Sublime

Yet despite the establishment propaganda, every time the Republicans have run a right-winger in the last forty years they have won the White House—and every time they’ve run a moderate they have lost. George H. W. Bush was especial proof of this, winning as Reagan II in 1988 before hiking taxes and moving to the center in time for a 1992 defeat.

The last time Saddam Hussein threatened the peace (by invading Kuwait), 7 out of 10 Democrats in Congress voted against authorizing the use of force and in favor of the useless pseudo-solution of sanctions.

For eight years under Woodrow Wilson he had been the number two man in the Navy Department.

Although he had securely laid the foundations of the federal government, he was still the product of his genteel Virginia past and accustomed to the rule of well-bred gentlemen such as himself. He would never have been fully at home with the brawling, roaring brand of democracy that came to dominate American politics in the era of Andrew Jackson.

Marc Ambinder and D. B. Grady’s The Command: Deep Inside the President’s Secret Army (Ambinder and Grady, 2012).