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" When asked for your views, by the press or others, remember that what they really want to know is the President's views. "
Donald Rumsfeld
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" Simply because you do not have evidence that something exists does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist. "
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" If a prospective Presidential approach can't be explained clearly enough to be understood well, it probably hasn't been thought through well enough. If not well understood by the American people, it probably won't 'sail' anyway. Send it back for further thought. "
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" Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up. "
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" Visit with your predecessors from previous Administrations. They know the ropes and can help you see around some corners. Try to make original mistakes, rather than needlessly repeating theirs. "
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" Politics is human beings; it's addition rather than subtraction. "
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" Don't speak ill of your predecessors or successors. You didn't walk in their shoes. "
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" Be yourself. Follow your instincts. Success depends, at least in part, on the ability to 'carry it off.' "
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" The Federal Government should be the last resort, not the first. Ask if a potential program is truly a federal responsibility or whether it can better be handled privately, by voluntary organizations, or by local or state governments. "
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" See that the President, the Cabinet and staff are informed. If cut out of the information flow, their decisions may be poor, not made, or not confidently or persuasively implemented. "
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" The price of being close to the President is delivering bad news. You fail him if you don't tell him the truth. Others won't do it. "
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" Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war. "
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" The way to do well is to do well. "
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" If you foul up, tell the President and correct it fast. Delay only compounds mistakes. "
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" Look for what's missing. Many advisors can tell a President how to improve what's proposed or what's gone amiss. Few are able to see what isn't there. "
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" Learn to say 'I don't know.' If used when appropriate, it will be often. "
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" Don't think of yourself as indispensable or infallible. As Charles De Gaulle said, the cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men. "
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" There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know. "
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" Know that the amount of criticism you receive may correlate somewhat to the amount of publicity you receive. "
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" If the staff lacks policy guidance against which to test decisions, their decisions will be random. "
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" There are a lot of people who lie and get away with it, and that's just a fact. "
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" You will launch many projects, but have time to finish only a few. So think, plan, develop, launch and tap good people to be responsible. Give them authority and hold them accountable. Trying to do too much yourself creates a bottleneck. "
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" Plan backwards as well as forward. Set objectives and trace back to see how to achieve them. You may find that no path can get you there. Plan forward to see where your steps will take you, which may not be clear or intuitive. "
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" Test ideas in the marketplace. You learn from hearing a range of perspectives. Consultation helps engender the support decisions need to be successfully implemented. "
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" Work continuously to trim the White House staff from your first day to your last. All the pressures are to the contrary. "
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" Make decisions about the President's personal security. He can overrule you, but don't ask him to be the one to counsel caution. "
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" First rule of politics: you can't win unless you're on the ballot. Second rule: If you run, you may lose. And, if you tie, you do not win. "
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" If you try to please everybody, somebody's not going to like it. "
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