A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the White House: Humor, Blunders, and Other Oddities from the Presidential Campaign Trail

In this charming anecdotal history, author and CBS Sunday Morning anchor Osgood presents 56 years of quips in presidential campaigning: ""Politicians say funny things all the time,"" writes Osgood, but presidential campaigns bring out ""their best-and worst-behavior."" Organized chronologically and dedicated to fair time-including commentators, running mates and the occasional third-party candidate-the collection covers many famous quotes (Nixon's ""I know winning is a lot more fun,"" the first Bush's ""I'll try to hold my charisma in check,"" Lloyd Bensen to Dan Qualye: ""Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy""), but the real gems are the ones Osgood unearths, which show these larger-than-life historical figures in a fresh-often more intimate-light. They also show that presidential politics has always been in large part a nasty, petty business, even for iconic leaders like Truman, Kennedy and Johnson. Anyone remotely interested in U.S. history or politics will find this an enjoyable tour, and those who want some insight into the current contest will get a quick, quirky lesson from his coverage of the 2000 and 2004 elections. Given the familial Bush tendency to misspeak, readers may detect a slight imbalance in the latter part of the collection; still, Osgood's latest should still have wide appeal.