Politics & Power Quote by Golda Meir

Golda Meir’s line lands like a diplomatic smile that doesn’t reach the eyes. On the surface, it’s a deferential nod to presidential power, the kind of polite phrasing allies use in public. Underneath, it’s a needle: a reminder that “almost anything” is precisely the problem when a leader treats the office as elastic enough to stretch around personal will.

The timing matters. Meir is speaking in the long shadow of Nixon’s reputation for secrecy, hardball politics, and the widening moral crater that would become Watergate. She doesn’t accuse; she insinuates. “As President Nixon says” frames the idea as his own self-justification, not her endorsement. Then she pivots with a quiet twist of the knife: Nixon has “done many things that nobody would have thought of doing.” The phrase can be read as admiration for boldness, but it’s built to carry a second meaning: unthinkable as in unprecedented, yes, but also unthinkable as in beyond the boundaries of accepted conduct.

Coming from Meir, a leader who navigated survival-level geopolitics, the subtext isn’t abstract civics. It’s about trust between states and the reliability of institutions. Allies depend on predictability, on the sense that constraints hold even when power could ignore them. The quote works because it weaponizes understatement: she flags the danger of unchecked executive latitude while maintaining the public etiquette of partnership. It’s caution disguised as compliment, the most effective kind of warning in a world where outright condemnation has a price.