It turns out that Valerie Jarrett’s role as the key manipulator in The White House is not unprecedented.
Such a power-hungry, obsequious minion has served a previous President who, like ‘Barack Hussein Obama’ is a poster child for arrogance and a raging Narcissist. I’m speaking of Woodrow Wilson and his Chief of Sycophancy, ‘Colonel’ Edward House.
From a review by Lewis Gould of the new biography of House by Charles Neu, we learn:
…When Woodrow Wilson became governor of New Jersey in 1910 and then a presidential candidate in 1911, House believed, as he told friends, that he had “found both the man and the opportunity.”
Long talks forged their friendship. According to House’s recollections, often the only source available, Wilson told him at the outset: “My dear friend, we have known each other always.” House resisted any formal role with Wilson. In an unofficial capacity as Wilson’s best friend, House assisted with cabinet appointments, Democratic patronage and foreign diplomacy….
…
…In the endemic infighting within the Wilson White House, the Colonel early demonstrated that he was, in an acquaintance’s phrase, “an intimate man even when he was cutting a throat.” House would chat with colleagues in Wilson’s inner circle, learn what was on the president’s mind and then present Wilson with insights tailored to persuade his patron that the two men thought alike. “Discover a common hate,” he said in describing his sycophancy, “exploit it, get the president warmed up, and then start your business.”
Mr. Neu lets the negative aspects of House emerge as he chronicles in an understated way his attitudes and actions. The recurrent derogatory references to Jews such as Louis D. Brandeis and Bernard Baruch give a sense of House’s stereotyped thinking. House reported in his diary in February 1918, for example, dining with the president and his wife and discussing “how ubiquitous Jews were, one stumbled over them at every move and they were so persistent it was impossible to avoid them.”
…
House had a world-class ego and coveted praise. Having risen by adeptly flattering Wilson, he failed to see that the fulsome praise for his abilities came from people wanting to get closer to the center of power….
Jarrett and House are the kind of corrupt people The Founders feared would dig their claws into the constitutional republican government they had set up. They had witnessed such people first-hand during the decades of British rule and they understood that such people were like smallpox: they corrupted everything and everyone they touched, and they attracted other parasitical, dishonest, and dishonorable moral criminals to their orbit. We have suffered for too long ‘the repeated Attacks that have been made on the publick Liberty by a corrupt Administration and their wretched Tools & Dependents’* — beyond what any freeman should endure if he truly cares for his Liberty.
‘Colonel’ [it was an honorary title, one not earned in uniform] House eventually fell out of favor with the Despot Wilson [thanks in large measure to the efforts of the Tyrant’s equally power-hungry second wife], but, before his fall from the Gnostic’s Grace, he wrecked much havoc to The Republic, the effects of which we are still suffering from this very day.
Corrupt men may be kept out of places of public trust; the utmost circumspection I hope will be used in the choice of men for public officers. It is to be expected that some who are void of the least regard to the public, will put on the appearance and even speak boldly the language of patriots, with the sole purpose of gaining the confidence of the public, and securing the loaves and fishes for themselves or their sons or other connexions.
Men who stand candidates for public posts, should be critically traced in their views and pretensions, and though we would despise mean and base suspicion, there is a degree of jealousy which is absolutely necessary in this degenerate state of mankind, and is indeed at all times to be considered as a political virtue.
It is in your power also to prevent a plurality of places incompatible with each other being vested in the same persons. This our patriots have loudly and very justly complained of in time past, and it will be an everlasting disgrace to them if they suffer the practice to continue. Care I am informed is taking to prevent the evil with as little inconvenience as possible, but it is my opinion that the remedy ought to be deep and thorough.
After all, virtue is the surest means of securing the public liberty. I hope you will improve the golden opportunity of restoring the ancient purity of principles and manners in our country. Every thing that we do, or ought to esteem valuable, depends upon it. For freedom or slavery, says an admired writer, will prevail in a country according as the disposition and manners of the inhabitants render them fit for the one or the other.
—Samuel Adams, letter to Elbridge Gerry, 29 October 1775
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*Samuel Adams, 31 March 1773
