Policy Disputes Quotes

In the White House there is always struggle and contention.

Then as now, whatever disagreements over policies existed among Americans - and there were many such bitter policy disputes - the purposes and goals for which Americans fought were clearly understood.

During his presidency, Truman and the Republicans were locked in a series of furious assaults on each other that outraged him and made Truman an enduring foe of a party and its representatives, which he saw as on the wrong side of almost every domestic and foreign policy issue he considered important.

Looking ahead, I can see more and more instances where I will disagree with the president on very fundamental issues. The largest, for me, is education.

If a president makes a reasoned decision about what best serves the nation's interests, even if he turns out to be wrong, he has committed no impeachable offense. The Framers didn't intend, through impeachment, to transform such policy disputes or mistakes into high crimes.

Another rule I have is: Don't let your ego get tied up in a policy dispute. Otherwise, if things don't go your way, you can end up breaking a relationship with somebody with whom you can't afford to break.

Ms. Rice was a bad national security adviser and a bad secretary of state. She was on the wrong side of some of the administration's biggest internal policy fights. She had a tendency to flip-flop when it came to the president's core priorities, and her political misjudgment more than once cost Mr. Bush dearly.

Politics and public life are not for the faint of heart. It has been and always will be a noisy and cantankerous place.

The precise value of the Monroe doctrine is very loosely understood by most Americans, but the effect of the familiar phrase has been to develop a national sensitiveness, which is a more frequent cause of war than material interests; and over disputes caused by such feelings there will preside none of the calming influence due to the moral authority of international law, with its recognized principles, for the points in dispute will be of policy, of interest, not of conceded right.

I've had more than a few battles with a Republican president. ... I am not immune [to] disagreeing with people who otherwise I support.