Politicians have done some grim things in pursuit of the office. President Franklin Roosevelt was a philanderer; nevertheless, he pushed aides to use his opponent Wendell Wilkie's affairs to hurt him. He even tutored aides on how to spread rumors without getting caught.
An old theory holds that air conditioning ruined Congress. Members no longer had to flee the Washington heat to spend the summer back home. The long vacation forced them to bond with their constituents.
The culture of undermining sends signals of disrespect. This approach not only saps motivation and undermines teamwork, it also lowers the motivation to work extra hours anticipating what can go wrong.
Using the term 'locker room talk' blurs the line between what is criminal and what is simply oafish. That's not a line anyone should want blurred.
Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.
When former Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote his recent book, 'Duty', it was full of tough assessments and candor.
In the modern presidency, the Chief Executive is expected to respond to anxious national moments with words that stabilize the country. President Trump chose a different route. He did not give a stirring speech of unity or create a national gathering point around common ideals. He spent his passion on other things.
In 1840, William Henry Harrison is the first one to really campaign as a candidate, and the campaigns were totally frivolous. I mean, people were drinking hard cider all day. They were big parades; no one was debating the issues.
If you have children and want to give your future self a present, record their laughter as toddlers. When they're older and away from you, you might find that clip in the middle of the day, and it will transport you as surely as if you had a time machine.
In the end, Obama won, stealing the change message from John Edwards and beating back Hillary Clinton's focus on experience. And the race turned on a remarkable speech Obama gave on the night of Nov. 10, 2007, in Des Moines.
Chess masters don't evaluate all the possible moves. They know how to discard 98 percent of the ones they could make and then focus on the best choice of the remaining lot. That's the way expertise works in other fields, too: Wise practitioners recognize familiar patterns and put their creativity, improvisation, and skill toward the marginal cases.
If Michael Flynn lost his job because of a gradual erosion of trust, shouldn't the easy and frequent production of official statements that are so many connecting flights from the truth also be concerning?
I believe that Jesus Christ existed and that He died for my sins. And I believe that what He said in the Gospels is a model for the way I should try to lead my life and that I will always fall short of that and, therefore, need Him to redeem me.
The walls of our upstairs hallway testify that we once had photogenic children. There are rows of framed pictures that show them playing baseball, basketball, holding a toad, and smiling in the sunlight at their eager parents. Everything is orderly and bright.
When the campaign ends, and you are home, the alarm clock is the same, but you don't know where to start after it goes off: expense reports, new stories, the crusted paint cans that have to go to the hazardous-waste disposal site, the wiper blade on the Honda that has gone droopy.
Mitt Romney won the GOP nomination on a platform of 'self-deportation' for illegal immigrants - and the Obama team never let Hispanics forget it. The Obama campaign also branded Republicans with Romney's ill-chosen words about 47 percent of Americans as the party of uncaring millionaires.
Comey worried that the pressure from Trump to end the Flynn investigation or remove the 'cloud' of the larger investigation would 'infect' the investigation if he let others working on the case know about it. You don't need to believe the particulars of each exchange to see that this mode of management was not productive to a larger purpose.
That's what politics is. It's the story of what's happening, what does it mean, what's the conclusion, who are the interesting characters?
Today, campaigning isn't an 'interruption' but a permanent condition. Indeed, if you are a successful campaigner, it's expected you'll be a successful president.
Expectations shouldn't be lowered, even if Donald Trump was just telling stories to impress the crowd around him and never grabbed as many women as he suggested. Lower the bar for what you can talk about, and you lower the bar for what is acceptable behavior.
