Experts in the News | Miller Center

Q&A: Catching Up With LBJ Expert Ahead of New CNN Documentary

In connection to Presidents’ Day weekend, a four-part documentary, “LBJ: Triumph and Tragedy,” will debut on CNN with back-to-back, 9 p.m. episodes on Sunday and Monday. Barnes, who was interviewed at length for the film, will help preview it Wednesday on CNN as she joins “Don Lemon Tonight” around 11:45 p.m. She appears several times throughout the documentary’s four episodes. Kevin Gaines, UVA’s inaugural Julian Bond Professor of Civil Rights and Social Justice, and Guian McKee, a presidential studies professor at the Miller Center of Public Affairs, also appear in the series.

Guian McKee

Q&A: Catching Up With LBJ Expert Ahead of New CNN Documentary

Kevin K. Gaines

Q&A: Catching Up With LBJ Expert Ahead of New CNN Documentary

Since 2016, former U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson has been portrayed in two Hollywood films, was the subject of a nationally recognized podcast series and will soon be the reason for a CNN documentary. That’s a lot of fresh content for someone who was last in the Oval Office more than five decades ago. The sudden wave is not surprising to Melody Barnes, the executive director of the Karsh Institute of Democracy at the University of Virginia. Barnes – whose podcast, “LBJ and the Great Society,” was named the ninth-best of its kind by the New Yorker in 2020 – said the complexities of Johnson’s life make him an enticing character for audiences. Also, many of the same issues Johnson fought for while president are once again in the spotlight.

Melody Barnes

Senior Biden communications adviser to depart the White House

The staff turnover in Biden's first year marked "one of the lowest of the past six administrations," wrote Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who tracks the issue, in an analysis of Biden's first year.

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas

What Jackie Kennedy’s Fascinating White House Tour Tells Us 60 Years Later

The tour is the culmination of one of Jackie’s most influential projects. As a result of her work, the White House itself and the artwork and artifacts inside it are now preserved by the National Park Service and the Smithsonian Institution. But before the Kennedys, upkeep of these historic treasures was “idiosyncratic and non-routinized,” says Barbara A. Perry, the director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and author of Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier.

Barbara Perry

Get Out of the Way: Joe Biden, the U.S. Congress, and Executive-Centered Partisanship During the President’s First Year in Office

On the campaign trail and at his inauguration, Joe Biden pledged, above all else, to be a uniter to restore the soul of America. At the end of his first year in office, many campaign promises have been met, but unity has not been one. Far from transcending partisanship as promised, Biden has embraced the levers of presidential discretion and power inherent within the modern executive office to advance partisan objectives. He is not just a victim of polarization, but actively contributes to it.

Sidney Milkis