With deepest sympathies from the president
White House condolences offer unique window into workings of the Oval Office
The president’s statement was punctuated by this unambiguous declaration: “I loved Spock.”
When Leonard Nimoy, the actor who played the iconic Star Trekcharacter, died two weeks ago, the White House stopped to take official notice. “Cool, logical, big-eared and levelheaded, the centre of Star Trek’s optimistic, inclusive vision of humanity’s future,” President Barack Obama said, praising Nimoy’s portrayal of Spock and, maybe not so elliptically, describing himself.
Historically, presidential condolence statements may be one of the most idiosyncratic of White House processes. There are no formal rules; decisions are made spontaneously and no matter who writes the statements, or when, they end up largely reflecting the personality and inclinations of the sitting president.
Two days after declaring his love for Spock, Obama, a big Chicago White Sox fan, paid homage to Minnie Minoso, the Afro-Cuban baseball player who rose though the ranks of the Negro League before becoming “Mr. White Sox.”
“In some ways, the president is speaking for himself with these statements, but he’s also saying something for the country,” said Jon Favreau, who as head of speech-writing during Obama’s first term was tasked with helping oversee the process.
“For Obama, the elevation of cultural leaders has been important,” Favreau added, citing people who ordinary Americans feel a connection to and who have helped shape the nation’s social fabric.
It was not always this way. Hoover Institution research fellow Peter Robinson, who served as one of Ronald Reagan’s speech writers, said his recollection was that “the Reagan administration tended to restrict condolences to people who had served in office, with the exception, of course, of Hollywood figures whom the Reagans themselves had known.”
Roughly a quarter of Obama’s statements have recognized African Americans, about twice the figure for President George W. Bush. And the current president has issued more statements than his predecessors on Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans, as well as social activists and civil rights leaders. The list includes Wilma Mankiller, Percy Sutton and Ann Nixon Cooper, whom he lauded in his 2008 election night victory speech and who died a year later at age 107.
Bush, for his part, weighed in more frequently on the deaths of religious leaders, Republicans, Arab dignitaries and animals (since the Bushes’ cat India and dog Spot died while he was serving). The honourees encompassed the Iraqi Christian leader Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho; Afghanistan’s last king, Mohammed Zahir Shah; and evangelical pastor Jerry Falwell.
The statements are written largely by White House aides, but the chief executive will often weigh in if it’s a sufficiently high-profile figure. On Sept. 14, 1998, according to documents from the Clinton Library, President Bill Clinton tinkered with speech writer Jeff Shesol’s draft of a statement honouring Alabama Democratic governor George Wallace, who evolved from a hardline segregationist into a more conciliatory figure.
At the end, referring to Wallace’s decision to embrace the politics of social inclusion, Clinton scribbled in his round cursive writing, “For that all Americans can be grateful.”
Currently, the process of writing condolence letters involves some of Obama’s top aides, including his chief of staff, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and a group of senior communications staffers such as the head of speech writing, communications director and press secretary.
Under past presidents, by contrast, most statements were handled by the Office of Presidential Correspondence, with the speech writing staff weighing in on only the most important deaths.
Favreau said that under Obama, the White House has tended to make more, rather than fewer, statements about someone’s passing, since there is little cost to doling out extra honours.
And the statements, which Obama almost always personally approves, often include personal references. In a joint statement the Obamas issued in 2013 about the death of the actress and civil rights activist Ruby Dee, they noted that they had seen her in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing on their first date.
Sometimes, either the wording of a statement — or the fact that one isn’t issued — stirs controversy. Washington Times columnist Joseph Curl complained that “half-white Barack Obama” honoured African American pop superstars Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston, but did not issue a statement on the death of the Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch.
In 1994, Clinton and his aides were discussing whether to issue a statement on the death of grunge icon Kurt Cobain, who had committed suicide. A staffer came into the Oval Office to explain why Cobain was so important to young people; to make the point to the Baby Boomer president, the aide compared Cobain to a member of the Beatles.
The White House eventually decided against a statement, but the discussion left enough of an impression on Clinton that when the members of Pearl Jam visited him in the Oval Office the next day, the president asked Eddie Vedder if he should give a national address on Cobain’s death. (Vedder advised against it.)
On some occasions, senior administration officials leave their own mark on White House statements. Jarrett, Favreau recalled, “brought it to everyone’s attention” in 2011 that the rapper Heavy D had died and suggested Obama honour him “because he was a very important figure in music, and in the African American community.”
And Shesol, a former cartoonist, managed to persuade his superiors to issue a statement on both the retirement of Peanuts creator Charles Schulz in December 1999 and his death just two months later.
The characters Schultz created, Clinton said on Feb. 13, 2000, did not just add amusement to Americans’ daily lives. “The hopeful and hapless Charlie Brown, the joyful Snoopy, the soulful Linus — even the ‘crabby’ Lucy — give voice, day after day, to what makes us human.”