Quotes About Presidents

Richard Nixon was a criminally insane Monster - Bill Clinton is a black-hearted Swine of a friend.

For too long, I equated leadership with a position. I thought leaders were presidents or politicians or celebrities or four-star generals with a horse and sword.

Limos are fine for prime ministers or presidents who need the security, but there's no need for CEOs or executives to have one as a status symbol.

In all such instances of which I am aware, the Presidents do not think hard enough, carefully enough beforehand, about foreseeable, even likely consequences to their own effectiveness in office, looking down the line and around corners (xviii).

We came when a lot of other Asian people came, after the law changed." "I remember that," I say. And I do, more or less. I remember Kennedy talking about the need for it—calling the old system of racist quotas intolerable—though it was Johnson who finally signed it.

The self-destructive nature of Clinton's sexual addiction subverted his ability to lead. That is the distinction between Clinton and other presidents who had extramarital affairs. Well Lyndon Johnson, Dwight Eisenhower, Franklin Roosevelt, and John Kennedy all had affairs, Levin says, they differ from Clinton in that their "private indiscretions were not self-destructive and did not compromise their leadership." Clinton's certainly did.

The self-destructive nature of Clinton's sexual addiction subverted his ability to lead. That is the distinction between Clinton and other presidents who had extramarital affairs. While Lyndon Johnson, Dwight Eisenhower, Franklin Roosevelt, and John Kennedy all had affairs, Levin says, they differ from Clinton in that their 'private indiscretions were not self-destructive and did not compromise their leadership.' Clinton's certainly did.

America is free because it has disrespectful newspapers and television shows to expose and shame presidents

America is free because it has disrespectful newspapers and television shows to expose and shame presidents who fuck the Constitution up the ass." He raised his glass. "Here's to the free press. Here's to disrespect. And God bless America.

The first thing Hitler did was take over the press and make it subservient to the government. Lenin did the same." Jasper had drunk a few glasses of wine, and as a result he was a shade more candid. "America is free because it has disrespectful newspapers and television shows to expose and shame presidents who fuck the Constitution up the ass." He raised his glass. "Here's to the free press. Here's to disrespect. And God bless America.

Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had always been tragic, chiefly as an almost insane excitement at first, and a worse reaction afterwards.

Presidents come and go, and even parties come to and away from power. But the main policy tack does not change.

I think that presidents don't give up power that has accrued to them by the precedent of previous presidents. Even when they say they would like to, I think once they get there they don't give it up.

Under our Constitution, presidents have something called 'veto power.

Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan - a Mount Rushmore of incompetence.

The presidents of colleges have to have some courage to step forward. You can't limit alcohol in college sports, you have to get rid of it.

In any crass political calculation, drilling for oil will always win more votes than putting a price on carbon. But if I recall what I was taught in fifth-grade American government class, we elect presidents to do more than crass political calculations.

Mary wasn't the only one who'd gone around the bend in the last few weeks. Or had Larry always been this way, determinedly unconscious of the deadly results of his "harmless" schemes? Maybe they were all like that, the presidents and chairmen and commanding generals who sat in their fancy offices and gave orders to "engage targets" or "cut the work force." They never saw the suffering, bleeding bodies those orders affected.

So just out of curiosity, what do you think I'm worth?" he asked when he just couldn't help himself. "I mean, it isn't often a person's put on the open market. What is the going rate for presidents' sons these days? Is it more or less than what you guys were going to get for my mother? Accounting for inflation, of course.

Campaigns often make standing on principle the highest of virtues - and listening to your opponents a sure sign of weakness. It's the virtual opposite of what it takes to succeed in office. Squaring the circle takes a powerful combination of skills. But presidents who can campaign and compromise are generally the most successful.

Systems, coaches, and directors or club presidents do not win games - players do, they are the only people who can make a significant difference once that game starts.

Conservatives don't want to read good, smart books. They mostly want to read Fox and talk radio hosts writing about presidents.

The deficit only became a big problem in the Reagan-Bush years. For 12 years, Republican presidents talked about balancing the budget, but failed to propose one.

President George W. Bush was kind of a goofy tongue-tied dude. Mostly he just mangled the English language. Barack Obama, by contrast, was a smooth talker. The problem is that frequently what he said was just wrong or tendentious.