John Anderson Quotes
When you are confronted with a genuine emergency, then I think you have to look at the interest of the country first.
The sectional and special interests and their money made that very difficult for most politicians to do.
John Anderson, U. S. Congressman (Republican, IL), Independent Candidate for President, Interview ABC, Issues and Answers, March 9, 1980
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
He was arguing that normal Constitutional limitations should not apply to the President in wartime.
The bipartisan Presidential Commission had unanimously made 41 recommendations to prevent future terrorist attacks. While the Bush Administration and Congress implemented a few many of the more critical ones were left unaddressed. The commission on its final day issued a report card giving failing grades to both the White House and the Republican-controlled Congress.
At the time Harrison, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was a Colonel serving under Washington. The war had been somewhat successful but the country was very weak and in great danger, and Washington and many others thought that Congress needed a better quality of leadership. Harrison’s son and great grandson would both become Presidents of the United States.
Forrestal was outraged when special interests and lobbies pressured Congress and the White House regarding the policies—especially the budget and spending policies of the Department of Defense. Ironically, he was accused of endangering national security by many—especially Southerners. He had racially integrated the Navy while Secretary of the Navy and as Defense Secretary he wanted to integrate the armed forces completely. The argument against integration was that unit cohesion and military effectiveness would decrease. If nothing else, large numbers of servicemen would not want to be in close proximity to Blacks and his would impair their military effectiveness. The same arguments were later made about the integration of women and then gays.
The things that makes this quotation historically important is how fast Cixi was adopting modern technology as a tool to manage the government and how she was managing day to day the significant international negotiations taking place on the other side of the earth. While in most areas Chinese bureaucracy was notorious for obstructionism and delay, Cixi maintained direct and almost real time control of the parts of the government that she felt most important. She resembled Abraham Lincoln in the sense that they both found innovative ways to use new technology to enable them to better and more directly manage and control the government.
America’s first political economist. This is a wonderful quotation which shows the compromises that even a great president like Abraham Lincoln had to act when Congress passed must have bills.
This point of view is contentious in that many people (usually those at the extreme left and extreme right) think that the intention of the founding fathers was to avoid a single executive from starting a war unilaterally. Congress was given the power to declare war—not the president. Arguably public opinion is reflected by Congress, but going to war, when public opinion has been opposed to it has always turned out badly in American History.
John Duncan Anderson AO is an Australian politician who was Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and leader of the National Party from 1999 to 2005. He was a member of the House of Representatives from 1989 to 2007, serving as Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (1996–1998) and Minister for Transport and Regional Development (1998–2005) in the Howard Government.
