Quote of the Day (Adlai Stevenson, on ‘The Size of a Man’)

“You can tell the size of a man by the size of the thing that makes him mad.”—Illinois Governor, Democratic Presidential nominee, and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson II (1900-1965), “Faith in Liberalism” (Address to the State Committee of the Liberal Party in New York City), Aug. 28, 1952

Quote of the Day (Adlai Stevenson, on ‘Those Who Corrupt the Public Mind’)

“Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.”—Adlai Stevenson Jr. (1900-1965), Illinois governor, two-time Democratic Presidential candidate, and American ambassador to the United Nations, in the campaign speech, “On Communism,” delivered in Albuquerque, N.M., on Sept. 12, 1952, in Speeches (1952)

Gov. Stevenson could hardly have conceived that at least one corrupter of “the public mind”—i.e., a demagogue-- could do so precisely as a means of stealing from the public purse—through violating the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution, that is.

Quote of the Day (Adlai Stevenson, on a Wise Man and History)

“A wise man does not try to hurry history. Many wars have been avoided by patience, and many have been precipitated by reckless haste.”—Adlai Stevenson, Speeches of Adlai Stevenson (1952)

Both Stevenson and the man who defeated him twice for the Presidency, Dwight Eisenhower, were sober statesmen who, whatever their failings, exhibited caution near the start of the perilous Cold War. 

The same cannot be said for the current occupant of the Oval Office, who, over the past year, has escalated an already fraught situation with North Korea into one more reminiscent of schoolyard taunting and sessions on a psychiatrist’s couch.

This President knows neither patience nor history. His office and his country have already suffered for this knowledge and character deficit. The question now is whether the world will.

Quote of the Day (Adlai Stevenson, on Flattery)

“I have sometimes said that flattery is all right, Mr. President, if you don't inhale it.” —Opening sentence of American politician Adlai Stevenson Jr.'s first appearance as the American Ambassador to the UN, February 1, 1961, in Looking Outward: Years of Crisis at The United Nations (1963)

Quote of the Day (Adlai Stevenson, With Words for Today’s Stuck-on-Stupid Politicos)

“Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.”—Democratic Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965), speech in Denver, Colo., September 5, 1952

Americans have been learning this truth the hard way the last several weeks, as the debate over raising the debt limit reveals our current system of government exhibiting all of the symptoms of what political commentator Jonathan Rauch has called “demosclerosis”—i.e., the growing inability to adapt and deal effectively with the nation's problems.

Republicans and Democrats alike have brought us to this pass through overly close adherence to the moneyed interests that fuel their campaigns. Now, after promising these vested interests everything their little hearts desire, these politicos find they may have to eat their promises and words. As Adlai Stevenson foresaw nearly 60 years ago, this is seldom a heartening spectacle.

Quote of the Day (Adlai Stevenson, on Mudslinging)

“When you sling mud, you lose ground.”—Attributed to Illinois governor and unsuccessful Presidential candidate Adlai E. Stevenson Jr. (1900-1965)

If that were true, mudslinging would have been retired as a practice after the election of 1800, when supporters of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson retailed the worst kinds of rumors about the two friends-turned-Presidential rivals.

No, mudslinging still exists today because, used carefully, it works. Now, they simply call it “opposition research”--the same principle, only dressed up in a white collar.

What doesn’t work is using your own filthy-rich campaign funds to assault the airwaves. Voters don’t mind the subtly planted false rumor that can take on a life of its own (the electorate loves hearing preposterous stuff that helps them exercise their imaginations).

But they really object to hearing the same darn thing 10 million times a day. That might explain why we’re not hearing more, the day after the election, from the likes of Carl Palladino, Meg Whitman, etc.