David Gergen House Quotations

I was in the Nixon White House during Watergate, and we pretended that we were all about business as usual. And we had a president who was talking to the portraits. It was not business as usual, but you have to say it.

I think he has to calibrate it very carefully. The White House says it is going to be a very optimistic speech. But I think people are not feeling very optimistic at the moment.

You can agree or disagree with Ronald Reagan's policies, his conservatism. I was less conservative than he was, but if you add it all up, I believe he ranked as the best leader we've had in the White House since Franklin Roosevelt, and that's saying a lot.

Why a White House that was so adept in most of the first term has misjudged two or three big calls in its second term it's puzzling.

It was a sluggish response, almost a White House in slow motion. Americans expect not only to see their president on the scene, but a firm hand on the tiller. That wasn't there. There was nobody in charge.