Hamilton Jordan Quotes
Even when it's true, it sounds bad for any President to claim that criticism of him is damaging to the country's interest.
Hamilton Jordan, White House Chief of Staff (Democrat), Crisis: The Last Year of the Carter Presidency, Putnam, 1982
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Contrast Hoover's complaining tone with John F. Kennedy's quote on the subject.
In 1995 the president had agreed with our allies to send troops to support a peace in Bosnia if there was one, but many in Congress attempted to block that possibility.
Many of the leading Republicans viciously attacked President Barack Obama’s character, ability, and motives during the Ukraine-Russia Crisis. The irony if the attacks on the President is that un general the Republicans agreed with the actual policies and statements of the President on his dealing with the crisis but they were vicious in describing his as “Weak”, “Feckless”, “Not to be feared or taken seriously”. They wanted the President to be even tougher than he was and yet they told the world and the Russian leaders that he was “weak and could be pushed around,” thus undermining the President’s credibility and his likely success in implementing the tactics they wanted.
Actually, there are many in politics who to this day castigate Truman for his decision, but for Bloomberg’s generation and before, anyone would have pushed the button. And there are some who still fault Obama as technically, the U. S. had no right to violate Pakistani airspace and kill a resident of their state without any due process in the U. S. or Pakistan. Bloomberg would have easily pushed that button, but there are many officials who warned against it, and earlier Presidents—George W. Bush and Bill Clinton who did not authorize assassinations in foreign (allies) countries.
The sectional and special interests and their money made that very difficult for most politicians to do.
The Senator was blaming President Clinton for not stopping the attack on the U. S. Cole as he knew that there were hostile Islamic extremists who were known to have threatened to attack American assets wherever they were. His view was that given that President Clinton should have acted overtly and/or covertly to prevent the attack. This failure for him was an impeachable offence. He argued that George W. Bush was assuming the Presidency and this laxness and incompetence that lead to the death of 17 American sailors would end. And then came 9-11 with the same level of general information and some even more specific information and 3000 Americans were killed. However, unlike Lott, almost no one blamed President Bush’s lack of leadership for the attack on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Lott seemed to forget his standard of presidential performance and did not criticize or urge the impeachment of the President of his own party.
He was responding to criticism that the media was bashing the President.
The things that makes this quotation historically important is how fast Cixi was adopting modern technology as a tool to manage the government and how she was managing day to day the significant international negotiations taking place on the other side of the earth. While in most areas Chinese bureaucracy was notorious for obstructionism and delay, Cixi maintained direct and almost real time control of the parts of the government that she felt most important. She resembled Abraham Lincoln in the sense that they both found innovative ways to use new technology to enable them to better and more directly manage and control the government.
William Hamilton McWhorter Jordan was an American politician who served as Chief of Staff to President of the United States Jimmy Carter.
