Letter to a New President : Commonsense Lessons for Our Next Leader

A legendary Senator advises our next President on the commonsense values necessary to lead our nationUnited States Senator Robert C. Byrd is the longest-serving member of the United States Senate in the history of our great Republic. Senator Byrd has served the people of West Virginia, and the nation, for fifty-four years, and has served alongside eleven Presidents. He was twice elected by his colleagues to the position of Senate Majority Leader and currently is chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. Byrd has lived through two world wars, the Great Depression, the civil rights movement, the Cold War, the resignation of a U.S. President, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and traumatic military conflicts around the globe, including Iraq and Vietnam. Byrd has been a witness to it all. And now, in his ninetieth year of life, he wants to share the commonsense lessons he has learned from his unique vantage point in history.In Letter to a New President, Byrd recounts lessons drawn from his remarkable life as a young boy growing up poor in the coalfields of southern West Virginia to his meteoric rise to the pinnacles of power in Washington, D.C. From his unique vantage point in history, Byrd focuses his observations on underappreciated and seldom discussed virtues like personal responsibility, careful consideration before making decisions, and a sense of decency and fairness even toward fierce opponents. A student of history and a defender of our Constitution, Byrd looks to the past for lessons and, in Letter to a New President, studies present failures as guides for constructive lessons for the future.This book will help the next President grapple with the heavy demands of the office. Every American who cares about where this country is heading will find rich wisdom in Byrd's sage advice.Enlightened by a wide-ranging knowledge of American history and a love for the guiding principles of the Constitution, Byrd's observations sharpen the focus of the historical moment in which we find ourselves, as no one but Senator Byrd can.