Advisors Quotes
The only soldier ever so honored. MacArthur had a huge ego, and was a shameless self-promoter. However he was never secure enough to have a personal staff of strong independent thinkers the way Dwight Eisenhower and most other high military officers did. The men who stayed on MacArthur’s personal staff tended to be sycophants and toadies and treated him like royalty, hence the remark by General Marshall.
Short was a "Tea Party Republican" long before there was a Tea Party. He was a virulent opponent of FDR, the New Deal, and the Roosevelt Brain Trust. The anti intellectualism was even then not new. Long before Donald Trump and the Tea Party of 2016, there were conservatives who constantly attacked the unelected government appointees and Presidenial Advisors.
She assisted the Family of the Afghanistan President, Hamid Karzai in the early 2000s, hoping to establish a non-profit public service organization. Once it was operating she realized that the origination had a murkey accounting system and the "first family" was extracting money from the organization.
Hoover gave this report to President Lyndon Johnson. It was 11 pages long and provided no data or proof of the many accusations. Hoover viewed the entire Civil Rights Movement as part of the Communist initiative to weaken and undermine the United States. There were no Black FBI agents and Hoover himself was an inveterate racist. The FBI worked hand in hand with local police in the South and most agents supported legal racial segregation. Hoover’s definition of a Communist varied from time to time. Johnson worked closely with King after he had read this report and discussed it with some of his staff, so it may have been that Johnson didn’t believe the conclusions. Later historical analysis showed that there were two key people that were close to King who had early communist connections earlier. Both were active socialists at the time but neither was then involved with the Russian controlled American Communist party. The Official Position of the Communist Party was a strong anti-segregation program, and Hoover and most Southern Segregationists believed that all opponents of legal segregation—including demonstrators and marchers--were Communists or were organized and Controlled by the Communists.
This is the earliest use of “spin” and “spin doctors” in a political context that we have found.
1st Marquees of Halifax. This is a very important quotation because it still has much validity today. The “Prince” is the Monarch, King or Official Heading the State. Savile points out that if the Price does not take the time or make the effort to understand an issue and its complexity, he then must trust his advisors and their opinions rather than have any intelligent and knowledgeable views of his own. In modern times the advice applies to elected officials, executive and legislative. If they do not take time and make the effort to understand a complex issue, they cannot use their own judgment but must accept the judgment of staff, friends, colleagues, party leaders, lobbyists or members of committees who they hope are not also ignorant. In modern legislatures, there are so many different issues in so many areas, that it is very difficult to have the time to make the effort to study all the issues. This problem is compounded with politicians as they tend to spend large amounts of their time fundraising for their next election and simply do not have enough time to study issues. In the Congress for example, most members vote on bills that they have not even read and they end up trusting someone else’s judgment.
5th Marquis of Lansdowne. Nicholas II was very indecisive and was very easily persuadable.
Marquis of Lansdowne. What makes this quotation so noteworthy is the illustration of a political rarity. The leader of the country calls in a leading politician and asks for advice on a current political problem. Politicians almost always have advice to give even when it is not wanted or asked for. But the total number of occasions where the Politician had no good advice could be measured on the fingers of one hand. This is the most classic. The problem was that the previous government had collapsed for want of a majority of Parliament, and the Queen was seeking advice on which of the leading politicians she should ask to try and put a government together. However, no one was sure that any of the politicians could muster enough support to form a government, but everyone had an opinion except Lord Lansdowne.
