52 Quotes by Michael Beschloss

This a person who can change the life of all of us, really, in the snap of a finger, by writing one word. And it's something that Americans are not as aware of because we don't hear that much about these people. We don't see them interact.

If James Madison were here today, Senator Byrd is exactly the kind of leader that he hoped the American Republic in the future would bring to power: someone of his stature and his learning and his understanding of history and philosophy. I think he would be very pleased.

In retrospect, I emotionally understand where Morgenthau is coming from, and I admire him for it. At the same time, Morgenthau's plan was too vindictive. In retrospect, if it had been instituted ... it would have left a vacuum for the Soviets.

As you look back in history, we [the United States] have done wonderful things, the Marshal Plan is the most obvious. After World War II, we spent billions of dollars to rebuild Europe or at least part of Europe after the devastation of World War II. We did it out of charity, but we also did it to keep the Russians from getting deeply into Europe.

Then you get to the last half of the 20th century, Americans are getting very skeptical about their leaders and their institutions, and another place that is affected is parties and conventions.

The founders were very worried that if parties developed in America, you might have something like the modern Italian system, where you have 20 different parties that divide Congress and the country and can't govern.

The Founding Fathers would be sorry to see that America had become so divided and factionalized.

We [the United States] are the world's only superpower right now, so everyone notices every bit of what we do or don't do.

So the result was that as one approached a political convention for most of the 19th century and for most of the 20th century until the 1960's, part of the drama was the fact that you didn't know ultimately who was going to be the nominee at the end of that convention week.