"Many if not most of his decisions are thrust upon the president, out of the blue, by events beyond his control: oil spills, financial panics, pandemics, earthquakes, fires, coups, invasions, underwear bombers, movie-theater shooters, and on and on and on. They donāt order themselves neatly for his consideration but come in waves, jumbled on top of each other. āNothing comes to my desk that is perfectly solvable,ā Obama said at one point. āOtherwise, someone else would have solved it. So you wind up dealing with probabilities. Any given decision you make youāll wind up with a 30 to 40 percent chance that it isnāt going to work. You have to own that and feel comfortable with the way you made the decision. You canāt be paralyzed by the fact that it might not work out.ā On top of all of this, after you have made your decision, you need to feign total certainty about it. People being led do not want to think probabilistically."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Democratic Party (United States) politiciansColumbia University alumniAutobiographers from the United StatesAfrican AmericansHarvard University alumni
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Barack_Obama
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Barack Obama
politician, lawyer, political writer
1961 Ā· United States
1215 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Barack Obama ā
Related Quotes
"Velike ribe male proždiru."
"Ein Heute ist besser als zehn Morgen."
"I don't know where his vendetta comes from but we're not going to let him make his bones by lambasting Las Vegas, thaā¦"
"America understands that there is one party in this country that is favor of health care reform and one party that isā¦"
"Barack Obama loves to get attached from the Left on being too moderate on the War on Terrorism. And there have been oā¦"
"With health reform and the so-called āpublic optionā reportedly on life support (although some activists strongly disā¦"
"The antiwar movement aspired to create a transgressive politics that challenged the institutions that generate war anā¦"
"The irony is that Barack Obama would not even be president if it were not for the courage of persecuted dissidents suā¦"
"Surveying the fall in support for the governments of Barack Obama, New York City's progressive Mayor Bill de Blasio, ā¦"
"If Barack Obama was a state he'd be California. I mean, think about it: diverse, open, smart, independent, oppose traā¦"