How Presidents Ring in the New Year

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The sign to be lit on New Year’s Eve is displayed in New York, Dec. 20. Photo: Seth Wenig/Associated Press

How you celebrate New Year’s Eve can reveal a lot. Extroverts are having fun at the party and song. Homebodies stay at home as the balls drop and the corks come out. When it comes to presidents, their habits on December 31 often reflect their personality and their presidencies.

George W. Bush is a good example. When asked by reporters in late 2004 about his New Year’s plans, Mr. Bush relentlessly replied, “Go to bed early.” His father spent New Year’s Eve in 1989 visiting the wounded U.S. soldiers who liberated Panama from Manuel Noriega’s dictatorship.

Richard Nixon spent New Year’s Eve in 1972 — shortly after his landslide re-election — alone in the White House residence. Ronald Reagan will be celebrating at Walter and Leonore Annenberg’s glamorous annual party in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

In late 1976, lame duck Gerald Ford attended a party where reporter Richard Growald gave him a poster “Ski Poland” modified to read “Ski Free Poland.” The gag referred to Ford’s debate gaffe: “There is no Soviet domination in Poland.” According to journalist Tom DeFrank, Ford, which has always been a good sport, “laughed heartily” at the bullshit.

Bill Clinton triedst with Monica Lewinsky on New Year’s Eve 1995, the Starr report recounted. John F. Kennedy spent the week after Christmas 1962 in Palm Beach, Fla. While the president was lying by the pool, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield tried to talk to him about Vietnam but he found out Kennedy was bothered by a Mexican beauty with whom he was exchanging sunglasses. . The president and his wife attended a champagne party on his last New Year’s Eve.

Jimmy Carter spent New Year’s Eve in 1977 in Tehran. He drank toast with Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and called Iran “an island of stability.” Nearly a year later, the shah fled after a coup. On New Year’s Eve 1979, Iran held dozens of U.S. hostages who would not be released until shortly after Mr. Carter in office in 1981. Lyndon Johnson said at a press conference on Dec. 31, 1967 that the U.S. effort in Vietnam was “the most cautious, self-limited air war in history.”

Hollywood enthusiast Barack Obama will host a family talent show on New Year’s Eve, modeling on shows like “American Idol” and “The X Factor.” Donald Trump echoed the new year by tweeting. In 2017, he wrote: “As our Country grows faster and smarter, I would like to wish all my friends, supporters, enemies, haters, and even the dishonest Fake News Media, a Happy and Healthy New Year. ”

This will be Joe Biden’s first New Year’s Eve as president. Last year, the 78-year-old president-elect appeared with his wife on the quintessential old people’s show, “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.

Mr. Troy is a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center and the author, most recently, of “Fight House: Rivalries in the White House From Truman to Trump.”

Journal Editorial Report: The best year from Kim Strassel, Bill McGurn, Mary O’Grady and Dan Henninger. Photos: AFP/Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly

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Appeared December 31, 2021, print edition.

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