Politics & Power Quote by Lloyd Cutler

The joke lands because it comes from someone who lived near the engine room of power, not from a pundit in the stands. Lloyd Cutler - Washington’s archetypal lawyer-fixer, counsel to presidents and dean of the city’s governing class - delivers a line that sounds like a shrug but reads like an indictment of the entire “strong manager” fantasy Americans keep buying.

On the surface, it’s a mild confession: governing is hard. The real intent is to puncture the campaign-season myth that the presidency is a solvable job if you’re smart enough, tough enough, or “run it like a business.” Cutler’s construction is a tight little loop of humility: he already “always thought” it was difficult, then admits the difficulty exceeded even that estimate. The subtext is that competence has limits; the system has friction; experience doesn’t immunize you against surprise. It’s self-deprecation as credibility, the lawyer’s way of saying: if even the adults are overwhelmed, stop expecting miracles.

Context matters. Cutler advised Jimmy Carter and later Bill Clinton, two administrations that collided with the reality of Washington: Congress with its own incentives, agencies with entrenched cultures, crises that arrive uninvited, and legal constraints that turn every “simple” decision into a procedural minefield. As a lawyer, Cutler is attuned to how power is filtered through rules, norms, and litigation risk. His line quietly suggests that the presidency isn’t a throne; it’s a negotiation conducted under bright lights, with too many veto points and too little time.

It’s funny because it’s true - and unsettling because it implies there’s no hidden lever we’ve missed.