Robert Dallek Quotes
There are limits on what a president can achieve or do, but the expectations are so great.
Dallek, Robert. Hail to the Chief: The Making and Unmaking of American Presidents. Hyperion, 1996.
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.
Obama was a President who believed deeply in the concepts of checks and balances and separation of powers. He did not punish members of Congress who opposed him by closing federal installations in their state of district, not giving government contracts to companies in his district and in the case of member of his own party who were “recalcitrant” supporting opponent in primary elections and failing to support in general elections. Presidents Nixon and Johnson used these techniques particularly effectively. As a result they pushed their legislative programs through Congress very effectively. All other modern Presidents have done this to one degree or another, but Obama did not. He believed that pressure on member of Congress should be limited to persuasion and public debate moving public opinion. Many seasoned politicians and political observers however thought that this was Obama’s biggest weakness as a President. Lyndon Johnson did not have to actually punish many member of Congress, as his willingness to do so was well known and thus few opposed him when he called or met with them and “gave them the treatment.” But Congress knew that Obama had taken punishment and retaliation off the table, and many opposed him including member of his own party.
_0_PostageStamp_47x47.jpg "Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Mike Mullen gives an interview to John Dickerson during the CBS news program Face the Nation in Washington, D.C., July 5, 2009. During the interview, Mullen discussed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, North Korea's recent missile tests and his recent visit to Russia. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley, U.S. Navy/Released)"){kind=small}
Robert A. Dallek is an American historian specializing in the presidents of the United States, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon. He retired as a history professor at Boston University in 2004 and previously taught at Columbia University, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Oxford University. He won the Bancroft Prize for his 1979 book Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945 as well as other awards for scholarship and teaching.
