Dictatorial Rule Quotes
During the Civil War, General Joseph Hooker castigated the President and called for a dictator to assume power:
FDR was a marvelous judge of men and their character. De Gaulle could not separate himself from France and pushed the French Republic towards one man rule (himself) as much as anyone since Napoleon Bonaparte.
At the time of this statement most people thought that Bush was joking. But by the end of his Presidency many looked back on the quote and thought that Bush had such preferences. He unilaterally took the country into the Iraq War and assumed Presidential Powers that no other president had ever attempted. Most serious, his administration actually took the formal legal position that the President did not have to obey the law if he unilaterally thought that it was not in the nation’s interest from the point of view of the Commander in Chief. So many debate whether this quotation was a light hearted joke of a harbinger of his real feelings about the Presidency.
Historically, most dictators have announced their worst intentions and in many cases were not believed by much of the world who then learned that they had made a serious error.
There was a rumor that Napoleon BonaparteII, Emperor of the French, was seriously ill, and when asked what the complaint was, a distinguished foreign guest remarked:
