It would be great if politics were fact-based, but it is not, and it is surely not nuance-based. What works in a classroom or a think tank does not work on Capitol Hill or in the White House. Obama sometimes seems to be running the Brookings Institution, not the country. – Jon Meacham
World War II ended the Great Depression with one of the great public-private industrial collaborations in the history of man. – Jon Meacham
The power of the American system of republicanism lies in its capacity to allow religious belief to be a competing, not a controlling, factor in American life. – Jon Meacham
From Jefferson to Jackson to Lincoln to FDR to Reagan, every great president inspires enormous affection and enormous hostility. Well all be much saner, I think, if we remember that history is full of surprises and things that seemed absolutely certain one day are often unimaginable the next. – Jon Meacham
American influence in the world is certainly considerable, but the United States does not control, directly or indirectly, the politics and economics of other societies, as empires have always done, save for a few special cases that turn out to be the exceptions that prove the rule. – Michael Mandelbaum