Peter Baker and Susan Glasser on 'The Man Who Ran Washington'
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 29 September 2020
⏱️ 66 minutes
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Summary
James A. Baker III has been a lawyer, a presidential campaign manager, the White House Chief of Staff for two presidents, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of State and the point person for George W. Bush in the 2000 Florida recount. His career demonstrates what it takes to acquire political power; to wield it effectively to reach bipartisan compromises, even after bitter campaigns; and to wrestle with the tension between partisan loyalty and the principles of good government.
David Priess spoke about Baker's remarkable life and career with Peter Baker of the New York Times and Susan Glasser of The New Yorker, authors of the new book, "The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III."
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:55.6 | 5 million tons of CO2 from the air every year. |
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| 1:18.7 | In any White House, as Baker do, the key to the keynote is controlling the paperwork, controlling |
| 1:23.2 | the personnel, controlling the press, controlling the legislative affairs. |
| 1:26.9 | Policy is all great, but if you don't control the legislative affairs, it gets policy passed, |
| 1:30.2 | it's pretty irrelevant. |
| 1:32.2 | Baker basically sat down, they drafted a one piece of paper, we've got it in the book, |
| 1:37.2 | in which on one column is what Baker gets, another column is what Mies gets. |
| 1:40.9 | He throws in the cabinet rank as kind of a sweet nerd. |
| 1:44.0 | Then he says, let's put this also in there. |
| 1:46.5 | I'll never be in the Oval Office. |
| 1:47.5 | There will never be any meeting in the Oval Office in which you, Ed Mies, will not be |
| 1:51.3 | entitled to comment. |
| 1:52.3 | We'll be talking about any meeting you want to that the president is okay with you |
| 1:56.0 | comment. |
... |
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