Thursday, October 09, 2008

You have to use power while it corrupts you

David Brooks on Barack Obama
I was interviewing Obama a couple years ago, and ... I say, ‘Ever read a guy named Reinhold Niebuhr?’ And he says, ‘Yeah.’ So I say, ‘What did Niebuhr mean to you?’ For the next 20 minutes, he gave me a perfect description of Reinhold Niebuhr’s thought, which is a very subtle thought process based on the idea that you have to use power while it corrupts you.

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