Justice & Law Quote by Lloyd Cutler

Power in Washington rarely announces itself as ambition; it prefers to arrive wearing the sensible shoes of obligation. Lloyd Cutler, a consummate insider-outsider of the capital, frames his refusal of an Assistant Secretary of State post not as a rejection of public service but as a reluctant concession to timing. The sentence is engineered to keep every door open: he was "asked" (chosen, valued), the job was real and senior, and the reason for declining is neither ideological nor personal weakness, but stewardship.

The subtext is the revolving-door ecosystem said quietly, as if it were simply logistics. Cutler positions the private-sector project - merging two small firms into what would become a major shop - as a kind of civic duty in its own right. "We were just then putting together" emphasizes collective endeavor and entrepreneurial momentum, while "I couldn't leave them" wraps the calculus of prestige and profit in the moral language of loyalty. It's a familiar Washington alibi: I would have served, but the team needed me.

Context matters. Cutler's career threaded between elite law practice and high government advisory roles (notably as White House Counsel), embodying a mid-century belief that the nation's business was managed by a rotating cadre of competent professionals. His phrasing preserves that patrician self-image: the state calls, the lawyer answers when feasible, and when he can't, it's because institution-building elsewhere demands him. The line is less confession than résumé, a carefully modest assertion of indispensability on both sides of the Potomac.