Presidents are evaluated not by what they did by the stroke of their own pen; it's what they persuade Congress to do.

Next quotes

• H. W. Brands:

  America can change its presidents, but the world doesn't change.

• H. W. Brands:

  Members of Congress are somewhat reluctant to tangle with a president who seems to have the backing

• H. W. Brands:

  Presidents have to decide what their popularity is for. Lyndon Johnson probably understood best tha

• H. W. Brands:

  People are interested in people. They buy biographies; they don't buy studies of presidencies.

• H. W. Brands:

  When you look at the development of the American presidency, you see that the presidents who have h

• H. W. Brands:

  The race question in America has often been about race, but it has equally often been about power.

• H. W. Brands:

  Everything that happens today is like something in the past, but it's also unlike things in the pas

• H. W. Brands:

  I've probably written some books - I know I've written some books that were more interesting to me

• H. W. Brands:

  The stories that I tell, the topics that I choose to write about, usually are suggested by somethin

• H. W. Brands:

  Harry Truman's decision to fire Douglas MacArthur at the height of the Korean War in April 1951 sho