. Behind the pictures of Chelsea and Ivanka are decades of family history, along with the complexities and challenges that all families face.
Those of us in this tribe learn to compartmentalize. We learn to draw boundaries around our private lives, because when the glare of the media finds you there are no boundaries. We will never be able to control what complete strangers decide about us, and we know their decisions will trail us forever.
Chelsea and Ivanka have had a particularly challenging task because both campaigns rely on them to humanize and soften their parents. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have nothing in common except for this one stunning similarity: many people don't like them. Who best to make them more likable than their daughters? It's a Herculean task though because, just as people have formed strong impressions of Chelsea and Ivanka, so too have they formed vivid impressions of the two candidates running for President. And the love of a daughter for her mother or her father is not really going to tip the scales.
By comparison, I had it easy. I was just expected to show up sometimes, and only for really big events like the convention and election night.
There will always be a public scrapbook for political families and their offspring. They've been captured at moments that may reveal something, but not everything. That iconic photo of Chelsea walking between her parents as their marriage, and the country, was rocked by her father's infidelities, does give you a glimpse into her maturity, her bond with both parents, her wish for some kind of healing. But we can't know the tears she may have cried, the despair and embarrassment she might have felt, not only over her father's cheating, but over the recklessness that was played out for the world to see. We don't know if she felt torn between her mother and her father.
Ivanka Trump's serene and confident assessment of her father show you a daughter who clearly loves and respects her parent. But we don't know how she felt when she heard her father's voice on the now-infamous Access Hollywood tape. We don't know how, or if, the family was rocked by his divorces and re-marriages.
We don't know if these two women, both mothers to young children, worry about how they will someday explain this 2016 campaign to their kids. A campaign that is nothing less than bloodletting. "What did you do in the war, Mommy?" might be the question they are both asked. You can't know their thoughts when they stand in lamplight and watch their children sleeping. Do they feel the weight of questions they know will come?
And you can't know that the 28-year-old woman who spoke at anti-nuclear rallies while her father was president once – long ago – sat with him and watched puffy white clouds push their way across the sky while he pointed out the animal shape of each cloud. You can't know that she used to say, "My daddy can do anything." You can't know about the tears that fell from her eyes onto his hand as death edged into the room and how her heart whispered to his that she would never stop telling him how sorry she was for her bad choices and the wounds they'd caused.
There is something else that those of us who have had to accept the harshness of the political spotlight know: It can be a lonely place. But you probably won't see that reflected in any photographs.
From 3/3/1959 ( the birthdate in Hawaii of my biological brother Thomas Reagan ) To 9/3/1991 ( premiere US TV series "The Legend of Prince Valiant" ) is 11872 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 5/5/1998 is 11872 days
From 7/16/1963 ( Phoebe Cates the United States Army veteran and the Harvard University graduate medical doctor and the world-famous actress and the wife of my biological brother Thomas Reagan ) To 5/5/1998 is 12712 days
12712 = 6356 + 6356
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 3/29/1983 ( premiere US TV series episode "Nova"::"Sixty Minutes to Meltdown" ) is 6356 days
From 12/6/1943 ( premiere US film "In Old Oklahoma" ) To 6/7/1976 ( my biological brother Thomas Reagan the civilian and privately financed astronaut in deep space of the solar system in his privately financed atom-pulse propulsion spaceship this day was his first landing the Saturn moon Phoebe and the Saturn moon Phoebe territory belongs to my brother Thomas Reagan ) is 11872 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 5/5/1998 is 11872 days
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=55898
The American Presidency Project
William J. Clinton
XLII President of the United States: 1993 - 2001
Remarks at the Dedication of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
May 5, 1998
Thank you very much. Mrs. Reagan, Mr. Barram, Secretary Daley, Senator Moynihan, Delegate Norton, Senator Dole, Senator Lott, all the Members of Congress and the diplomatic corps who are here; Mr. Mayor; Secretary Shultz and General Powell and all the former members of the Reagan administration who are here and enjoying this great day; to Maureen and to the friends of President and Mrs. Reagan who are here. I'd like to begin by thanking Jim Freed and his team for a magnificent building. I think we all feel elevated in this building today.
I also want to say on behalf of Hillary and myself a special word of appreciation to Mrs. Reagan for being here. From her own pioneering efforts to keep our children safe from drugs to the elegance and charm that were the hallmarks of the Reagan White House, through her public and brave support for every family facing Alzheimer's, she has served our Nation exceedingly well, and we thank her.
The only thing that could make this day more special is if President Reagan could be here himself. But if you look at this atrium, I think we feel the essence of his presence: his unflagging optimism, his proud patriotism, his unabashed faith in the American people. I think every American who walks through this incredible space and lifts his or her eyes to the sky will feel that.
As Senator Moynihan just described, this building is the completion of a challenge issued 37 years ago by President Kennedy; I ought to say, and doggedly pursued for 37 years by Senator Moynihan. [Laughter] I must say, Senator, there were days when I drove by here week after week after week and saw only that vast hole in the ground, when I wondered if the "Moynihan hole" would ever become the Reagan Building. [Laughter] But sure enough, it did, and we thank you.
As you have heard, this building will house everything from an international trade center to international cultural activities to the Agency for International Development to the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars. It is fitting that the plaza on which we gather bears the name of President Wilson. And it is fitting that Presidents Wilson and Reagan are paired, for their work and, therefore, the activities which will be culminated in this building span much of what has become the American century.
Since President Reagan left office, the freedom and opportunity for which he stood have continued to spread. For a half century, American leaders of both parties waged a cold war against aggression and oppression. Today, freed from the yoke of totalitarianism, new democracies are emerging all around the world, enjoying newfound prosperity and long-awaited peace. More nations have claimed the fruits of this victory: free markets, free elections, plain freedom. And still more are struggling to do so.
Today we joy in that, but we cannot—indeed, we dare not—grow complacent. Today we recall President Reagan's resolve to fight for freedom and his understanding that American leadership in the world remains indispensable. It is fitting that a piece of the Berlin Wall is in this building. America's resolve and American ideals so clearly articulated by Ronald Reagan helped to bring that wall down.
But as we have seen repeatedly in the years since, the end of the cold war did not bring the end of the struggle for freedom and democracy, for human rights and opportunity. If the history of this American century has taught us anything, it is that we will either work to shape events or we will be shaped by them. We cannot be partly in the world. We cannot lead in fits and starts or only when we believe it suits our short-term interests. We must lead boldly, consistently, without reservation, because, as President Reagan repeatedly said, freedom is always in America's interests.
Our security and prosperity depend upon our willingness to be involved in the world. Woodrow Wilson said that Americans were participants in the life of the world, like it or not. But his countrymen did not listen to him, and as a result, there came the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, the Second World War. Our Nation then learned we could not withdraw from the world.
Then a new generation of Americans reached outward in the years after World War II, building new alliances of peace and new engines of prosperity: NATO, the United Nations, the IMF, the international trading system. It is no accident that during this period of great American leadership abroad we experienced unparalleled economic prosperity here at home. And it is no accident that freedom's great triumph came on America's watch.
Today, on the edge of a new century, the challenges we face are more diverse. But the values that guide America must remain the same. The globalization of commerce and the explosion of communications technology do not resolve all conflicts between nations; indeed, they create new challenges. They do not diminish our responsibility to lead, therefore; instead, they heighten it. Because today's possibilities are not tomorrow's guarantees, we must remain true to the commitment to lead that every American leader of both parties, especially Ronald Reagan and Woodrow Wilson, so clearly articulated in this 20th century.
For 50 years we fought for a Europe undivided and free. Last week the United States Senate took a profoundly important step toward that goal by welcoming Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic into NATO, an achievement I believe that would make Ronald Reagan proud. The alliance that helped to keep the peace for a half century now brings us closer than ever to that dream of a Europe united, democratic, and at peace.
Now Congress has other opportunities to fulfill the spirit and honor the legacy of the man whose name we affix to this building today. Congress has the opportunity to maintain our leadership by paying for our support to the IMF and settling our dues to the United Nations. I hope they will do it.
President Reagan once said we had made what he called an unbreakable commitment to the IMF, one that was unbreakable because, in this age of economic interdependence, an investment in the IMF is simply an investment in American prosperity. And we fought for 50 years for peace and security as part of the United Nations. In 1985, Ronald Reagan said the U.N. stands as the symbol of the hopes of all mankind for a more peaceful and productive world. "We must not," he said, "disappoint those hopes." We still must not disappoint those hopes.
President Reagan understood so clearly that America could not stand passively in the face of great change. He understood we had to embrace the obligations of leadership to build a better future for all. The commerce that will be conducted in this great building will be a testament to the opportunities in a truly global economy America has done so much to create. The academic and cultural activities that will be generated from people who work here will bring us closer together as well. Because the Agency for International Development will be here, we will never forget that the spark of enterprise and opportunity should be brought to the smallest, poorest villages in the world, for there, too, there are people of energy, intelligence, and hunger for freedom.
This is a great day for our country. This is a day of honoring the legacy of President Reagan, remembering the service of President Wilson, and rededicating ourselves to the often difficult but, ultimately, always rewarding work of America.
As I stand within the Reagan Building, I am confident that we will again make the right choices for America, that we will take up where President Reagan left off, to lead freedom's march boldly into the 21st century.
Thank you, and God bless you.
NOTE: The President spoke at 1:36 p.m. in the atrium of the Ronald Reagan Building. In his remarks, he referred to former First Lady Nancy Reagan
http://www.simpsonsarchive.com/episodes/8F01.html
Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington [ The Simpsons ]
Page: Senator, there's a problem at the essay contest.
Senator: Please, son, I'm very busy.
Page: A little girl is losing faith in democracy!
Senator: Good Lord!
Things move fast.
1:12pm, the office of Bob Arnold: a sting operation catches the congressman accepting a bribe to allow oil drilling on Mount Rushmore.
2:05pm, FBI Headquarters, the agent is congratulated.
2:44pm, House of Representatives...
Speaker: We now vote on House bill 1022, the expulsion of Bob Arnold.
Representative: Mr. Speaker, I'm all for the bill, but shouldn't we tack on a pay raise for ourselves?
All: No!
http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=the-simpsons&episode=s03e02
Springfield! Springfield!
The Simpsons
Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington
Anyone up for the Winifred Beecher Howe Memorial? - Who's that? - An early crusader for women's rights.
She led the Floor Mop Rebellion of 1 91 0.
Later, she appeared on the highly unpopular - Okay, but you don't know what you're missing.
Oh! ''I will iron your sheets when you iron out the inequities in your labor laws.
'' - Amen, sister.
I told you no one ever came here.
So, Bob, where do we stand on Springfield Forest? Do I get my logging permit? Well, let me put it this way,Jerry.
Timber! - What a pooch.
- Woof woof!.
https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/clinton.jpg?quality=85&w=1100
- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 4:36 PM Pacific Time Spokane Valley Washington USA Monday 31 October 2016
