Tackling 'The Bully Pulpit'

I'm tackling "The Bully Pulpit" by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Yes, Doris, tackling. The weighty tome measures two inches, cover to cover, includes 910 pages and weighs three times as much as most books.

The notion of the book, Goodwin comments, has been in her mind for seven years. I believe her; there are more than 50 pages of notes marked with each page.

Am I enough interested in "The Bully Pulpit" - and its subtitle "Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and the Golden Age of Journalism" - to plow through all that heft?

I've read already enough about TR to know there was much more to this vigorous guy than San Juan Hill.

As for Taft, I know little other than the facts that he weighed 350 pounds, plus, installed the first bathtub in the White House, and had a wife, Helen who officiated at the planting of the Japanese Cherry Trees around the Tidal Basin.

Of "The Bully Pulpit," however, I'm vague. Not that it's an outdated term. Very recently, local political writer, Jules Witcover, commented that Obama is mounting the "bully pulpit" to fire up his political base in anticipation of tough mid-term elections.

Fortunately for me - and maybe other readers - Mrs. Goodwin in the preface, clarifies meaning of the term. Roosevelt coined the phrase "to describe the national platform the presidency provides to shape public sentiment and mobilize action."

He also understood, according to Mrs. Goodwin, the need to develop powerful relations with members of the national press.

At Roosevelt's time in our national life, such writers were staffers on McClure's Magazine. Lincoln Steffens, William Allen White and Ida M. Tarbell are names I learned in my sophomore English class at Franklin High School.

"Muckrakers," Roosevelt described these writers who exposed corruption as well as social and economic inequities rampant during the times of growing industrialization.

Along the way in the book, I'm sure I also will learn of the bitter political break between Roosevelt and Taft as well as of their personal reconciliation.

So heavy as it is to hold and as intimidating as it is to look at, I'll work my way through those hundreds of pages, expecting to become better acquainted with TR and the tubby Mr. Taft.