Political Mistake Quotes
Ford gave the confidential interview under the condition that it would not be made public until after he passed away. It was published by the Washington Post on December 26, 2006 just after Ford died. Ex-President’s are very reluctant to criticize a current President---especially on a foreign policy issue.
Carter, who had his own share of blunders, may well have been right about this. History will have to judge.
Mrs. Roosevelt, on her own, would criticize the ethics of certain campaign techniques and would criticize them. However she doesn’t say publicly which party she was chastising—her Democrats or the Republicans. And she starts by honestly stating that both parties do this and she tells the readers that it is the campaign headquarters who go to these extremes. Her technique was very effective in that the political operatives who released the sleazy material knew who they were, and realized that if they kept doing it, people would find out that they were the villains. Very often they just stopped, and that was what Mrs. Roosevelt wanted. She wrote this two months before the Presidential elections without every checking with the campaign staff and leaders who read it in the newspapers every day like everyone else. Needless to say that they were not happy, but the President was fine with it and she has had more independence of action and writing than any First Lady in history. She even disagreed with the President slightly sometimes, but usually she was very supportive of FDR and the New Deal. It is hard for us years after to realize that she had a newspaper column published every day in papers throughout the country, she had a regular radio show. Her views reached more Americans every day than the President’s and the campaign staff’s. Her husband was elected to 4 terms—more than any other American President, and yet until Hillary Clinton, no first lady every had gotten overtly involved with public campaigning and political communications, and Mrs. Clinton was nowhere near as active or independent as Mrs. Roosevelt.
His reason for this statment (with which few others agreed) was that at best, the Special Prosecutor's investiation would distract the politicians, the media and the public from focussing on the great achievements of Trump and his administration, and at worst woud uncover some quasi scandal of Trump's years ago that would mortally damage is image and curtail or make innefective what Bannon thought was the most significant and important President in years. There were others who agreed about the consequense of the investigation but becasue Trump was probably guilty of dealing with the Russians improperly before he assumned the presidency and was mired in a hopeless tangle of business conflict of interest. To them, them curtailment of the Trump administration would be very good thing for the country so it could not have been a mistake for the nation, but for a sitting President the investigation and its aftermath mzy well prove to be a personal blunder although one that harmed Trump but benefitted the nation.
