Unprecedented Unprecedance

The White House's Unprecedented Use of 'Unprecedented'
Politico
Carol E. Lee
Wed Nov 25, 12:54 AM ET

The Obama White House is addicted to the “unprecedented.”

Perhaps it was a sign when President Barack Obama sat down in January to record his first weekly address and announced: “We begin this year and this administration in the midst of an unprecedented crisis that calls for unprecedented action." What has followed is declaration after declaration of “unprecedented” milestones. Some of them are legitimate firsts, like the president’s online town hall at the White House in May. But others the president wins merely on a technicality, and several clearly already have precedents.

The White House’s announcement of its unprecedented — “a first by an American president visiting China” — town hall meeting with students in Beijing, for instance, drew a collective eye roll in certain circles back home, namely among former aides to President George W. Bush, who had already been grumbling about Obama’s carefree application of “unprecedented.” “I think I attended a town hall with President Bush in China,” former Bush adviser Karen Hughes quipped with a laugh, recalling a 2002 Bush speech in Beijing at which he took questions from the audience. “I thought: Were they asleep? Or were they dreaming? I remember standing and watching President Bush engage in a town hall that I believe was televised.” President Bill Clinton also took questions from Chinese students at an event during a trip to the country in 1998, then did a radio call-in show in Shanghai the next day. The White House’s characterization of Obama’s Beijing town hall mirrored the description staff gave Obama’s address to students on the first day of school, which the Education Department called “historic.” Yet President George H.W. Bush delivered an address to students, as did President Ronald Reagan. Maybe it was the streaming online video of Obama’s speech to students that was unprecedented?

Either way, for a president whose approach to exaggerated critiques of his administration is to “call ‘em out” and who has made an issue of forcing corporate America to expose the fine print, one wonders whether his use of “unprecedented” would pass his own litmus test. Indeed some of his efforts are unprecedented. Obama noted, for example, that world leaders took “unprecedented steps” on nuclear nonproliferation at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council that he was the first U.S. president ever to chair. But at times Obama’s use of “unprecedented” is questionable.

Obama has said he “took office amid unprecedented economic turmoil” and that the situation demanded “unprecedented international cooperation” and resulted in his signing of the “unprecedented" Recovery Act. Yet it seems the Great Depression and the New Deal might be considered precedents for the current economic crisis and the $787 billion stimulus plan. And Obama’s promise of “an unprecedented effort to root out waste and inefficiency” sounded a lot like promises of past presidents. “I believe the Congress and the American people approve my goals of economy and efficiency,” President Lyndon B. Johnson told Congress in 1965. “I believe they are as opposed to waste as I am. We can and will eliminate it.”

On bipartisanship, Obama raised a few eyebrows when during his first press conference he cited “putting three Republicans in my Cabinet” as “something that is unprecedented.” “He is right — assuming he's talking specifically about selecting three Republicans (and not Democrats in a Republican administration) simultaneously and during the first term (not over the course of a presidency),” the National Journal pointed out. The magazine noted that Johnson, Harry S. Truman and Franklin D. Roosevelt had three Republicans serving in their Democratic administrations. Republicans Gerald Ford and Dwight Eisenhower had three Democrats serving in theirs.

The White House stands by its claims. “During his first year in office, President Obama has taken historic and, in some cases, unprecedented actions to fulfill his campaign promise to change business as usual in Washington and confront the wide-ranging challenges facing America,” said deputy White House press secretary Josh Earnest. “Cynics may say they’ve heard it all before, but the progress we’ve made on health care reform, energy reform and transparent government demonstrates these changes — in the view of the American people — can’t happen soon enough,” he said.

And when it comes to the Chinese town hall, White House officials say the ex-Bush aides have it all wrong — saying it was the first full-blown “town hall” by a U.S. president in China (because Clinton and Bush took questions after a speech). It was also the first U.S. presidential event streamed to an Internet audience in China and the first with questions from the Internet. And it garnered the biggest viewership, with 55 million online hits alone — making its audience unprecedented, oneofficial said.

The desire to be seen as treading on an unbeaten path is a part of the Obama brand. His candidacy was built on the notion that his rise to the presidency followed no footprints. He wasn’t a Clinton or a John McCain. He had a uniqueness that made him an unprecedented, if not unlikely, candidate. That theme, which is driven by his personal narrative, has carried over into the White House. And in the context of the something-to-prove drive of a young president with scant executive experience, the Obama White House has used “unprecedented” as a rhetorical means through which he has asserted himself. It’s also a reflection of the president personally.

“It says how very unique he feels he is,” said Stephen Hess, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who worked in the Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations. Hess described Obama as “a man who sees himself as unprecedented in every way … given his background — his mother, his father, where he grew up, how he became president of the United States. Of course, biblically, there’s nothing new under the sun, and for most everything he’s done as president there is some precedent for somewhere,” he added. “What he does is variations on a theme.” Still, Hess said, the word doesn’t have “great political currency. I don’t think he gets special credit for being unprecedented, but he thinks that way,” he said. “I think that tells us more about him than really anything else about how he runs the White House.”

Andrew Jackson was the first president to use the word “unprecedented,” in 1831, according to a search of the archives of The American Presidency Project. For more than 100 years afterward, presidents used the word “unprecedented” in 72 speeches and mostly reserved it for major addresses. But since FDR talked of meeting “the unprecedented task before us” during his first inaugural address in 1933, presidents have used the word on almost 2,000 occasions to describe everything from the death of Elvis Presley (Carter) to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (Reagan).

Obama has relied on “unprecedented” in more than 90 instances, using the word at least 129 times in everything from major addresses to small speeches, statements, memorandums and proclamations. (Bush, by contrast, used the word 262 times over eight years.) Obama has used “unprecedented” to describe his efforts on science research, his plan for the auto industry and his administration’s ethics, transparency and accountability guidelines. He has promised an “unprecedented commitment” to education, to developing clean energy and “to preserving America's treasured landscapes,” which, Obama has noted, have seen “unprecedented droughts” and “unprecedented wildfires” in the face of climate change. There has been “unprecedented consensus” on health care reform under Obama’s watch, as well as “the unprecedented intervention of the federal government to stabilize the financial markets” and an “unprecedented” bank review. His administration has also taken “unprecedented action to stem the spread of foreclosures,” Obama said, including the creation of “an unprecedented fund, in partnership with the Federal Reserve,” to get credit flowing.

“I wonder if they believe that everything is really unprecedented, or is it just their talking point,” said former Bush spokesman Gordon Johndroe, who is among those smarting over Obama’s use of unprecedented. “This rhetoric is more understandable during a campaign, but I’m not sure it’s going to get them far while governing when the facts don’t always agree.” It arguably started during the campaign, when Obama’s team was clocking one unprecedented milestone after another: his trip to Europe, his Internet connectedness, his fundraising strategy, his rallies, his crowds. Obama’s election was historic. His inauguration broke attendance records that reportedly required “unprecedented” security.

And sure, once in office, the administration faced a massive economic crisis. And, yes, the Obama team brought the White House onto Facebook and Twitter. But by applying the “unprecedented” label to a so many scenarios in government — from transparency to efforts to reduce the environmental impact of mountaintop coal mining — the Obama administration risks outsize expectations and overhype. “It comes close to a certain arrogance,” Hughes said, “as if this president has done things that no other president has ever done before — except that they have done them before.”

Obama even treads on unprecedented territory in ways he’s not trying to highlight. At this point in his presidency he’s spent more time on the golf course, for instance, than his immediate predecessor. He’s also attended more fundraisers. And sometimes he surprises people with his characterization of himself as "America's first Pacific president," as he did in Tokyo last week. Obama's unprecedented use of "unprecedented" will likely continue in his second year in office, when the administration is expected to tackle the unprecedented deficit.

For the Love of the Game

For a Moment, Coach and Player Define Game at Its Purest
Geoff Calkins
The Commercial Appeal




When Memphis blocked that punt and wound up with the ball on the UAB 6-yard-line with less than two minutes to play, Tommy West knew exactly what he had to do. He sent in Brett Toney to play quarterback. No, Toney wasn't going to win the game for the Tigers. It was far too late for that. But he might win the moment. He might score a touchdown.

The kid had never scored a touchdown, not in his five years with the team. Now it was his last home game. Now it was the last home game for Toney and for West and for a whole lot of other folks, too.

"Slice P" was a play they'd been working on for just such a moment. It called for Toney to take off running, read the blocking and either keep the ball or give it to running back Curtis Steele. "Yeah, that's what I'm supposed to do," Toney said, grinning. "I was keeping it either way."

* * * * *

The last home game of the Tommy West era at Memphis went the way a lot of Tiger games have gone lately: The good guys got crushed. UAB won, 31-21. Only 10,000 or so fans showed up. The official attendance was 18,031, but that was a big, fat fib. Memphis athletic director R.C. Johnson pitched it as a day to come and say goodbye to West and his staff. People decided they'd rather stay home and rake leaves. Who can blame them, really, given what this football program has become? UAB is not some deep-pocket, traditional power. UAB doesn't have better facilities. The Blazers dominated the Tigers anyway, leading 31-7 in the third quarter and rolling up an eye-popping 487 yards.

But what's the point of belaboring all that? It's over, finished. West is gone at the end of the year. And if you find joy in that fact, well, let me tell you more about Toney, the guy West sent in with less than two minutes to play.

He grew up going to Memphis games with his mother and father. He was that kid you see, running around before games, throwing a miniature football to his friends. People wonder if Memphis football can ever really mean anything. It meant something to the Toneys. For seven straight years, they didn't miss a game at home or on the road.

Brett became a pretty good player, too. When Briarcrest won the state title, he was the quarterback and MVP. Then he walked on at Memphis because -- how's this for quaint? -- he really loved the place. It wasn't the scholarship offer, because there was none. It wasn't the weight room or the stadium or the promise of playing time.

He loved Memphis football. He wanted to be a part of Memphis football, even if he didn't get to play. He didn't, either, not for most of his career. He played on scout teams and special teams. He made tackles and held for extra points. Last season, Toney started two games after all the other quarterbacks got hurt. Then he cheerfully returned to the bench.

So when Memphis blocked a punt and wound up with the ball at the 6-yard-line, West called for No. 15. "I don't know if you could really love Memphis more than that guy does," he explained. Toney took the snap and broke toward the end zone. The hole opened up, huge. Toney crossed into the end zone. On the sideline, West was as happy as he'd been all week.

"If I don't do anything good in my life, I feel like I did some good there." West said. "It's what it's all about."

Which is certainly incorrect, isn't it? Sweet moments like that are not what big-time college football is about. It's about bowl games and television contracts, about agents and big piles of cash. College football is about winning and losing, which is why West ultimately had to go.

But let's not forget that he did some good along the way. Toney certainly won't. That's why, after scoring the touchdown, he did something most people didn't notice or see. The guy wouldn't have minded keeping the football. It was a big touchdown, you know? But since the first day he stepped on campus, Toney had heard West's mantra on this. "If you score, give the ball to the official," West said.

So, in the waning moments of his home career, that's exactly what Toney did. He thought about everything West had meant to him. He thought about what Memphis football meant to him, too. All the games. All the moments. This, finally, was his.

So he jogged over and handed the football to the official. Then he jogged back to the Memphis bench. "I always said that's how I'd do it," he said. "I'm glad I finally got the chance."

You Want the Truth? You Can't Handle the Truth

Get 'em Tommy!

Race for the Cure and Halloween

Last Saturday was a long and busy day. We started out early in the morning at the Race for the Cure in Germantown. Our team, Sherrye's Supporters in honor of my mom, was out in full force to do more of a slow walk for the cure. My mom passed out pink roses to everyone on the team before the race started and Drew had fun swinging his around as you can see below. We brought his Darth Vader mask because we figured since it was Halloween that some of the kids there might have costumes on and the mask was easier to handle than the whole Thomas costume. While we were walking we passed a man who happened to be carrying a light saber and he heard us telling Drew to look at it and the man just gave it to Drew. So the rest of the race and afterward we were chasing each other around with it.

The light saber also gave me the chance to be a better Darth Vader later in that evening when we went trick-or-treating. We were probably the strangest combination people saw all night, the Darth Vader and Thomas the Train father and son duo. But Drew insisted that I had to be Darth Vader even though his mask was way too small and hurt my face. Drew had a whole parade of family going around from house to house with him. We probably weren't even gone thirty minutes when he announced he was ready to go home. We've been letting him eat a little bit more candy this year than we did last year, but mom and dad are still enjoying most of it.

Although I don't really want to talk about the game last night and my score prediction was not that close to the actual score, I must point out that I nailed the differential exactly. It was just a different type of game than I expected. Either way it was still embarrassing. As soon as the Vols ran the opening kickoff back 70 yards I knew it was going to be a long night. The first Tigers snap, which went over the quarterback's head for a 12 yard loss, erased any doubts that this would be a drubbing. It was a long night to say the least.

Not In Knoxville

No, I am not in Knoxville this evening where I obviously should be tonight. Although who would have thought that I would long to be in the hills of east Tennessee. But alas, the Tigers go into Neyland Stadium tomorrow and I will not be present. Luckily I will have the joy of another day at the VA Hospital here in good ole Memphis, so six of one, half dozen of the other. Not that these Tigers have much of a chance, but the Tigers always seem to step up against the Vols. Except for last time we played them when they beat us pretty bad. But the last few times before that it has been close. I have to mention when we beat them of course, November 9, 1996, when I happened to be in the stands for the greatest Tiger football moment ever. It doesn't help that my entire family is living it up in a cabin in Gatlinburg this weekend and going to the game tomorrow. However, the combination of the Tennessee running game, our running defense, and the Tennessee defense could make for an ugly game. But when you have Jonathan Crompton as your quarterback it could always come unhinged pretty quickly. Below is a story about the last time the Tigers went to Knoxville when we almost and should have beat them. And yes, I was there then. So I will be watching the game from the comfort of my couch on ESPNU tomorrow night. I predict a pretty close repeat of the last matchup, a 38-10 victory for the Vols over the Tigers. I promise an update from Halloween and Race for the Cure soon, or in other words things people may actually care about other than my ramblings on almost meaningless football games. Although I do love college football being on almost every day of the week these days. Buffalo and Bowling Green? Yes these two teams played the other night on ESPN, and yes, I watched.


From the Commercial Appeal


Matt Reagan Boots Vol Loyalty As True Blue Tiger
Former fan back home to get kicks for visitors
By Phil Stukenborg

In 2005, the last time the University of Memphis played Tennessee at Neyland Stadium, Matt Reagan was there.
In the UT student section.
As a high school senior.
Wearing blue and gray.

Reagan, in his final season as the UofM kicker, survived the bold wardrobe choice four years ago. And he nearly left the stadium exchanging handshakes and hugs with the Tiger fans scattered throughout the stands. It took a kicker -- Tennessee's James Wilhoit -- to erase a 16-14 Memphis lead early in the final quarter with two field goals and give the Vols a 20-16 victory. ''I had a friend of mine that year who went to UT and he got me a guest student ticket,'' said Reagan, a Knoxville native who attended Bearden High. ''And, yes, I was wearing a Memphis shirt.''

And the treatment he received? ''They were fine, I guess,'' Reagan said of the Tennessee students sitting around him. ''I think they just tried to ignore me. I didn't get stuff thrown at me.''

Reagan will handle the punting and place-kicking when the Tigers (2-6) play the Vols (4-4) Saturday at Neyland Stadium. Born and raised in Knoxville, Reagan said he grew up a Tennessee fan and attended several games a year with his father, Rick. Occasionally, they would take in a Volunteer spring game. ''I watched them growing up,'' Reagan said. ''And I pulled for them.''

As he became a proficient prep kicker -- he was an all-state selection as a senior, averaging 40.1 yards punting, knocking 85 percent of his kickoffs into the end zone and converting 22 of 23 extra points -- Reagan hoped the Vols would notice. Despite coming from the same school that produced Dustin and Britton Colquitt, both of whom punted for UT, Reagan wasn't on the Vols' list. ''It didn't work out,'' Reagan said. ''But I'm happy to be here.''

As his Tigers career winds down, Reagan, also recruited by Louisville, Northwestern and Duke, finds himself ascending the school's kicking charts. Reagan ranks fourth in UofM history in kick scoring with 245 points, four shy of overtaking Ryan White for third place. His 45 career field goals rank fifth, five short of third place.

Mostly a punter in high school, Reagan didn't add that responsibility at the UofM until this season. Entering Saturday's game, he ranks fourth nationally in punting with a 45.3-yard average. He ranks first in Conference USA in punting and third in field goals per game.

''In high school I used to enjoy punting more than kicking because that's what I did more of,'' Reagan said. ''I thought I was better at it. ''When I got to college, I got into the kicking mode for three years. Getting back to punting felt weird at the beginning, but I like doing both.''

Earlier this season, Reagan set a school record for highest single-game punting average (53.5 on six punts). He also booted a career-long 48-yard field goal against Southern Miss.

While Reagan's numbers are impressive, he's had a few disappointments. At Southern Miss, one of his punts was returned for a touchdown by Tracy Lampley, who caught a low-lining kick on the run and raced 50 yards for a key third-quarter TD. ''Matt's had an OK year,'' Tiger coach Tommy West said. ''He's got to get a little more height on his (punts). I think we've helped Matt. We're doing a little more rugby(-style) punting lately and I think that's helped him. He's done a good job.''

Reagan said while he's pleased to be ranked fourth nationally in punting average, he'd much rather have the Tigers ranked fourth nationally in net punting. Memphis is 14th. ''We've made mistakes on that unit as far as the punt return at Southern Miss,'' Reagan said. ''That bugs me every time I think about it.''

Reagan, who followed Stephen Gostkowski of the New England Patriots as the UofM's place-kicker, said he'll be playing on the field at Neyland Stadium for the first time since his high school participated in a preseason jamboree.

Witch-O-Lantern

A couple of days ago Drew and I carved our pumpkin into a Witch-O-Lantern. We just put it outside last night because of the rain the day before and we had to sit with it after we lit it. I had to bribe him with candy to get him to let me take his picture with it. Since it was raining again today we brought it inside tonight and lit it again. Drew likes to light it, watch it for a second, and then blow it out again. It's not the best witch, but I think it's pretty good considering I broke the little saws that came with the patterns before I really even got started carving it. Katie is scared of our witch and wishes that we had done something happier. Maybe next year we can try for Glenda, the Good Witch.

Zoo Boo

Last Friday we got free tickets to the Zoo Boo from LeBonheur, who sponsored the whole thing, and the three of us went that night. Drew, although disappointed that most animals were not on display, had a blast and wore his Thomas the Train costume. His night was made before we even entered when he saw the statue of the Lion outside had a ribbon of courage around its neck and the Scarecrow and Tin Man by its side. Too bad the excerpts from The Wizard of Oz were performed the weekend before at the Zoo Boo. There was also a Glenda, the Good Witch, as we went into the zoo and plenty of Wicked Witches around. Drew got to go trick-or-treating around at the candy stations and we rode the train, which was a little haunted, but not that scary. We also went on a hay ride and saw the few animals that were open. We had never been and were really surprised by how many people were there. Before we left Drew knocked on the Tin Man and reenacted the scene where Dorothy first meets the Scarecrow. I think I have seen the Wizard of Oz as many times as anyone else on this earth at this point.