"It is hard for people outside the White House to understand the constant daily problems and issues that come up that require the president's attention, but he can not let himself get too personally involved"
About this Quote
The subtext, though, is less comforting. Fielding isn’t just describing workload; he’s defending a psychological posture. The president “can not let himself get too personally involved” is a warning about governance as emotional triage. In a system built to produce constant emergencies, empathy can become a liability: personal investment invites impulsive fixes, vendettas, or the need to be liked. Detachment, in this frame, isn’t coldness; it’s survival and risk control. The line also subtly protects the staff state. If the president must stay above the feelings, someone else has to absorb them - aides who translate human mess into memos, options, and “deliverables.”
Context matters: Fielding is a lawyer, and the sentence carries legal sensibility. It treats “issues” as case files, and “attention” as a finite resource to be allocated. That’s a worldview shaped by advising powerful clients under siege, where the greatest threat isn’t ignorance but overreaction. The quote works because it punctures the romance of intimate leadership while acknowledging the brutal intimacy of the job: everything is personal in effect, even when it can’t be personal in method.
Quote Details
| Topic | Decision-Making |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Fielding, Fred F. (2026, January 15). It is hard for people outside the White House to understand the constant daily problems and issues that come up that require the president's attention, but he can not let himself get too personally involved. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-hard-for-people-outside-the-white-house-to-167436/
Chicago Style
Fielding, Fred F. "It is hard for people outside the White House to understand the constant daily problems and issues that come up that require the president's attention, but he can not let himself get too personally involved." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-hard-for-people-outside-the-white-house-to-167436/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"It is hard for people outside the White House to understand the constant daily problems and issues that come up that require the president's attention, but he can not let himself get too personally involved." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-hard-for-people-outside-the-white-house-to-167436/. Accessed 22 Feb. 2026.
