#mer

A man writing a letter is a man in the act of thinking, and it was an exercise Reagan obviously enjoyed. After his first meeting with Gorbachev, for example, he sent a 'Dear Murph' letter about it to his old friend George Murphy, a former senator and actor who had once played Reagan's father in a film. ↗

— Russell Baker

#act #actor #after #dear #enjoyed

American foreign policy had still not recovered from its victory over communism when George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice took over at the White House in 2001. ↗

— Russell Baker

#american foreign policy #bush #communism #condoleezza #condoleezza rice

It seems to be a law in American life that whatever enriches us anywhere except in the wallet inevitably becomes uneconomic. ↗

— Russell Baker

#american life #anywhere #becomes #enriches #except

You can always tell folks from nonfolks. Folks like to feel good, like to smile for the camera when there's a big photo opportunity for a really good cause. ↗

— Russell Baker

#big #camera #cause #feel #feel good

The early commentators who put down the pre-presidential Roosevelt as an empty-headed young lightweight, all ambition and no talent, now seem comically wrong to a modern book-reading, movie-going, television-watching, legend-loving American public conditioned to think of him as one of the presidential giants on the order of Washington and Lincoln. ↗

— Russell Baker

#american #american public #commentators #conditioned #down

The rise of anime had to happen. If the Japanese could tell better American stories, it would go through the roof. They still tell stories which are very much oriental. I take my hat off to them. ↗

— Ralph Bakshi

#anime #better #could #go #had

I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. ↗

— James A. Baldwin

#america #any #country #criticize #exactly

American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it. ↗

— James A. Baldwin

#american #american history #anyone #anything #beautiful

It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story. ↗

— James Baldwin

#admire #america #because #been #his

The making of an American begins at the point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of his adopted land. ↗

— James Baldwin

#american #any #begins #himself #his