institutional
core – White House staff Cabinet
understood – wanted
Reading Doris Kearns Godwin’s book on LBJ, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (Copyright © 1976, 1991), I was stopped by this paragraph that she wrote about the Presidency of John F. Kennedy.
Ms. Godwin wrote:
The most important decision a President makes concerns what he wants to do with the office, what range of issues he wants to recognize. The challenge is to create boundaries for the office, to select among possible goals. John Kennedy had set that agenda for his successor: tax reduction, the civil rights bill, federal aid to education, executive action to improve life in the cities, medical care for the aged, and plans for a poverty program. In the two years and ten months before November, 1963, Kennedy had denned for himself and for his Presidency a series of purposes, or what Richard Neustadt calls “irreversible commitments to denned courses of action.” The commitments implied the selection of a particular clientele and the shaping of an institutional core – a White House staff and a Cabinet – that understood the kind of Presidency John Kennedy wanted.
I could not help but updated the passage for today.
Trump had denned for himself and for his Presidency a series of purposes, or what Richard Neustadt calls “irreversible commitments to denned courses of action.” The commitments implied the selection of a particular clientele and the shaping of an institutional core – a White House staff and a Cabinet – that understood the kind of Presidency Donald Trump wanted.
Kind of frightening in a way.
Explains much.
Consider the list of commitments compiled for JFK.
- tax reduction
- the civil rights bill
- federal aid to education
- executive action to improve life in the cities
- medical care for the aged
- plans for a poverty program
hmmmmmmmmmmmm
To quote Francis Urquhart, “You might very well think that – I couldn’t possibly comment.”
No Haiku For You 