Scott Ellis Quotes

Responding to criticism that he was not consulting sufficiently with the Congress:

Mrs. Carter attended cabinet meetings sitting in the rear and taking copious notes. This at the time was very controversial in that no First Lady before had ever attended a cabinet meeting—not even Eleanor Roosevelt.

of the two houses of Congress

Whithead’s view which seems intuitively right to most citizens, tends to be the one that the majority espouses but the minority opposes. At the time, the Republicans controlled the White House and there were a number of polarizing issues, where the Republicans could not obtain consensus and then decided. However, then the Democrats gained control of the White House and Congress the next year, it was the Democrats who claimed that they had to decide. The Republicans, now in the majority, argued that significant changes in America should not be made by narrow majorities and major issues should be tabled if there was no substantial majority. That was the position that the Democrats had espoused when they were in the minority.

The Manual was found by the Manchester (England) Metropolitan Police during a search of an Al Qaida member's home

Some people get upset when they learn that members of the President’s cabinet disagreed with the president on a major policy. Yet this is very common and very desirable as long as when the President reaches his/her decision, the dissenters all close ranks and implement it. Some Presidents are not secure enough or confident enough to be comfortable with dissent. The greatest of our Presidents were known for their selection of strong advisors who have different perspectives. President Lincoln had all his rivals for the Presidency in his cabinet. Franklin Roosevelt appointed a number of Republicans to his cabinet and a left wing socialist also. Theodore Roosevelt’s Secretary of State, Elihu Root, was famous for telling the President where Root thought he was wrong. George Washington had Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton in his cabinet and they fought like cats and dogs. Jefferson ran against Washington’s Federalist party and destroyed that party at the polls. However, the nation was better for these brilliant, experienced cabinet members helping a strong President to make consider all possibilities and make better decisions.

Paxon himself was one of the ‘whips’ responsible for doing this for the Republicans when he was in the Congress.

In one of its most effective relief programs, the United States saved millions of Russians in the famine of 1921-1922. However, millions more starved to death and died of disease. The United States had at any one time 200 Americans, under Herbert Hoover, who were fighting to save as many as possible despite some on America wanting to show how the Communist Government was incapable of handling the situation, which they clearly were.

Bush assumes that this meant that all the people agreed with his decision to invade Iraq. While that might have been the case, there are other possibilities that many historians, journalists and other analysts have suggested. The Vice President, and his personal staff, were known to have visited them all and lobbied for the invasion. They pressured several of them who may have not wanted to run afoul of what seemed to be the most powerful vice president in American History. Or they may have thought that the decision had already been made, and it was time to join together and loyally support the policy decision that had been made. There were few strong independent thinkers in the top tier as Bush was not intellectually or emotionally inclined to have open staff arguments to work out a policy or very strong advisors with different points of view. The strongest of the advisors like Secretary of State Colin Powell had been lied to and persuaded there was “clear evidence” that Iraq was about to deploy a nuclear weapon. This made Powell an advocate. The intelligence given to Powell and the others was wrong and much was fabricated or obtained from an unreliable source who had been pushed as trustworthy by the Vice President. The CIA Director, had told those all that the evidence and case for the fact that Iraq was developing and close to deploying a nuclear weapon was a “slam dunk”.

become a member of the cabinet