Robert Dallek Quotes

The art of diplomacy is finding a reasonable route among imperfect alternatives.

~ Robert Dallek

JFK to RFK: To survive in politics, you sometimes have to be willing to make fun of yourself.

~ Robert Dallek

Richard Nixon had a kind of Walter Mitty fantasy life. He was a man with a grandiose thoughts: dreams of not simply being president but maybe becoming one of the truly great presidents of American history.

~ Robert Dallek

Vietnam was a palpable failure. And of course, in retrospect, it was even more clearly a disaster and a failure than maybe people understood at the time.

~ Robert Dallek

Like Lyndon Johnson, President Obama understands that timidity in a time of troubles is a prescription for failure.

~ Robert Dallek

The consequence of the Bay of Pigs failure wasn't an acceptance of Castro and his control of Cuba but, rather, a renewed determination to bring him down by stealth.

~ Robert Dallek

Public scandals are America's favorite parlor sport. Learning about the flaws and misdeeds of the rich and famous seems to satisfy our egalitarian yearnings.

~ Robert Dallek

John F. Kennedy went to bed at 3:30 in the morning on November 9, 1960, uncertain whether he had defeated Richard Nixon for the presidency. He thought he had won, but six states hung in the balance, and after months of exhaustive campaigning, he was too tired to stay awake any longer.

~ Robert Dallek

Once the public loses confidence in a president's leadership at a time of war, once they don't trust him anymore, once his credibility is sharply diminished, how does he get it back?

~ Robert Dallek

Success in past U.S. conflicts has not been strictly the result of military leadership but rather the judgment of the president in choosing generals and setting broad strategy.

~ Robert Dallek

As someone who has more than a passing acquaintance with most of the 20th century presidents, I have often thought that their accomplishments have little staying power in shaping popular views of their leadership.

~ Robert Dallek

John Kennedy had so many different medical problems that began when he was a boy. He started out with intestinal problems... spastic colitis.

~ Robert Dallek

Concealing one's true medical condition from the voting public is a time-honored tradition of the American presidency.

~ Robert Dallek

Whatever the long-term legal prospects for same-sex marriage, President Obama's willingness to put the matter front and center in an election year can at least make him a candidate for inclusion in Kennedy's Profiles in Courage.

~ Robert Dallek

In 1800, in the first interparty contest, the Federalists warned that presidential candidate Thomas Jefferson, because of his sympathy expressed at the outset of the French Revolution, was 'the son of a half-breed Indian squaw' who would put opponents under the guillotine.

~ Robert Dallek

Obama's endorsement of gay marriage is hardly as consequential as Johnson's legislative success on civil rights.

~ Robert Dallek

When Gingrich attacked CNN's John King for bringing up his alleged proposal of an open marriage to his second wife, Gingrich accused him of lowering the level of discourse in a presidential debate, suggesting that such a discussion is unworthy of consideration by voters.

~ Robert Dallek

Vice President Biden's surprising declaration of unqualified support for gay marriage seems to have forced President Obama into a public endorsement of a controversial social issue. It is difficult not to suspect that Biden's pronouncement aimed to give the president some political cover.

~ Robert Dallek

Don't be intimidated by people who seem to be experts. Hear their points of view and get their judgements. But at the end of day, you've got to make a judgement because it's not their life that's going to be affected so much as your future.

~ Robert Dallek