David Gergen Quotes
We have an inherently weak institution in the Presidency. It was intentionally set up that way by the founders.
Reagan, Ford, Nixon, Clinton
David Gergen, White House Advisor & Communications Assistant Quoted in Michael Kelly, "The Game," New York Times Magazine, October 31, 1993
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
There was much argument over the desired relative strength and power of the three branches of government. Wilson suggested equality. We argue about it to this day.
This letter was written shortly after the Constitution had been signed by the convention delegates. This difference between Adams and Jefferson would be at the heart of the first great partisan struggle in American history. Adams, as the second President, tried to increase and use the power of the Presidency. Jefferson opposed him, especially when Adams tried to run for a second term. The Adams-led Federalists were pitted against Jefferson’s Democratic Republicans in the first, and perhaps still the most bitter partisan struggle in American political history. The Jeffersonians accused Adams and the Federalists of trying to unravel the American Revolution and revert to a monarchy. The people not only sided with the Democratic Republicans, ousting Adams, but also turned out most of the Federalists. It was the end of the Federalist Party, and a new conservative party—without monarchial tendencies—the Whigs became the new opposition party.
The “departments” refer the 3 branches of government: executive, legislative, and judiciary. The basic principle of the separation of powers (See {607920}) was fundamental to the state representatives at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, even though none of their state constitutions had accepted that principle.
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David Richmond Gergen is an American political commentator and former presidential adviser who served during the administrations of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. He is currently a senior political analyst for CNN and a professor of public service and the founding director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. Gergen is also the former editor at large of U.S. News and World Report and a contributor to CNN.com and Parade Magazine. He has twice been a member of election coverage teams that won Peabody awards—in 1988 with MacNeil–Lehrer, and in 2008 with CNN.
