If we got rid of everybody in Washington who sold access for donations, then the town would be empty. But it's unseemly.
David BrooksCivility is the natural state for people who know how limited their own individual powers are and know, too, that they need the conversation.
David BrooksThere certainly is a pattern of administrations that have good transitions, George W. Bush to Barack Obama, and administrations that have really bad transitions, I would say Dwight Eisenhower to John F. Kennedy. I would say this is beginning to look like a bad transition, from Barack Obama to Donald Trump as they begin to argue even at the presidential level, which is more or less unprecedented.
David Brooks