David Rothkopf Quotes
Obama seems steadfast in his resistance both to learning from his past errors and to managing his team so that future errors are prevented. It is hard to think of a recent president who has grown so little in office.
David Rothkopf, U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, Executive Editor, Foreign Affairs, “National Insecurity”, Foreign Policy, September / October, 2014
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Some of the Right Wing attacks in President Obama were without any foundation of facts. All presidents have to work extremely hard, and if they were not “workaholics” they could not even get nominated for the post. Many critics saw a racist element in this attack. In Sununu’s youth there was a slander by which racists used to refer to Blacks as “lazy and shiftless”. Obama was the first Black President and whereas that demonstrated that the nation had gotten past much of its racism, some still remained and this might have been a vestige of it.
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.
While the Southerners, and Northern Democrats accused Lincoln of precipitous, hasty and radical actions, radicals of his own party were not happy with him as he didn't move fast and firmly enough.
Contrast Kennedy's acceptance of this reality with Herbert Hoover's complaint.
Armstrong rarely commented on politics (see {615854}), but the Governor defying the Supreme Court and not letting his people even go to school with other students was too much for him. He not only made the statement, but he approved it for publication. This shocked many who knew him as an apolitical person. He was particularly distressed with President Eisenhower who although he had warned Faubus that he would enforce the court order and then used federal troops to do so, Eisenhower was a man of action and not rhetoric and his lack of firm public statements overlooked an opportunity to use the Presidential “bully pulpit” and exercise his moral leadership and authority. Many then, and even 50 years later, were not sure where he stood on the issue of school desegregation.
David J. Rothkopf is a professor of international relations, political scientist and journalist. He is the founder and CEO of The Rothkopf Group, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a visiting professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, a prolific author, and podcast host of Deep State Radio.
