Bill Plante Talks Inaugurations And Presidents

By Dustin Wlodkowski 1-20-2013 

WEBN staff photo

CBS News White House Correspondent Bill Plante has a busy weekend ahead.

He has five news scripts to finish between Friday and Monday, Inauguration Day. Those scripts include a feature piece for the CBS Evening News about what he describes as “the perils of second terms.”

But Plante is no stranger to hard work and long hours.

He has been at CBS for almost 50 years and during that time has covered everything from the Iranian Revolution to key summits between Mikhail Gorabchev and Ronald Reagan.

He has also reported about every major type of American political event, including Presidential campaigns, political conventions, the State Department and every aspect of the White House you can imagine.

That includes being present for multiple Presidential Inaugurations.

His first was Jimmy Carter’s in 1977.

“I was stationed at a door at the Capitol, which the President uses to enter for the luncheon which follows the swearing in,” he said. “I think I caught a fleeting glimpse of him walking by.”

That experience gives Plante a good idea of what President Barak Obama’s second inauguration might look like. He expects Monday’s turnout to be considerably smaller than it was in 2009 because the President is beginning his second term.

“Second terms are just not quite as exciting…as first terms,” he explained. “In the first term, for any President, you’ve got high expectations. There are big promises being made. There’s a sense of change. In a second term you tend to focus on what went right and what went wrong in the first term and expectations are lower.”

Giving the public information to make decisions about those rights and wrongs is what Plante goes to work to do and he enjoys it.

“I love politics because it’s about the interaction of people and power; how you interact with people to get what you want. I love to watch that and I love to watch the process.”