Wilkerson, Lawrence - short clip - PresidentBeholdenToOutsideInterests
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| Interviewer | Well, was Bush intimidated by Cheney, | 0:00 |
| and Rumsfeld as well, in the way you're describing? | 0:02 | |
| - | I don't think he was close enough | 0:05 |
| to them to be intimidated, | 0:06 | |
| and I don't think he was perceptive enough, | 0:07 | |
| until '05, '06, | 0:10 | |
| and in '06, of course, he finally fires Rumsfeld, | 0:13 | |
| to understand what was going on. | 0:17 | |
| He was more Reaganesque, | 0:18 | |
| without Reagan's executive ability, | 0:21 | |
| in terms of "I don't do the details. | 0:25 | |
| "You guys do the details, and oh, by the way, | 0:27 | |
| "I don't like you guys fighting in front of me." | 0:29 | |
| You know, "If you go off and fight in the trenches, | 0:31 | |
| "that's fine, but don't fight around me." | 0:32 | |
| People think, "Well, how can that happen?" | 0:35 | |
| People don't understand the White House. | 0:38 | |
| They don't understand the presidency. | 0:39 | |
| The man, the woman, eventually, is captured. | 0:41 | |
| They're totally and utterly captured. | 0:44 | |
| And if they do not bring the talent and the knowledge | 0:47 | |
| and the political acumen of a Franklin Roosevelt, | 0:50 | |
| or, I would submit, a George Herbert Walker Bush, | 0:54 | |
| eight years as vice president, | 0:57 | |
| director of the CIA, ambassador to China, | 0:59 | |
| they don't bring that kind of depth to the office, | 1:02 | |
| they're totally captured. | 1:05 | |
| And usually for an entire first term, if not both terms. | 1:07 | |
| President Obama is the same way right now, he's captured. | 1:12 | |
| He's captured. | 1:15 | |
| This man could no more consider an outside thought | 1:16 | |
| that might be Midas touch, it might be golden, | 1:19 | |
| but he could no more consider it | 1:22 | |
| than the head of an organization like Procter & Gamble, | 1:24 | |
| who can only talk about toothpaste. | 1:28 | |
| I mean, it's incredible how much they're captured, | 1:31 | |
| and people just don't understand that. | 1:33 | |
| They don't understand that. | 1:35 | |
| They think they remain the person they saw in the campaign. | 1:36 | |
| They think they remain human. | 1:40 | |
| They think they remain capable of making decisions | 1:42 | |
| that are independent of others around them. | 1:45 | |
| It's an impossibility. | 1:48 | |
| You are in a position | 1:49 | |
| where you must listen to the Pentagon, | 1:50 | |
| you must listen to the military, | 1:53 | |
| you must listen to corporate America, | 1:54 | |
| you must listen to the banks, | 1:57 | |
| you must listen to Wall Street, you can't escape it. | 1:58 | |
| And so if you make a decision that's good, it's serendipity. | 2:02 |
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