Quotes by Robert Dallek - Page 3 | QuoteForever

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At the end of their first years, there are few people who would have predicted that Truman would be elected in 1948 or that Reagan would get a second term. It's always premature to make some kind of categorical judgment after the first year in office.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Term
Truman
Categorical
Few People
People End Always
Predicted
Second Term
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McGeorge Bundy was a brilliant man who'd had a meteoric academic career and was the youngest man ever to be dean of the Harvard faculty. But he was also arrogant and looked upon all sorts of people and politicians as not to be taken all that seriously.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Academic
Arrogant
Brilliant
Dean
Faculty
Harvard
Politicians
Youngest
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Late 19th-century populists saw bankers and industrialists manipulating markets to enrich themselves at the expense of small farmers and labourers and favoured political candidates promising economic relief through free and unlimited coinage of silver.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Bankers
Candidates
Relief
Silver
Unlimited
Enrich
Expense
Manipulating
Promising
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Ronald Reagan in foreign affairs, I think, was someone who had certain, very general ideas, general propositions by which he lives: To combat communism, to build up the American military power to assure our national security against any conceivable threat.
Robert Dallek / Historian
American Military
Combat
Communism
Foreign Affairs
Military Power
National Security
Affairs
Assure
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Few American presidents are held in higher esteem than Thomas Jefferson. Though historians have scrutinized every phase of his long public career and found him wanting in a number of respects, he holds an unshakable place in the pantheon of American heroes.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Esteem
Higher
Unshakable
Heroes
Held
Historians
Holds
Jefferson
Phase
Presidents
Respects
Scrutinized
Thomas
Wanting
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The lifelong health problems of John F. Kennedy constitute one of the best-kept secrets of recent U.S. history - no surprise, because if the extent of those problems had been revealed while he was alive, his presidential ambitions would likely have been dashed.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Alive
Ambition
Health Problems
Lifelong
Presidential
Surprise
Constitute
Dashed
Extent
John
Likely
Recent
Revealed
Secrets
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When Gingrich attacked CNN's John King for bringing up his alleged proposal of an open marriage to his second wife, Gingrich accused him of lowering the level of discourse in a presidential debate, suggesting that such a discussion is unworthy of consideration by voters.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Accused
Cnn
Consideration
Debate
Discourse
Presidential
Proposal
Suggesting
Unworthy
Voters
Alleged
Attacked
Bringing
Gingrich
Lowering
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Kennedy saw the presidency as the vital center of government, and a president's primary goal as galvanizing commitments to constructive change. He aimed to move the country and the world toward a more peaceful future, not just through legislation but through inspiration.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Constructive
Inspiration
Legislation
Peaceful
Presidency
Center
Commitments
Primary Goal
Vital
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In 1800, in the first interparty contest, the Federalists warned that presidential candidate Thomas Jefferson, because of his sympathy expressed at the outset of the French Revolution, was 'the son of a half-breed Indian squaw' who would put opponents under the guillotine.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Sympathy
French Revolution
Indian
Opponents
Presidential
Revolution
Candidate
Contest
French
Expressed
Jefferson
Outset
Thomas
Warned
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A national government using New Deal programs and the massive defense spending beginning with World War II and continuing through the Cold War was Johnson's vehicle for expanding the Southern economy and making it, as he hoped, one of the more prosperous regions of the country.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Cold
Cold War
Continuing
Defense
Economy
Expanding
Johnson
Massive
New Deal
Prosperous
Regions
Southern
Spending
Vehicle
World War Ii
War Government World
Beginning
Hoped
Programs
World War
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The so-called second New Deal of 1935 - including the Works Progress Administration, Social Security and the Wagner Act legalizing union labor - represented an effort to meet the rising voices demanding a more aggressive government approach to the collapse of national prosperity.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Government
Administration
Aggressive
Approach
Collapse
Effort
Including
Labor
New Deal
Progress
Prosperity
Rising
Security
Social Security
Wagner
Act
Works
Deal
Demanding
Meet
National
Union
Second
So-Called
Voices
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John F. Kennedy went to bed at 3:30 in the morning on November 9, 1960, uncertain whether he had defeated Richard Nixon for the presidency. He thought he had won, but six states hung in the balance, and after months of exhaustive campaigning, he was too tired to stay awake any longer.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Awake
Balance
Bed
Campaigning
Defeated
Hung
Months
November
Presidency
Six
States
Tired
Uncertain
Stay
Won
Exhaustive
Richard
John
Longer
Nixon
Richard Nixon
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Vice President Biden's surprising declaration of unqualified support for gay marriage seems to have forced President Obama into a public endorsement of a controversial social issue. It is difficult not to suspect that Biden's pronouncement aimed to give the president some political cover.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Marriage
Controversial
Declaration
Difficult
Gay Marriage
President
President Obama
Seems
Social
Support
Surprising
Unqualified
Vice President
Obama
Public
Cover
Endorsement
Forced
Issue
Suspect
Vice
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Clinton's egregious act of self-indulgence was outdone by an impeachment based not on constitutionally required high crimes and misdemeanors but on a vindictive determination to bring down a president who had offended self-righteous moralists eager to put a different political agenda in place.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Clinton
Determination
Impeachment
Offended
Self Righteous
Vindictive
Crimes
Eager
Political Agenda
Required
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One doesn't simply write about Lyndon Johnson. You get the Johnson treatment from beyond the grave - arm around you, nose to nose. I should admit that he also reminds me of my father, quite an overbearing and narcissistic character. And in some ways, he reminds me of myself. Another workaholic.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Character
Father
Johnson
Narcissistic
Treatment
Workaholic
Writing
Myself Character Me
Admit
Arm
Grave
Lyndon
Lyndon Johnson
Nose
Reminds
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Lyndon Johnson is not a comfortable model for President Obama to imitate. He is an all-but-forgotten president - pilloried for the failed war in Vietnam and criticized for grandiose reforms conservatives denounce as the epitome of federal social engineering that costs too much and does too little.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Comfortable
Engineering
Epitome
Grandiose
Johnson
President Obama
Social Engineering
Too Much
Vietnam
Obama
Conservatives
Criticized
Denounce
Failed
Model
Imitate
Reforms
Lyndon
Lyndon Johnson
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As for Vietnam, what matters is that Kennedy successfully resisted pressure to send anything more than military advisers, a stance that was a likely prelude to complete withdrawal from the conflict. There is solid evidence of his eagerness to end America's military role in that country's civil war.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Adviser
Civil War
Conflict
Eagerness
Evidence
Military
Prelude
Pressure
Stance
Vietnam
Withdrawal
Civil
Complete
War Country America
Matters
Likely
Solid
Resisted
Role
Send
Successfully
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Compared with other recent presidents whose stumbles and failures have assaulted the national self-esteem, memories of Kennedy continue to give the country faith that its better days are ahead. That's been reason enough to discount his limitations and remain enamored of his presidential performance.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Enamored
Memories
Presidential
Self Esteem
Ahead
Assaulted
Discount
Performance
Limitations
Recent
Remain
Whose
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Besieged by lawsuits that threatened to engulf almost everyone at the White House, Clinton assistants shunned paper or e-mail records of their daily deliberations. One told me that he would go down the hall to confer with his division chief face to face rather than discuss an issue on the telephone.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Assistants
Clinton
Division
Paper
Threatened
White House
Almost Everyone
Chief
Discuss
Hall
Lawsuits
Shunned
Telephone
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During Grover Cleveland's second term, in the 1890s, the White House deceived the public by dismissing allegations that surgeons had removed a cancerous growth from the President's mouth; a vulcanized-rubber prosthesis disguised the absence of much of Cleveland's upper left jaw and part of his palate.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Absence
Allegations
Cleveland
Deceived
Palate
Term
White House
Disguised
Jaw
Mouth
Second Term
Upper
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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.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Foe
Foreign Policy
Furious
Locked
Outraged
Party
Policy
Presidency
Representatives
Series
Truman
Considered
Side
Domestic
Enduring
Republicans
Saw
Issue
Wrong Side
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Despite all the public hand-wringing about negative advertising, political veterans will tell you that it persists because, more often than not, it works. But tearing down the other guy has another attraction: It can be a substitute for building much of a case for what the mudslinger will do once in office.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Advertising
Attraction
Substitute
Persists
Tearing
Veterans
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To be sure, Kennedy did not discount the importance of words in rallying the nation to meet its foreign and domestic challenges. Winston Churchill's powerful exhortations during World War II set a standard he had long admired. Kennedy was hardly unmindful of how important a great inaugural address could be.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Importance
Powerful
Rallying
World War Ii
Address
War Great World
Admired
Churchill
Discount
Domestic
Foreign
Hardly
Meet
Standard
Winston
World War
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I think the most important thing that comes out of the meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt in early 1942 is a commitment on Roosevelt's part to fight Europe first. To struggle first against Germany and put Japan and the Pacific as a secondary theatre in the conflict. And this is what Churchill was after.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Conflict
Germany
Japan
Pacific
Churchill
Important Thing
Meeting
Most Important Thing
Roosevelt
Secondary
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Herbert Hoover was a man of genuine, fine character, but he lacked practical political sense. And he couldn't bend and shift and change with the requirements of the time. And he was a ruined President, because he was such a, I think, stiff-backed ideologue. And I think that speaks volumes about his character.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Genuine
Hoover
Requirements
Ruined
Bend
Change Time Character
Herbert
Practical
Shift
Speaks
Volumes
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The rise of the Tea Party, along with the emergence of Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, Sharron Angle in Nevada, Carl Paladino in New York and Ron Paul in Kentucky, is not the first time in American history that voters have responded to hard economic times by supporting angry, unorthodox Senate and gubernatorial candidates.
Robert Dallek / Historian
New York
American History
Angle
Candidates
Christine
Delaware
Economic
Emergence
First Time
Nevada
Party
Senate
Tea Party
Unorthodox
Voters
Rise
Economic Times
Paul
Ron
Supporting
York
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The CIA's official history of the Bay of Pigs operation is filled with dramatic and harrowing details that not only lay bare the strategic, logistical, and political problems that doomed the invasion, but also how the still-green President John F. Kennedy scrambled to keep the U.S. from entering into a full conflict with Cuba.
Robert Dallek / Historian
Cia
Conflict
Cuba
Details
Doomed
Dramatic
Entering
Filled
Invasion
Pigs
Strategic
Bare
Bay
Harrowing
John
Lay
Logistical
Official
Operation
Scrambled
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