President of the United States

• What's politics she's going to adopt, Is she going to prove that she is tough and take United States to another war or to make escalation? This is what going to be bad for everyone, including the United States. If she is going to another direction, that would be good. Again, I would focus more about the intentions before talking about the experiences, the experiences are very important but the intention is the most crucial thing of any president. Can you ask them the question, Can they tell genuinely to the American people and the rest of the world, about the real intention, about their politics, are they going to make escalation or send more troops around the world?
  • Bashar al-Assad, Interview with Bill Neely (July 2016) on "NBC: Exclusive Interview with Bashar al-Assad"

• The most used phrase in my administration if I were to be President would be "What the hell you mean we're out of missiles?"
  • Glenn Beck, The Glenn Beck Program, Premiere Radio Networks, 12 January 2009 

• No president of the United States could represent the United States were he not committed to human rights. If you don't understand this, you can't deal with us.
  • Joseph Biden, as quoted in "Born Red: How Xi Jinping, an unremarkable provincial administrator, became China’s most authoritarian leader since Mao." (6 April 2015), by Evan Osnos, The New Yorker.

• PRESIDENCY, n. The greased pig in the field game of American politics.
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, p. 266 (1948). Originally published in 1906 as The Cynic's Word Book.

• PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom—and of whom only—it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, p. 266 (1948). Originally published in 1906 as The Cynic's Word Book.

• The President is an elected king, but the fact that he is elected has proved to be of far less significance in the course of political evolution than the fact that he is pragmatically a king.  It was the intention of the founders of the Constitution that he be elected by a small body of notables, representing the ruling propertied classes, who could check him up every four years in a new election.  This was no innovation.  Kings have often been selected this way in European history, and the Roman Emperor was regularly chosen by election.
  • Randolph Bourne, ¶19 of §II of "The State" (1918).  Published under "The Development of the American State," The State (Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press, 1998), p. 36.

• If peace is your goal, which it's got to be a goal for any American president, it matters a lot whether people live in a free society.
  • George W. Bush, speech at the Gerald R. Ford Foundation (2011), Michigan.

• I like to tell the 'C' students... You too can be president!
  • George W. Bush, remarks by President George W. Bush at SMU's 100th Spring Commencement Convocation (16 May 2015).

• In order to be an effective president... when you say something you have to mean it.
  • George W. Bush, "George W. Bush Bashes Obama on Middle East", by Josh Rogin, Bloomberg View (26 April 2015)

• In the United States, the presidency is not just about one person. The presidency is about all of the people who join with that president in years of service to our remarkable nation. They are the people who never fly on Air Force One, but who put in countless late nights and earlier mornings, who spend less time with their family and friends and more time hard at work caring for our country. The presidency is about the men and women of our military who serve every president and who make the ultimate sacrifice to protect us and keep us safe. The stones in the walls represent your years of service.
  • Laura Welch Bush, George W. Bush Presidential Center Dedication Ceremony, home to the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum and George W. Bush Institute, University Park, Dallas County, Texas, United States of America (April 25, 2013). Archived from the original on January 30, 2021.

• The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat, and dish-watery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as President of the United States.
  • Attributed to The Chicago Times, following President Abraham Lincoln's address at Gettysburg on November 19, 1863; reported in Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (1939), vol. 2, p. 472; no date of issue for the Times is given. This quotation also appears in Robert S. Harper, Lincoln and the Press (1951), chapter 33, p. 287, also without a specific date for the Times, citing only Sandburg. This same quotation and attribution is used in Gore Vidal, Lincoln, part 3, chapter 2, p. 494 (1984, reprinted 1985). This quotation could not be found in The Chicago Times, November 20–25, 1863.

• And still the question, "What shall be done with our ex-Presidents?" is not laid at rest; and I sometimes think Watterson's solution of it, "Take them out and shoot them," is worthy of attention.
  • Grover Cleveland, letter to William F. Vilas, April 19, 1889; Allan Nevins, ed., Letters of Grover Cleveland, 1850–1908 (1933), p. 204 (1933). Henry Watterson, editor of the Louisville, Kentucky, Courier-Journal for fifty years, feared that a president's ambitions would lead him to seek a third term and then life tenancy. Because any other position after the presidency would seem anticlimactic, Watterson believed the country was not safe from any president while he was alive. He especially worried about Theodore Roosevelt, a young president who greatly enjoyed the presidency, and he frequently editorialized on this theme during Roosevelt's second term, though the remark was facetious. Joseph Henry Wall, Henry Watterson (1956), p. 254–55.

• Winning the Nobel Prize does not automatically qualify you to be commander in chief. I think George Bush has proved definitively that to be president, you don’t need to care about science, literature or peace.
  • Stephen Colbert "A Mock Columnist, Amok", in The New York Times (14 October 2007)

• A president should unify us, should appeal to our better angels, should appeal to our shared values that make America who we are.
  • Ted Cruz, interview with John Dickerson (March 2016), Face the Nation

• The truest American president we have ever had, the companion of Washington in our love and honor, recognized that the poorest man, however outraged, however ignorant, however despised, however black, was, as a man, his equal. The child of the American people was their most prophetic man, because, whether as small shop-keeper, as flat-boatman, as volunteer captain, as honest lawyer, as defender of the Declaration, as President of the United States, he knew by the profoundest instinct and the widest experience and reflection, that in the most vital faith of this country it is just as honorable for an honest man to curry a horse and black a boot as it is to raise cotton or corn, to sell molasses or cloth, to practice medicine or law, to gamble in stocks or speculate in petroleum. He knew the European doctrine that the king makes the gentleman; but he believed with his whole soul the doctrine, the American doctrine, that worth makes the man.
  • George William Curtis, "The Good Fight" (1865).

• The United States brags about its political system, but the president says one thing during the election, something else when he takes office, something else at midterm and something else when he leaves.
  • Xiaoping Deng, as quoted in The Pacific Rim and the Western World: Strategic, Economic, and Cultural Perspectives (1987), p. 105

• But I believe this: by and large, the United States ought to be able to choose for its President anybody that it wants, regardless of the number of terms he has served. That is what I believe. Now, some people have said "You let him get enough power and this will lead toward a one-party government." That, I don't believe. I have got the utmost faith in the long-term common sense of the American people. Therefore, I don't think there should be any inhibitions other than those that were in the 35-year age limit and so on. I think that was enough, myself.
  • Dwight D. Eisenhower, answer to question seeking his views on limiting U.S. presidents to two terms, news conference, Washington, D.C. (October 5, 1956), in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1956, p. 862.

• The question really arises is it a republic if you can keep it, question have we kept it? And the answer is no! No we have not kept it. Since 2001 we have in effect an elected monarchy. And ah, meaning a country which [Richard] Nixon's view "when a president does it, it is legal". The president says it's not illegal. That is the attitude long after Nixon of John Yoo, who was the advisor to George W. Bush, of David Addington, Bush Cheney's legal advisor. Essentially there are no limits on presidential power except those which he chooses to put on himself. Obama following on, has in effect decriminalized torture which is as illegal and criminal as anything can be under international law and domestic law, a number of domestic laws and international laws, which we have ratified to investigate, and follow-up if there is any credible charge. Obama has chosen not to investigate or indict any higher up for that process of torture.
  • Daniel Ellsberg, THE WHISTLEBLOWER TOUR! Daniel Ellsberg, Jesselyn Radack & Thomas Drake, April 8, 2014, found at 1:48:08 - 1:49:31

• Americans are intimately familiar with the image of a federal government paralyzed by the chief executive's unpopularity. Presidents Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s, Bill Clinton in the early 1990s, George W. Bush after the 2006 midterm election, and perhaps even Barack Obama in the first months after the 2010 midterm election. In one case in late 1995 and early 1996, the American government was literally shut down as Republicans attempted to overpower the unpopular Clinton in a federal budget dispute. But in none of these cases did the president, though his unpopularity had clearly incumbered the functioning of the state, offer to resign. And few Americans honestly expected resignation, even at the president's least popular moment.
  • Max Fisher, "Why Do Japanese Prime Ministers Keep Resigning" (3 June 2011), The Atlantic.

• If you have not chosen me by secret ballot, neither have I gained office by any secret promises. I have not campaigned either for the Presidency or the Vice Presidency. I have not subscribed to any partisan platform. I am indebted to no man, and only to one woman—my dear wife—as I begin this very difficult job.
  • Gerald R. Ford, remarks on taking the oath of office (August 9, 1974); in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Gerald R. Ford, 1974, p. 1.

• I once told you that I am not a saint, and I hope never to see the day that I cannot admit having made a mistake. So I will close with another confession. Frequently, along the tortuous road of recent months from this chamber to the President's House, I protested that I was my own man. Now I realize that I was wrong. I am your man, for it was your carefully weighed confirmation that changed my occupation. The truth is I am the people's man, for you acted in their name, and I accepted and began my new and solemn trust with a promise to serve all the people and do the best that I can for America.
  • Gerald R. Ford, address to a joint session of Congress (August 12, 1974); in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Gerald R. Ford, 1974, p. 13.

• I do believe that the buck stops here, that I cannot rely upon public opinion polls to tell me what is right. I do believe that right makes might and that if I am wrong, 10 angels swearing I was right would make no difference. I do believe, with all my heart and mind and spirit, that I, not as President but as a humble servant of God, will receive justice without mercy if I fail to show mercy.
  • Gerald R. Ford, announcing his decision to pardon Richard Nixon (September 8, 1974); in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Gerald R. Ford, 1974, p. 103.

 

• It is the manner of the New World and of a democratic society in which the Chief of the State is a plain Mr. President, who may be the ruler of a continent this year and may go back to his business of a private citizen next year.
  • Alfred George Gardiner, Leaves in the Wind, p. 100

• The President is the last person in the world to know what the people really want and think.
  • James A. Garfield, As quoted in Garfield of Ohio : The Available Man (1970) by John M. Tyler.

• For Mr. Biden, who turns 81 later this month, being the oldest president in American history stands out as a glaring liability. An overwhelming 71 percent said he was “too old” to be an effective president — an opinion shared across every demographic and geographic group in the poll, including a remarkable 54 percent of Mr. Biden’s own supporters.
  In contrast, only 19 percent of supporters of Mr. Trump, who is 77, viewed him as too old, and 39 percent of the electorate overall.
  • Shane Goldmacher, “Trump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds”, The New York Times, (Nov. 5, 2023)

 

• Behold the chief who now commands,
  Once more to serve his country stands.
  The rock on which the storm will break,
  The rock on which the storm will break,
  But armed in virtue, firm, and true,
  His hopes are fixed on Heav'n and you.
  When hope was sinking in dismay,
  When glooms obscured Columbia's day,
  His steady mind, from changes free,
  Resolved on death or liberty.
  • Hail, Columbia lyrics by Philip Phile

• Condemning slavery is the baseline for anyone who wants to be president of the United States.
  • Jaime Harrison as quoted by Democratic National Committee, “Nikki Haley on the Civil War: “What Do You Want Me to Say About Slavery? Next Question.””, (DECEMBER 28, 2023)

• No matter who is the President, that person never has the authority to 'order' members of the Armed Forces to violate the Uniformed Code of Military Justice, their ethos, their oath or the international law of land combat.
  • Mark Hertling, "A soldier's view on Trump" (4 March 2016), CNN, State of Georgia: Cable News Network

• The United States, for example, has never had a President as bad as George III, but neither has Britain had a king as admirable as George Washington (of whom William Thackeray rightly said that 'his glory will descend to remotest ages' while the memory of the sovereign went the other way). Still, even to concede this obvious argument is to make it plain that a bad monarch is at least as likely as a bad president even given the caprice of random selection by the hereditary principle... We find that the presidency has become too secretive, too powerful, too trammelled, too ceremonial, too impotent or too complicated, depending on the president under discussion or the critic making the analysis. On one thing all are agreed - there is a danger of an 'imperial' or 'monarchical' presidency. An incumbent in Washington knows he is in trouble on the day that cartoonists begin to represent him as a king.
  • Christopher Hitchens, The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish (1990), Random House.

• Most Americans (65%) think voters are more likely to support a candidate if the candidate is a White man. A smaller share say voters are more likely to support a candidate who is a White woman, though being a White woman is still seen as more likely to help than hurt a candidate’s chances (36% vs. 25%).
  In contrast, the public sees being a Black man or woman, a Hispanic man or woman, or an Asian man or woman as more hurtful than helpful with voters. In each case, more see being a woman than see being a man as a disadvantage for candidates.
  • JULIANA MENASCE HOROWITZ AND ISABEL GODDARD, WOMEN AND POLITICAL LEADERSHIP AHEAD OF THE 2024 ELECTION, PEW, (SEPTEMBER 27, 2023)

JULIANA MENASCE HOROWITZ AND ISABEL GODDARD, WOMEN AND POLITICAL LEADERSHIP AHEAD OF THE 2024 ELECTION "3. Views of having a woman president”, PEW, (SEPTEMBER 27, 2023)

• The survey asked whether a woman president would be better, worse, or neither better nor worse than a man when it comes to several leadership traits.
  For each trait asked about, majorities say that a woman president would be neither better nor worse or that the president’s gender doesn’t matter.
  For those who do see a gender difference, larger shares say a woman president would be better than say she would be worse than a man.
• By 11 percentage points or more, women are more likely than men to say that a woman president would be somewhat or a lot better than a man at every leadership trait asked about.
  There are particularly large differences between the shares of men and women who say a woman president would be better at working out compromises and working well under pressure.
  Nearly half of women (47%) say a woman president would be better at working out compromises. A notably smaller share of men (30%) say the same. And women are twice as likely as men to say that a woman president would be a lot or somewhat better at working well under pressure (36% vs. 18%).
• Democrats and Democratic leaners are more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to say a woman president would do a lot or somewhat better than a man at each leadership trait. By 18 percentage points, Democrats are more likely to say a woman president would be better at working out compromises, maintaining a respectful tone in politics,and being honest and ethical.
  Even though greater shares of Democrats say a woman president would be better at these leadership traits, about one-in-five or more Republicans say a woman president would be better than a man at each of the traits asked about. These shares are larger than the shares of Republicans who say a woman would be worse than a man at most of these traits.
• On every leadership trait, Democratic women are more than twice as likely as Republican men to say that a woman president would be a lot or somewhat better than presidents who are men.
• Half or more of Americans say that, when it comes to handling education, health care, gun policy, economic issues, crime, and national security and defense, a woman president would be neither better nor worse than a man or that the president’s gender doesn’t matter.
• For each policy asked about, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say that a woman president would do a lot or somewhat better than a man.
  The difference is widest when it comes to gun policy. Democrats are about three and a half times more likely than Republicans to say a woman president would do better in this area (44% vs. 12%).
• A majority say that having a woman as president would make the U.S. neither more nor less respected or that the president’s gender wouldn’t have an impact (54%).
  About one-in-five Americans (22%) say a woman president would make the U.S. a lot or somewhat more respected, and an equal share say this would make the U.S. a lot or somewhat less respected.
• Democrats are more than three times as likely as Republicans to say that a woman president would make the U.S. more respected (34% vs. 10%). In turn, Republicans are about twice as likely as Democrats to say that a woman president would make the U.S. less respected (31% vs. 15%).
  Republicans (58%) are also more likely than Democrats (51%) to say that having a woman as president would make the U.S. neither more nor less respected or that the president’s gender would not have an impact.
• A majority of adults (64%) say that it’s not at all or not too important to them personally that the U.S. elects a woman president in their lifetime or that the president’s gender doesn’t matter.
  Some 18% say it’s extremely or very important to them that the U.S. elects a woman president in their lifetime, and the same share says this is somewhat important to them.
• About three-in-ten Democrats (31%) say it is extremely or very important to them that the U.S. elects a woman president in their lifetime, compared with just 5% of Republicans.

• If I was president,
  I'd get elected on Friday, assassinated on Saturday,
  and buried on Sunday.
  
  • Wyclef Jean If I Was President

• The second office of this government is honorable & easy, the first is but a splendid misery.
  • Thomas Jefferson, letter to Elbridge Gerry (May 13, 1797), Paul L. Ford, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1896), vol. 7, p. 120.

• And so it is that I carry with me from this State to that high and lonely office to which I now succeed more than fond memories and fast friendships. The enduring qualities of Massachusetts—the common threads woven by the Pilgrim and the Puritan, the fisherman and the farmer, the Yankee and the immigrant—will not be and could not be forgotten in the Nation's Executive Mansion. They are an indelible part of my life, my convictions, my view of the past, my hopes for the future.
  • John F. Kennedy, address to the Massachusetts legislature (January 9, 1961); reported in Congressional Record (January 10, 1961), vol. 107, Appendix, p. A169.

• Great Britain is a republic with a hereditary president, while the United States is a monarchy with an elective king.
  • The Knoxville Journal (9 February 1896), as quoted in "The Politics of American Foreign Policy" by Peter Heys Gries, p. 170

• We need our presidents to appreciate and be polite to other cultures and leaders. But the president of the United States is the leading political figure in the world. He must command respect. Let others bow to him.
  • Keith Koffler, "Obama Has Bowed Eight Times as President" (20 June 2012), White House Dossier.

• Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose—and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose. If, to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, "I see no probability of the British invading us" but he will say to you "be silent; I see it, if you dont."

  The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.

  • Representative Abraham Lincoln, letter to William H. Herndon (February 15, 1848); in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953), vol. 1, p. 451–52.

• In a certain sense, and to a certain extent, he [the president] is the representative of the people. He is elected by them, as well as congress is. But can he, in the nature [of] things, know the wants of the people, as well as three hundred other men, coming from all the various localities of the nation? If so, where is the propriety of having a congress?
  • Representative Abraham Lincoln, remarks in the House (July 27, 1848); in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953), vol. 1, p. 504

• My friends—… I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being, who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail.
  • President-elect Abraham Lincoln, farewell address at Springfield, Illinois (February 11, 1861); in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953), vol. 4, p. 190. "W. H. Lamon, who witnessed this scene of farewell, says: 'having reached the train he [Lincoln] ascended the rear platform, and, facing the throng which had closed around him, drew himself up to his full height, removed his hat, and stood for several seconds in profound silence…. There was an unusual quiver on his lip, and a still more unusual tear on his furrowed cheek…. At length he began in a husky tone of voice, and slowly and impressively delivered his farewell to his neighbors. Imitating his example, every man in the crowd stood with his head uncovered in the fast-falling rain.'" In John G. Nicolay and John Hay, eds., Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln (1905), new and enl. ed., vol. 6, p. 110

• [D]ifferent and greatly distinguished citizens have, in succession, administered the executive branch of the government. They have conducted it through many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope of precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief constitutional term of four years under great and peculiar difficulty... The chief magistrate derives all his authority from the people.
  • Abraham Lincoln, first inaugural address (4 March 1861)

• You have heard the story, haven't you, about the man who was tarred and feathered and carried out of town on a rail? A man in the crowd asked him how he liked it. His reply was that if it was not for the honor of the thing, he would much rather walk.
  • Abraham Lincoln, response to a friend from Springfield asking how he liked being president, (c. 1861), in Emanuel Hertz, Lincoln Talks: A Biography in Anecdote (1939), p. 258–59.

• Franklin D. Roosevelt is no crusader. He is no tribune of the people. He is no enemy of entrenched privilege. He is a pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be President.
  • Walter Lippmann, Interpretations, 1931–1932 (1932), p. 262.

• Gas prices used to be a good proxy for the public’s feelings about the performance of the White House. But there has been “hardly any association” for the past decade, Kyle Kondik at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics has found. Similarly, presidential approval used to be strongly correlated with the consumer-sentiment index, the political scientist Lee Drutman has shown, but that stopped being the case back in 2004.
  • Annie Lowrey, “The Worst Best Economy Ever”, The Atlantic, (5/20/2024)

• I think it absolutely necessary that the President should have the power of removing [his subordinates] from office; it will make him, in a peculiar manner, responsible for their conduct, and subject him to impeachment himself, if he suffers them to perpetrate with impunity high crimes or misdemeanors against the United States, or neglects to superintend their conduct, so as to check their excesses.
  • James Madison, remarks in the House (May 19, 1789), Annals of Congress, vol. 1, col. 387.

• "Why would anyone want to be President today?" The answer is not one of glory, or fame; today the burdens of the office outweigh its privileges. It's not because the Presidency offers a chance to be somebody, but because it offers a chance to do something.
  • Richard Nixon, television address on NBC and CBS (September 19, 1968), in Nixon Speaks Out, Major Speeches and Statements … in the Presidential Campaign of 1968 (1968), p. 1.

• When I am the candidate, I run the campaign.
  • Richard Nixon, remarks during an interview with representatives of the television networks (January 4, 1971), in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon, 1971, p. 21.

• Representative William McK. Springer, remarks in the House, quoting Henry Clay: "As for me, I would rather be right than be President."
  Reed: "Well, the gentleman will never be either."
  • Thomas B. Reed, reported in Samuel W. McCall, The Life of Thomas Brackett Reed (1914), chapter 21, p. 246.

• The President of the United States has long been the leader of the free world. The president and yes the nominees of the country's great parties help define America to billions of people. All of them bear the responsibility of being an example for our children and grandchildren.
  • Mitt Romney, remarks on Donald Trump and the 2016 race at the University of Utah. [1] (March 3, 2016)

• The Presidency is not merely an administrative office. That's the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership. All our great Presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified.
  • Franklin D. Roosevelt, reported in The New York Times Magazine (September 11, 1932), p. 2.

• My view was that every executive officer, and above all every executive officer in high position, was a steward of the people bound actively and affirmatively to do all he could for the people, and not to content himself with the negative merit of keeping his talents undamaged in a napkin. I declined to adopt the view that what was imperatively necessary for the Nation could not be done by the President unless he could find some specific authorization to do it. My belief was that it was not only his right but his duty to do anything that the needs of the Nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws. Under this interpretation of executive power I did and caused to be done many things not previously done by the President and the heads of the departments. I did not usurp power, but I did greatly broaden the use of executive power. In other words, I acted for the public welfare, I acted for the common well-being of all our people, whenever and in whatever manner was necessary, unless prevented by direct constitutional or legislative prohibition.
  • Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography (1926; vol. 20 of The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, national ed.), chapter 10, p. 347–48.

• Our loyalty is due entirely to the United States. It is due to the President only and exactly to the degree in which he efficiently serves the United States. It is our duty to support him when he serves the United States well. It is our duty to oppose him when he serves it badly. This is true about Mr. Wilson now and it has been true about all our Presidents in the past. It is our duty at all times to tell the truth about the President and about every one else, save in the cases where to tell the truth at the moment would benefit the public enemy.
  • Theodore Roosevelt, "Lincoln and Free Speech", The Great Adventure (1926; vol. 19 of The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, national ed.), chapter 7, p. 297.

• The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.
  • Theodore Roosevelt, "Lincoln and Free Speech", The Great Adventure (1926; vol. 19 of The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, national ed.), chapter 7, p. 289.

• Yes, Haven, most of us enjoy preaching, and I've got such a bully pulpit!
  • Theodore Roosevelt, reply to George Haven Putnam, who had accused him of a tendency to preaching, sometime during his first presidential term, in George Haven Putnam, introductory essay, The Works of Theodore Roosevelt (1926), national ed., vol. 9, p. x.

• This country does not discriminate. No president, no officer in this country should hold office that has any hint of treating people differently because of the color of their skin or where they came from and that kind of thing. We believe in equality and fair treatment and that's the moral principle that we adhere to as a nation.
  • Jeff Sessions, interview with Matt Murphy (2016)

• Douglas, no man will ever be President of the United States who spells 'negro' with two gs.
  • William H. Seward, a retort to Stephen A. Douglas on the Senate floor, after the Illinois senator used an offensive slur in a speech. As quoted in Team of Rivals (2006), by Doris Kearns Goodwin (New York: Simon and Schuster), p. 163.

• The President must be greater than anyone else, but not better than anyone else. We subject him and his family to close and constant scrutiny and denounce them for things that we ourselves do every day. A Presidential slip of the tongue, a slight error in judgment—social, political, or ethical—can raise a storm of protest. We give the President more work than a man can do, more responsibility than a man should take, more pressure than a man can bear. We abuse him often and rarely praise him. We wear him out, use him up, eat him up. And with all this, Americans have a love for the President that goes beyond loyalty or party nationality; he is ours, and we exercise the right to destroy him.
  • John Steinbeck, America and Americans (1966), p. 46.
• Another change in the constitution relates to the length of the tenure of the presidential office. In the new constitution it is six years instead of four, and the President rendered ineligible for a re-election. This is certainly a decidedly conservative change. It will remove from the incumbent all temptation to use his office or exert the powers confided to him for any objects of personal ambition. The only incentive to that higher ambition which should move and actuate one holding such high trusts in his hands, will be the good of the people, the advancement, prosperity, happiness, safety, honor, and true glory of the confederacy.
  • Alexander H. Stephens, Cornerstone Speech, Delivered 21 March 1861, Savannah, Georgia

• Ike has picked a cabinet of eight millionaires and one plumber.
  • T.R.B. (Richard Strout), "Washington Wire", New Republic (December 15, 1952), p. 3. The plumber was secretary of labor Martin Durkin of Chicago, head of the Journeyman Plumbers and Steamfitters Union. See William Safire, Safire's Political Dictionary (1968), p. 195–96.

• The President can exercise no power which cannot be fairly and reasonably traced to some specific grant of power … in the Federal Constitution or in an act of Congress passed in pursuance thereof. There is no undefined residuum of power which he can exercise because it seems to him to be in the public interest.
  • William Howard Taft, Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers (1916), chapter 6, p. 139–40.

• But the PRESIDENT is the Chief Executive of the nation as well as a party leader, and it has been objected that for him to take an active and overt part in influencing the choice of party candidates derogates from the dignity of his high position and is almost a constitutional impropriety.
  • The Times, London, editorial about President Franklin D. Roosevelt's campaign in the South to influence voting in the forthcoming primary elections (August 16, 1938), p. 13.

• The White House almost certainly understands that a successful foreign policy rewards friends and punishes enemies, but the president can’t even get that right if he doesn’t know who his friends and enemies are.
  • Michael J. Totten, "The Trump Administration Just Stabbed the Kurds in the Front" (4 October 2017), Dispatches, World Affairs Journal

• There has been a lot of talk lately about the burdens of the Presidency. Decisions that the President has to make often affect the lives of tens of millions of people around the world, but that does not mean that they should take longer to make. Some men can make decisions and some cannot. Some men fret and delay under criticism. I used to have a saying that applies here, and I note that some people have picked it up, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."
  • Harry S. Truman, Mr. Citizen (1960), p. 229.

• When contemplating General Eisenhower winning the Presidential election, Truman said, "He'll sit here, and he'll say, 'Do this! Do that!' And nothing will happen. Poor Ike—it won't be a bit like the Army. He'll find it very frustrating".
  • Harry S. Truman, in Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power, the Politics of Leadership (1960), p. 9.

• The people can never understand why the President does not use his powers to make them behave. Well all the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.
  • Harry S. Truman, letter to Mary Jane Truman (14 November 1947)

• You know, the greatest epitaph in the country is here in Arizona. It's in Tombstone, Ariz., and this epitaph says, "Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damndest." I think that is the greatest epitaph a man could have. Whenever a man does the best he can, then that is all he can do; and that is what your President has been trying to do for the last 3 years for this country.
  • Harry S. Truman, remarks in Winslow, Arizona (June 15, 1948); in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, 1948, p. 356.

• The legislative job of the President is especially important to the people who have no special representatives to plead their cause before Congress—and that includes the great majority. I sometimes express it by saying the President is the only lobbyist that one hundred and fifty million Americans have. The other twenty million are able to employ people to represent them—and that's all right, it's the exercise of the right of petition—but someone has to look after the interests of the one hundred and fifty million that are left.
  • Harry S. Truman, speech to the Press and Union League Club, San Francisco, California (October 25, 1956); at p. 19–20 of transcript.

• You know, the United States Government turns its Chief Executive out to grass. They're just allowed to starve... If I hadn't inherited some property that finally paid things through, I'd be on relief now.
  • Harry S. Truman, interview with Edward R. Murrow on CBS Television (2 February 1958)

• I fired him because he wouldn't respect the authority of the president. That's the answer to that. I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail.
  • Harry S. Truman, on General Douglas MacArthur, as quoted in Plain Speaking : An Oral Biography of Harry S Truman (1974) by Merle Mille

• When you get to be President, there are all those things, the honors, the twenty-one gun salutes, all those things. You have to remember it isn't for you. It's for the Presidency.
  • Harry S. Truman, as quoted in Plain Speaking : An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman (1974) by Merle Miller, p. 228.

• I sleep each night a little better, a little more confidently because Lyndon Johnson is my President. For I know he lives and thinks and works to make sure that for all America and indeed, the growing body of the free world, the morning shall always come.
  • Jack Valenti, special assistant to the president, address before the Advertising Federation of America convention, Boston, Massachusetts (June 28, 1965), Congressional Record (July 7, 1965), vol. 111, Appendix, p. A3583.

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