Rituals, anthropologists will tell us, are about transformation. The rituals we use for marriage, baptism or inaugurating a president are as elaborate as they are because we associate the ritual with a major life passage, the crossing of a critical threshold, or in other words, with transformation.
ADMINISTRATION, n. An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. A man of straw, proof against bad-egging and dead-catting.
The president and the executive branch are always going to have greater latitude and greater authority when it comes to protecting America because sometimes you just have to respond quickly and not everything that is a danger can be publicized and be subject to open debate, but there have to be some guardrails.
I heard somebody say, 'Where's (Nelson) Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead. Because Saddam killed all the Mandelas. --George W. Bush, on the former South African president, who is still very much alive, Washington, D.C., Sept. 20, 2007
I love Obama. He's my favorite president of all time. I have a giant picture in my apartment in New York that is of his Chicago Tribune cover, Mr. President.
Both President Kennedy and President Reagan were roundly criticized by parts of the foreign policy establishment that felt they were being weak by engaging our adversaries. So some of it is built into a political lexicon that makes you sound tougher if you don't talk to somebody, and rather, very loudly, wield a big stick.
Around the world, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela -- what they did was hard. It takes time. It takes more than a single term. It takes more than a single president. It takes more than a single individual.
The Presidents Woodruff and Smith both said they were willing for such a ceremony to occur, if done in Mexico, and Pres. Woodruff promised the Lord's blessing to follow such an act.