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PRESENT (THE) --- PRESENTS --- PRESIDENTS
(THE) PRESS --- PRESUME
PRETENDING

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PRESENT (THE)

see "TIME" for related links


It's not perfect, but to me on balance
Right Now is a lot better than the
Good Old Days.
--Maeve Binchy (1940- )
Irish novelist.
In "Irish Times" [15 November 1997]

-

"I'm alive," he [the camel driver] said to the boy,
as they ate a bunch of dates one night, with no fires
and no moon. "When I'm eating, that's all I think
about. If I'm on the march, I just concentrate on
marching. If I have to fight, it will be just as
good a day to die as any other.

"Because I don't live in either my past or my future.
I'm interested only in the present. If you can
concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy
man. You'll see that there is life in the desert,
that there are stars in the heavens, and that tribesmen
fight because they are part of the human race.

"Life will be a party for you, a grand festival,
because life is the moment we're living right now."

--Paulo Coelho (1947- )
Brazilian lyricist and novelist.
_The Alchemist_ [1993], Part II

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This time, like all times, if a very good
one, if we but know what to do with it.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
American philosopher and poet.
_The American Scholar_ [1837], sec. 3

Who controls the past controls the future:
who controls the present controls the past.
--George Orwell [Eric Blair] (1903-1950)
English novelist.
_Nineteen Eighty-Four_ [1949]

Past and to come seems best,
things present, worst.
--William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
English dramatist.
_Henry IV_ [1597]

We are tomorrow's past.
--Mary Webb (1881-1927)
English novelist.
_Precious Bane_, "Foreword"

-----

extant EK-stunt; ek-STANT, adjective:
Still existing; not destroyed, lost, or extinct.





PRESENTS

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see: "BIRTHDAYS"
see: "CHRISTMAS"
see: "GIFTS"
see: "SANTA CLAUS"


Your children need your presence
more than your presents.
--Jesse Jackson (1941— )
American Democratic politician and clergyman.

Presents, believe me, seduce both men and gods.
--Ovid [Publius Ovidius Naso] (43 B.C.—18 A.D.)
Roman poet.
_The Art of Love_

'Goodness, what beautiful diamonds!'
'Goodness had nothing to do with it!'
--Mae West (1893—1980)
American stage and film actress.
"Night After Night" [1932 film]



PRESIDENTS
Click picture to ZOOM

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see "POLITICS" for related links

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No man who ever held the office of President would
congratulate a friend on obtaining it. He will make
one man ungrateful, and a hundred men his enemies,
for every office he can bestow.
--John Adams (1735-1826)
First VP and second President of the United States.
After the election of his son, John Quincy Adams,
to the Presidency in 1824.


I pray Heaven bestow the best of blessings on this House
and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest
and wise men ever rule under this roof.
--John Adams (1735-1826)
First VP and second President of the United States.
In a prayer he offered as the first occupant of the
White House, November 2, 1800. (Franklin D.
Roosevelt had the prayer carved above the
fireplace in the State Dining Room in 1934 - GBAQ.}

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Ronald Reagan's election to the Presidency
would be a national disaster.
--Edmund G. "Pat" Brown (1905-1996)
American lawyer and politician.
_Reagan: The Political Chameleon_ [1976]

Europeans often ask, and Americans do not explain,
how it happens that this great office [of the President]
. . . is not more frequently filled by great and striking
men.
--James Bryce (1838-1922)
British politician, diplomat, and historian;
ambassador to the U.S. [1907-1913].
_The American Commonwealth_ [1888]

Somewhere out in the audience may even be someone who will
one day follow in my footsteps, and preside over the White
House as the President's spouse. I wish him well!
--Barbara Bush (1925- )
Wife of American the 41st U.S.president, George H.W. Bush
and mother of the 43rd president, Geowge W. Bush.
Remarks at Wellesley College commencement [1 June 1990].

I planted four trees in the White House garden.
I hope Reagan doesn't cut them down.
--Jimmy Carter (1924- )
American Democratic statesman, President [1977-1981].
In Zbigniew Brzezinski _Power and Principle_ [1983].

As for me, I'd rather be right than be President.
--Henry Clay (1777-1852)
American politician.
[14 February 1850]
Regarding the Compromise of 1850;
in M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.}
_History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 577.
Cohan & Major add:
When in 1890 Representative William M. Springer
invoked the by then classic words of Clay, he was
told by the speaker of the House, Thomas Brackett
Reed: 'Well, the gentleman need not be disturbed.
He will never be either.'

Tell the truth.
--Grover Cleveland (1837-1908)
22nd [1885-1889] and 24th [1893-1897]
President of the U.S..
On being asked by his campaign managers
what to do about the scandal centering on
his liason with Maria Halpin, quoted in
"Harper's Weekly" [16 August 1884].

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Like all strong Presidents he enraged the Congress
by sweeping and arbitrary acts that went, much of
the time, beyond the Constitution--or in any case
beyond the balance of presidential and Congressional
authority that is inevitably tipped in the President's
favor in time of war. Indeed, until he was dead,
Lincoln was never wildly popular.
--Alistair Cooke [Alfred Cooke] (1908-2004)
British-born American broadcater and journalist.
_America_ [1973]


There is a cheerful-looking bust of Jefferson in the Cabildo in New
Orleans, where the territorial transfer was signed. It ought to bear the
inscription, "Thomas Jefferson chuckled here." For although a President
cannot conclude a treaty with a foreign nation without the "advice and
consent of the Senate," Jefferson had advised and consented with
nobody. He never mentioned a word of the Louisiana Purchase to
Congress until it was settled. [ . . . ]

Of course it was unconstitutional. It was outrageous. But, in the end,
even a majority of Jefferson's enemies accepted it for the most reliable
of American reasons: it worked. Jefferson had more than doubled the
existing territory of the United States (a one hundred and forty percent
increase, to be exact). And for four cents an acre!

--Alistair Cooke [Alfred Cooke] (1908-2004)
British-born American broadcater and journalist.
_America_ [1973]

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^

Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), 30th
President of the United States [1923-1929].

President Coolidge had a group of guests on the
presidential yacht cruising the Potomac. As he
stood alone at the rail, looking out at the expanse
of water, someone exclaimed, 'Look at that slight
and slender figure! Look at that head, bowed over
the rail! What thoughts are in the mind of this
man, burdened by the problems of the nation?'
Finally, Coolidge turned around, and joined the
others, saying, 'See that sea gull over there?
Been watching it for twenty minutes. Hasn't
moved. I think he's dead!'

&

Soon after he had left the White House,
Coolidge had to fill out a form confirming
his membership in the National Press Club.
After writing his name and address, he
moved on to the space marked 'Occupation,'
in which he wrote 'Retired.' Next came
'Remarks,' Coolidge paused for a moment
and then wrote, 'Glad of it.'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

[Americans] no sooner set up an idol firmly than [they] are sure
to pull it down and dash it into fragments. ... Any man, who
attains a high place among you, from the President downward,
may date his downfall from that moment.
--Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
English novelist.
{In the 1840s.}

In the strongest language you can command you
can state that I have no political ambitions at
all. Make it even stronger than that if you can.
--Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969),
American Army General, supreme Allied commander WWII,
NATO commander, American President [1953-1961].
Commenting in Abilene, Kansas, June 22, 1945,
quoted in _Eisenhower Speaks_ [1948].

^^

How much power does the president actually have? Enormous power. In
foreign affairs, he is basically an elected four-year dictator. Especially since the
beginnings of the cold war, at the end of the Second World War, the president
and his minions have presided over a vast, secret, shadow government - a kind
of state within a state. Partly because of the foul seeds sown in the struggle
against communism, a monstrous, bloated structure arose, deep in the bowels
of a democratic society: a national security and intelligence apparatus, including
the CIA and its covert operations, all of this virtually unchecked and unbalanced,
with vast sums of money at its disposal. The public never saw it, never wanted
to see it; Congress dished out the money (hidden in various nooks and crannies
of the budget) and either blinded itself or was co-opted or approved or did not
care. All of this underground government answers, in theory, to the president.
The practice is no doubt more complex.

Congress, under the Constitution, has the power to declare war - the presdent
does not. But this is now only theory. The president, in fact, now always fires
the first shot. In the second half of the twentieth century, he was the one
who declared the wars; he decided on war or peace. In 1950 the North Koreans
crossed the 38th parallel into South Korea. This was a major crisis, and the
president, Harry S. Truman, responded to it - vigorously and immediately.
What followed was a real war, and a bloody one; real people died; real armies
clashed; but Congress never "declared" it a war. Since then, the United States
has deployed armies many times - in Vietnam, in Grenada, in the Persian Gulf,
in Yugoslavia. Never once has Congress made the first move; never has it voted
to declare a war. President Kennedy backed an ill-fated invasion of Cuba, which
came to grief at the Bay of Pigs. This was only the most notorious of many
actions which a whole series of presidents planned, connived at, or arranged
during the cold war - a whole series of dirty, covert, warlike moves, many of
which amounted (legally) to acts of war. Congress did enact a War Powers
Resolution in 1973, insisting that the president had to "consult with Congress,"
if at all possible, before sending troops "into hostilities." But this is mostly
sound and fury, signifying nothing. For the most part, in foreign affairs both
Congress and the public accept the imperial presidency.

Of course, even dictators take public opinion into account; and presidents
certainly do. In this country what people think and feel and want can be a
powerful restraint on the president's power. It matters what people say on the
street, in barber shops, in town meetings, and in letters to the editor. Sit-ins,
riots, demonstrations, and other acts of civil disobedience also matter. It was
public opinion, not law, that brought down President Lyndon Johnson and
ended the war in Vietnam. The formal law was toothless and unavailing.

The president, in domestic affairs, is extraordinarily powerful, too; but he
is definitely not above the law. An instructive instance was the famous steel
seizure case. The president was the same Harry Truman who took the country
into the Korean War - a move few people really questioned. In 1951, in the
midst of this war, steel companies and their unions locked horns over a work
contract. Attempts to mediate the controversy failed. In April 1952 the United
Steelworkers announced an intention to strike. The president ordered the
secretary of commerce to seize the steel mills. Management was told to keep
the mills going, under presidential rule. Truman told Congress what he had
done. Congress did nothing one way or another.

The steel industry now went to court. No statute authorized the president
to seize steel mills. But a war was going on - an undeclared one, to be sure.
Truman insisted that his authority to carry on the war gave him inherent power
to act as he had. Six justices of the Supreme Court disagreed. Truman had
overstepped the bounds. Only Congress could have ordered or authorized the
seizure; and Congress had specifically refused. A generation later, in United
States v. Nixon (1974), in the midst of the Watergate scandal, the Supreme
Court again solemnly (and this time unanimously) declared that the president
was not above the law. The president had to answer a subpoena demanding
that he release certain tape-recordings of conversations in his office. And in the
case of Paula Jones, the Supreme Court (again unanimously) allowed a lawsuit
against President Clinton (for sexual harassment) to proceed. The incident had
happened long before Clinton became president. A sitting president, said the
Court, has to answer for claims, so long as they do not arise out of his official
conduct.

America can be proud of these cases, of course. Nobody is above the law,
not even the man in the White House, the man with his finger on the atomic
button, the man with the red telephone, the leader of the free world. These
cases were a ringing endorsement of the rule of law.

--Lawrence M. Friedman (1930- )
_American Law in the 20th Century_ [2002]
Ch. 20 "Taking Stock" pp. 599-601.

^^

The vice-presidency isn't worth a pitcher
of warm piss.
--John Nance Garner (1868-1967)
American Democratic politician.
In O.C. Fisher _Cactus Jack_ [1978].

Every President needs his son of
a bitch, and I'm Nixon's.
--H.R. Haldeman (1926-1993)
American political aide and businessman.
[30 August 1973]

He [Theodore Roosevelt] was very likeable, a big
figure, a rather ordinary intellect, with extraordinary
gifts, a shrewd and I think pretty unscrupulous
politician. He played all his cards--if not more.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935)
Justice of the United States Supreme Court,
legal historian, and philosopher.
In a letter to Sir Frederick Pollack, quoted in
Catherine Drinker Bowen _Yankee from Olympus_ [1944].

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I have no ambition to govern men. It is
a painful and thankless office.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
American statesman and president [1801-1809].
In a letter to John Adams [28 December 1796].


The perpetual reeligibility of the President, I fear,
will make an office for life, and then hereditary.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
American statesman and president [1801-1809].
In a letter to George Washington [4 March 1788].


The danger is that the indulgence and attachments of
the people will keep a man in the chair after he becomes
a dotard. . . .General Washington set the example of
voluntary retirement after eight years. I shall follow
it. And a few more precedents will oppose the obstacle
of habit to any one after awhile who shall endeavor
to extend his term.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
American statesman and president [1801-1809].
In a letter to John Taylor [6 January 1805].

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It is true that a house divided against itself is a
house that cannot stand. There is a division in the
American house now and believing this as I do, I
have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency
to become involved in the partisan divisions that are
developing in this political year. Accordingly, I shall
not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my
party for another term as your President.
--Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973)
American Democratic statesman, President [1963-1969].
[31 March 1968]


I knew from the start if I left a woman I really
loved--the Great Society--in order to fight that
bitch of a war. . . then I would lose everything
at home. My hopes. . . my dreams.
--Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973)
American Democratic statesman, President [1963-1969].
In Doris Kearns,
_Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream_ [1976].

-

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike,
that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans --
born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter
peace, proud of our ancient heritage -- and unwilling to witness or
permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has
always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home
and around the world. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well
or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship,
support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success
of liberty.
--John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963)
American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [1961-1963].
In his inaugural address [20 January 1961].

Washington ensured the survival of the world's first
modern democracy. He was the Commander-in-Chief
that the Revolutionaries had expected him to be but,
more than that, he was the man who would not be
king.
--William Martin,
"George Washington: The Man Who Wouldn't be King."
PBS television documentary [1992]

-

When the President does it, that means it's not illegal.
--Richard Nixon (1913-1994)
American Republican statesman, President [1969-1974].
David Frost television interview [20 May 1977].


I let down my friends, I let down my country. I
let down our system of government.
--Richard Nixon (1913-1994)
American Republican statesman, President [1969-1974].
In "The Observer" `Sayings of the Week' [8 May 1977].


You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore
because, gentlemen, this is my last press
conference.
--Richard Nixon (1913-1994)
American Republican statesman, President [1969-1974].
Speaking to reporters after conceding defeat in
his campaign for governor of California [7 November 1962].

-

You can always get the truth from an American
statesman after he has turned seventy, or given
up all hope of the Presidency.
--Wendell Phillips (1811-1884)
American abolitionist and reformer.
In an address in Boston, Massachusetts [7 November 1860].

[He has] the backbone of a chocolate ιclair.
--Thomas Brackett Reed (1839-1902)
American lawyer and politician.
Describing William McKinley [April 1898] -
also attributed to Theodore Roosevelt about
McKinley.

I doubt if Eisenhower can stand a second
term and I doubt if the country can stand
Nixon as President.
--Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)
American human rights activist, diplomat, and
wife of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
In a letter to Lord Elibank [20 January 1956],
quoted in Joseph P. Lash
_Eleanor: The Years Alone_ [1972].

Needless to say, the President is correct. Whatever it was he said.
--Donald Rumsfeld (1932- )
American Secretary of Defense [1975-1977] & [2001-2006].

I will not accept if nominated and will
not serve if elected.
--William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891)
American Union general.
Telegram to Gen. Henderson at the Republican
National Convention, Chicago [5 June 1884].

Last night the moon, the stars and all the planets
fell on me. If you fellows ever pray, pray for me.
--Harry S. Truman (1884-1972)
American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [1945-1953].
Speaking to reporters on the day after succeding
to the presidency [13 April 1945].

His philosophical approach is superficial, overly simplistic,
one-dimensional. What he preaches is pure economic pap,
glossed over with uplifting homilies and inspirational
chatter. Yet so far the guy is making it work. Appalled by
what seems to me a lack of depth, I stand in awe never-
theless of his political skill. I am not sure that I have
seen its equal.
--Jim Wright Jr. (1922- )
American politician.
(Of Ronald Reagan.)

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Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?
--Chant of Vietnam War protestors, mid-1960s




(THE) PRESS

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see "JOURNALISM" for related links


There is a photographer in every bush, going about
like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
--Samuel Butler (1835—1902)
English novelist, essayist, and critic.
_Notebooks_ [1912], "Unprofessional Sermons"

A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but,
most certainly without freedom, the press will
never be anything but bad.
--Albert Camus (1913—1960)
French novelist, dramatist, and essayist who won
the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature.

I must say I try not to read the newspapers at all.
I think they cause brain-damage..we don't know
how bad for us the information is that bombards
us every day. I work on the view that if something
really significant has happened somebody'll tell
you about it.
--Blanche d'Alpuget (1944— )
Australian novelist and biographer.
Interviewed in _Rooms of their Own_ [1986].

The Press, Watson, is a most valuable institution,
if you only know how to use it.
--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859—1930)
Scottish-born writer of detective fiction.
_The Adventure of the Six Napoleons_ [1904]

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a
month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier
for it.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].

The gallery in which the reporters sit has
become a fourth estate of the realm.
--Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800—1859)
English politician and historian.

The main business of the Press, supposedly is
news. If news is what happened yesterday, the
newspapers print an awful lot of phoney news.
News is what the Press produces. Most of the
world's "news" is manufactured by the Press
itself: interviews with important men, reports
on grave situations, political surveys, "informed
speculation", etc. A large part of the Press has
in effect abandoned the pretence of dealing
exclusively with facts.
--T.S. Matthews (1901-1991)
American editor of Time magazine.
Quoted in Jacques Barzun, _From Dawn to Decadence_ [2000].

-

Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic disease of the 20th century
and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press.
In-depth analysis of a problem is anathema to the press. It stops at
sensational formulas.

Such as it is, however, the press has become the greatest power within
the Western countries, more powerful than the legislature, the executive
and the judiciary. One would then like to ask: by what law has it been
elected and to whom is it responsible? In the communist East a
journalist is frankly appointed as a state official. But who has granted
Western journalists their power, for how long a time and with what
prerogatives?

--Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918— )
Russian novelist.
"A World Split Apart," Address to Harvard Class
Day Afternoon Exercises [8 June 1978].

-

If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed
by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked,
or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the
Western Railroad, or one lot of grasshoppers in the
winter — we never need read of another. One is enough
...We should treat our minds, that is, ourselves, as
innocent and ingenious children, whose guardians we
are, and be careful what objects and what subjects
we thrust on their attention. Read not the Times.
Read the Eternities.
--Henry David Thoreau (1817—1862)
American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher.
_Walden_, or _Life in the Woods_ [1854]

In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the
liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to
submit to the inevitable evils that it creates.
--Alexis de Tocqueville (1805—1859)
French historian and politician.

Journalism justifies its own existence by the great
Darwinian principle of the survival of the vulgarest.
--Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)
Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet.

-

A Guide to American Newspaper Readership.

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The New York Times is read by people who think they run the country.
3. The Washington Post is read by people who think they ought to run the country.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but can't
understand the Washington Post.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country,
if they could spare the time.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country.
7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running
the country.
8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country,
as long as they do something scandalous.
9. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country,
or that anyone is running it.
10. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country.

--anon.

-




PRESUME

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He that knows least commonly presumes most.
--Thomas Fuller (1654-1734)
English writer and physician




PRETENDING

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.

see "DECEPTION" for related links


To act with common sense according to the moment, is
the best wisdom I know; and the best philosophy is to
do one's duties, take the world as it comes, submit
respectfully to one's lot; bless the goodness that
has given us so much happiness with it, whatever it
is; and despise affectation.
--Horace Walpole (1717-1797)
English writer and connoisseur


end page




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