Dan Jenkins Quotes

I met Gerald Ford. I met Richard Nixon. I met Jimmy Carter. I met Dwight Eisenhower when he was a general. George Bush senior. I haven't met Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, although I got a letter from him.

The standard rumor at the time was that Rumsfeld, as chief of staff, had persuaded President Ford to appoint George H.W. Bush as director of Central Intelligence, assuming that that got rid of a potential competitor for the presidency.

When George W. Bush picked Dick Cheney, it was a reassuring sign that the Texas governor would have an experienced, prudent voice at his side.

Presidential biography is, by its nature, out of scale; no character is bigger, no action greater, than the person and the doings of the American president.

As to the presidency, the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it.

In the last 100 years only Presidents George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford lost their bids for reelection. President Lyndon Johnson did not run for a second term.

Ohio claims they are due a President as they haven't had one since Taft. Look at the United States, they haven't had one since Lincoln.

If something awful happens to the President, we’ll get another President.

I stood respectfully as Ronald Reagan was sworn in to his second term though I disagreed with him on many issues. I stood as well for the inauguration of George W. Bush's second term though I thought his war in Iraq was a tragic mistake.

I know Obama knows better than George W. Bush.

In 2020, there will be a new president, and I will be an ex-president.

Once you choose to run for president of the United States and succeed, your earlier life, your biography, is a major part of American history.

I like something about George W. Bush. A lot. After spending more than a decade having almost physiological-chemical reactions anytime I saw him, getting the heebie-jeebies whenever he spoke - after being sure from the start that he was a Gremlin on the wing of America - I really like the paintings of George W. Bush.

Every president since George Washington has taken executive privilege seriously. Every Republican president has.

George Washington, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses Grant, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower all rode their wartime heroics into the White House.

I had a unique circumstance in which my career was associated with George W. Bush, who went straight to the top. I went to work for him in October of 1993. So my whole identity in national politics is associated with this president, and you know, I kind of want to leave it that way. It's not tugging at me to go do the '08 cycle.

George W. Bush, though a president's son, is cast as Reagan's heir even more than his father's.

I've had some wonderful times at the White House. I've been with Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Bush.

I think George W. Bush has a warm, engaging personality. But, you know, the presidency is more than just a popularity contest.

Gerald Ford is the first President of the United States to be elected by a majority of one—and nobody demanded a recount.

[Assessing William Howard Taft:] It is very difficult for me to understand how a man who is so good as Chief Justice could have been so bad as President.

No way will I ever join that son-of-a-bitch. I looked it up. One out of every four presidents has died in office. I'm a gambling man, darling. This is the only chance I've got.

The President is an idiot.

And distasteful as this matter is, I must say bluntly that every piece of scientific evidence we have, every lesson of history and experience, indicates that a Republican victory tomorrow would mean that Richard Nixon would probably be president of this country within the next four years…. I say frankly, as a citizen more than a candidate, that I recoil at the prospect of Mr. Nixon as custodian of this nation’s future

This will last, Mr. President, as long as you are President and beyond.