Barton Gellman Quotes
I don't think Cheney started off in 2000 with a burning desire to become vice-president. I think the prospect gradually became more appealing, and he goosed the process.
Gellman, Barton. Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency. Penguin Press, 2008.
Indeed Senator Thomas Collier Platt, in cooperation with major New York corporations, was leading just such an effort. See {624063}. However, many close friends and supporters wanted him to do for the national ticket what he had done for New York—reform. These schemes succeeded beyond the proponents’ wildest dreams when President McKinley was assassinated, and TR was the President. His enemies however were crestfallen—Party leader Thomas Collier Platt was very distressed. See {585078}.
In 1912 TR lost the Republican primary election because of archaic rules that gave party regulars overwhelming power relative to ordinary Republicans with whom he was be far the most popular. So Roosevelt ran for President on the Bull Moose Party and proved his point be outpolling the Republicans. However the right wing was split and Woodrow Wilson became President by a plurality.
Patton always believed that Eisenhower wanted to be President. At the beginning of the war Patton was much senior to Eisenhower, but President Roosevelt promoted Eisenhower above many more senior generals. Eisenhower thought Patton the best fighting general in the army, but a public relations and administrative problem. Several times when he had gone too far, Eisenhower reprimanded him but kept him in his command position. After the fighting was over, Patton became the military governor of part of Germany and was not as successful at peacekeeping and nation building as he was at fighting. Eisenhower was convinced that Patton would destroy himself and get fired by the army command and the President if he continued as governor. Patton confused Eisenhower’s prudent and politic demeanor with the allies as a lack of courage. And Patton could never get over the fact that Eisenhower and never commanded an army fighting in the field. He was jumped to Supreme Allied Commander, in a very bold and brilliant stroke by FDR who passed over many senior generals.
Although his primary occupation was as a political columnist, he was also a physician and psychiatrist. The desire and ambition for so much power is not typical of most people and the willingness to pay the personal cost to try and attain that position tends to take all Presidential candidates out of the Normal range of American citizens.
Barton David Gellman (born 1960) is an American journalist and bestselling author known for his reports on the September 11 attacks, on Dick Cheney's vice presidency and on the global surveillance disclosure.
