Kenneth Walsh

Lecture and book signing with Chief White House correspondent for U.S. News & World Report Kenneth Walsh. Mr. Walsh will be discussing and signing his latest book, Prisoners of the White House: The Isolation of America's Presidents and the Crisis of Leadership.

In Prisoners of the White House, Ken Walsh looks at the isolating environment of the Executive Mansion, a habitat almost guaranteed to keep America’s commander in chief far removed from everyday life. In recent years, West Wing insiders have come up with a name for this syndrome. They call it the White House bubble. As presidents have become more isolated, the role of the presidential pollster has grown. Ken Walsh has been given exclusive access to the polls and confidential memos received by presidents over the years, and has interviewed presidential pollsters directly to gain their unique perspective. Ken Walsh gets inside the bubble and punctures the mythology surrounding the presidency.

Ken Walsh joined U.S. News & World Report in 1984, and has covered the presidency, presidential campaigns, and national politics since 1986. He has served as president of the White House Correspondents’ Association from 1994 to 1995. He has written five books, including Air Force One: A History of the Presidents and Their Planes (2003) and Ronald Reagan, Biography (1997).

In reporting on the presidency, Walsh has traveled to more than 70 countries and covered a wide range of events, including many superpower summits and international conferences. He has conducted numerous interviews over the years with Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George Herbert Walker Bush, and Ronald Reagan.