Some years back, all the best people came to bipartisan agreement that the most shameful thing a person could do with power was not to use it. Since then everybody who wants to get ahead in Washington has made a great show of being a fierce fellow when left alone in the room with a little power. There seems to be a fear that if there is somebody around so low that it is all right to dump the garbage on him, and you hesitate, everybody will call you a sissy, and you will never be invited to lunch with Professor Kissinger. Strange values result. Great killers are esteemed for good citizenship. Not afraid to use power, people say of them.
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About Russell Baker
Russell Baker was a 20th-century American writer and satirist. Russell Wayne Baker was an American journalist, narrator, writer of Pulitzer Prize-winning satirical commentary and self-critical prose, and author of Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography Growing Up (1983). He was a columnist for The New York Times for 36 years, and hosted eleven seasons of the PBS show Masterpiece Theatre. Read more on Wikipedia →