“Bill Clinton sitting on Air Force One getting his hair cut while people around the country cooled their heels and waited for him, became a metaphor for a populist president who had gotten drunk with the perks of his own power and was sort of, you know, not sensitive to what people wanted.”
Tip: press → for another quote, C to copy, S to share.
The exposed nature of life in the public square affects leaders' attitudes toward risk - and failure.
It isn't fate but fecklessness that has shoved Sarah Palin to the sidelines of national politics. The real tragedy is that she's taken a lot of other serious Republican women with her.
No doubt, the White House thinks the American people know Obama's story. But since the Inauguration, we've seen only the president's present: his perfect family, his Ivy League elegance, his effortless mastery of complex issues. We never see him sweat. And we forget that he ever had to struggle.
As long as the G.O.P., led by its increasingly visible women, continues to insist that the problem is not their policies but women's failure to understand their own lives and interests, the gender gap won't go away.
