Henry Adams, the son of a speaker of the house, grandson of a President and great grandson of a President, knew some things about politics. In his autobiography, one of the best American autobiographies, Adams wrote that a friend in power was a friend lost. Harry Truman said that if you wanted a friend in Washington, get a dog.
Another great autobiography was written by Ulysses S. Grant. I don’t really remember what Adams thought of Grant, but I believe Adams held President Grant in low regard. Grant had not been to Harvard. It was from Adams that I learned the term “devolution,” as in the devolution of the Presidency from Washington, trending downward, to Nixon, Bush and now Minority-President Golden Shower.
Anyway, I’ve had a number of friends who went on to do good things in politics and who were lost as friends, not for a bad reason but because political life becomes all consuming. Either you are working with them daily, a productive member of the political team, or you fall away and live your own life, which can be sweet.
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