James Cannon on Gerald Ford/Michael Beschloss on George Bush

The bestselling author of Time and Chance: Gerald Ford's Appointment with History joins the author of Kennedy and Roosevelt: the Uneasy Alliance to lend their unmistakable voices to the groundbreaking Character Above All audio series with their illuminating examinations of two of America's most recent Presidents. Recorded live at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, James Cannon and Michael Beschloss continue a series of lectures delivered by a team of historians, biographers and journalists assembled by Robert Wilson to explore the Presidential character. Sharing their insight into the Presidents they have written about, these authors and scholars address the larger issue of the impact of the Presidential character on leadership and the creation of trust. Cannon tells how Gerald Ford, chosen because of his character to replace the disgraced Agnew and subsequently, Nixon, restored stability to the federal government -- but his pardon of Nixon cost him the presidency. Beschloss shows how George Bush was fated to be President in a Republican party lurching far to his right. He avoided unveiling a domestic vision, absorbing himself in foreign affairs, but when he ran for reelection, the voters decided that character and foreign policy triumphs were not enough. Character Above All is incomparable audio, crackling with the energy and excitement of a great mind at work and the intellectual urgency befitting a topic of lasting national importance.