Frank Andrew Munsey Quotes
La Guardia, the petty and the pitiful!
Frank Andrew Munsey, 1854-1925, Newspaper Publisher, Editorial, New York Herald, January 31, 1921
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
1st Earl of Beaconsfield
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
This quotation illustrates the unpopularity of President George W. Bush. Not only was he unpopular in America, but this quote shows the same unpopularity with one of our major Western Allies. The critic chides an author—Valerie Morse—for even stating the obvious. The dislike of Bush was so pervasive that even more characterization of his shortcomings was seen as a type of “piling on” and really not even necessary.
The United States had just ousted the popularly elected leader Patrice Lumumba {640611}, and backed Mobuto. Lumumba was an idealist who was not corrupt at all, but were not so sure about our new protégé. Sadly he turned out to be one of the worst kleptocrats of all time, and he stole with more United States money than we gave to many nations in toto. Many believe that one of the reasons, corruption of our “allied” leaders was so bad lies in the wording of this cable. Note that to the State Department writers there was “normal” corruption as opposed to excessive corruption. Once that view is taken there is a constant battle to determine whether each new act of corruption is “normal “ or not, and corruption is simply lessened by pushing back against the most abnormal schemes. These critics advocate a zero tolerance for corruption especially with United States AID money. The State Department has been ambivalent and have often used the corruption system to bribe leaders to obtain national objectives.
Frank Andrew Munsey was an American newspaper and magazine publisher and author. He was born in Mercer, Maine, but spent most of his life in New York City. The village of Munsey Park, New York is named for him, along with the Munsey Building in downtown Baltimore, Maryland at the southeast corner of North Calvert Street and East Fayette Street.
