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Beyond this, the adage that the opposition’s duty was to oppose was not Rayburn’s adage. He didn’t want to oppose simply for the sake of opposing. “Any jackass can kick a barn down,” he said. “But it takes a good carpenter to build one.” With Richard Russell, the personal paled before the patriotic. Russell, who had studied the generals of Rome, co
... See moreRobert A. Caro • Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson III
He was college president until 1973; he ran for the Senate in 1976, aged seventy, becoming a Republican for the first time.
Henry Oliver • Second Act
The subtle pro-Reagan bias in Jennings’s face seems to have influenced the voting behavior of ABC viewers.
Malcolm Gladwell • The Tipping Point
History had taught republicans to distrust luminaries.
Frederick Brown • For the Soul of France
“Who experts were—professional background, status, and so on—made scarcely an iota of difference,” Tetlock concludes. “Nor did what experts thought—whether they were liberals or conservatives, realists or institutionalists, optimists or pessimists.” But “[h]ow experts thought—their style of reasoning—did matter.” The critical variable turned out to
... See moreJohn Lewis Gaddis • On Grand Strategy
As Burke said in describing his early years in Albany, “Murphy delegates to the point of anarchy.”7
William Thorndike • The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success
Americans want courts to protect minorities and defend liberties, and to defer to elected officials. We want arobust political life and one that is just.
Gerald N. Rosenberg • The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change? Second Edition (American Politics and Political Economy Series)
The Reagan strategy mandated staffing reduction targets to force process changes in the bureaucracy. This was a different approach than the REGO I strategy, and apparently more effective. The Reagan priorities called for strengthening the defense and foreign policy establishments. It is interesting that HUD appears on both the Reagan and Clinton li
... See moreIn Jefferson’s time, such opposition to government per se—such fierce frontier individualism—might have made Stevenson a real democrat; in the more complicated mid-twentieth century, his reluctance to make use of the powers of his office allowed the continuation of the vacuum in Texas government in which special interest groups—the Texas oilmen, na
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