White House Chief of Staff
Sununu was the first White House Chief of Staff for George H. W. Bush, serving from 1989 to 1991.
Sununu is considered to have engineered Bush's mid-term abandonment of his 1988 campaign promise of "no new taxes".
Sununu is responsible for recommending David Souter to President George H. W. Bush for appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States, at the behest of New Hampshire senator Warren Rudman. The Wall Street Journal described the events leading up to the appointment of the "liberal jurist" in a 2000 editorial, saying Rudman in his "Yankee Republican liberalism" took "pride in recounting how he sold Mr. Souter to gullible White House chief of staff John Sununu as a confirmable conservative. Then they both sold the judge to President Bush, who wanted above all else to avoid a confirmation battle ." Rudman wrote in his memoir that he had "suspected all along" that Souter would not "overturn activist liberal precedents." Sununu later said that he had "a lot of disappointment" about Souter's positions on the Court and would have preferred him to be more similar to Justice Antonin Scalia.
Time magazine dubbed Sununu "Bush's Bad Cop" on the front cover on May 21, 1990.
At the recommendation of George W. Bush, Sununu resigned his White House post on December 4, 1991.
Read more about this topic: John H. Sununu
Famous quotes containing the words white house, white, house, chief and/or staff:
“Mr. Christian, it is about time for many people to begin to come to the White House to discuss different phases of the coal strike. When anybody comes, if his special problem concerns the state, refer him to the governor of Pennsylvania. If his problem has a national phase, refer him to the United States Coal Commission. In no event bring him to me.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“the only truth is face to face, the poem whose words become your
mouth
and dying in black and white we fight for what we love, not are”
—Frank O’Hara (1926–1966)
“[They] hired a large house as a receptacle for gentlewomen, who either had no fortunes, or so little that it would not support them. For these they made the most comfortable institution [and] provided [them] with all conveniences for rural amusements, a library, musical instruments, and implements for various works.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“Storytelling and copulation are the two chief forms of amusement in the South. They’re inexpensive and easy to procure.”
—Robert Penn Warren (b. 1905)
“In public buildings set aside for the care and maintenance of the goods of the middle ages, a staff of civil service art attendants praise all the dead, irrelevant scribblings and scrawlings that, at best, have only historical interest for idiots and layabouts.”
—George Grosz (1893–1959)