David Brooks Quotes
Jim Stavridis is the former NATO commander who is sometimes on people's lists, also very plausible, self-possessed, someone with sobriety.
Brooks, David. PBS NewsHour, Public Broadcasting Service.
On military or foreign policy matters his view was that presidents ought not to rule anything in or out so that he/she can keep all the options open and not reduce future flexibility.
In his relationship with FDR General Marshall was the Senior Army Officer and Chief of Staff of the Army during WWII. What was amazing about Marshall was how he argued forcefully from his narrower perspective as the leader of the army, but did not resent it when President Roosevelt decided differently citing wider, non-military consideration. Roosevelt had the almost unique ability to make decisions from the big picture perspective and have most of his subordinates with narrower responsibility and perspective accept understandingly.
Ironically, Lieberman was using this quotation to campaign against Bush’s son, George W. Bush.
The Emperor was writing to his son to explain the defeat of Japan. In what was a bit of revisionist history, the Emperor neglected to mention that with the exception of some of the incursions in China, Hirohito had personally approved every Japanese invasion including Pearl Harbor. Further, it was he who had approved the orders that Japanese troops should fight to the death rather than retreat or surrender.
He was objecting to the current crop of senior military officer who have little experience in fighting and much in academic, strategic and technical training. Many however see him as a dinosaur who does not realized the complex nature of the modern military missions. In general, we have won almost all of our fighting battles but often failed in our maintaining civil society, occupation, nation building, military procurement, preventing sexual assault of our own troops by our own soldiers, assuring mental health of our soldiers. Hackworth, detractors argue, wants to change what already works and ignore what does not.
David Brooks is a conservative political and cultural commentator who writes for The New York Times. He has worked as a film critic for The Washington Times, a reporter and later op-ed editor for The Wall Street Journal, a senior editor at The Weekly Standard from its inception, a contributing editor at Newsweek, and The Atlantic Monthly, and a commentator on NPR and the PBS NewsHour.
