Politics & Power Quote by Lloyd Cutler

Cutler’s line is the kind of Washington compliment that arrives with an escape hatch built in. He starts by polishing the President’s personal virtues - “intelligent, decent, ethical” - a triple assurance meant to calm a public trained to suspect the opposite. Then he pivots: the real problem isn’t character, it’s the office. That move matters because it shifts blame away from one administration and toward the machinery that manufactures disappointment.

The key phrase is “builds up over expectations,” a slightly awkward construction that mirrors the phenomenon it describes: expectations aren’t just set, they accumulate, layer after layer, campaign after campaign. Cutler is pointing to an inflationary economy of promises where every candidate, “including this President,” bids up the myth of presidential omnipotence. Voters want a fixer; candidates market themselves as one; the presidency, constrained by Congress, courts, bureaucracy, crises, and sheer time, can’t deliver the fantasy. Calling those expectations “simply cannot be fulfilled” isn’t cynicism so much as a lawyer’s diagnosis of structural limits.

The subtext is defensive and institutional. As counsel in Democratic administrations, Cutler had reasons to protect both the person in office and the legitimacy of the office itself. His praise separates the President’s moral ledger from the inevitable shortfall of outcomes. It’s also a gentle warning to the electorate: if you keep demanding miracles, you’ll keep getting “failure” even when the governing is competent.