When It's Hard to Learn from History

Worth Clicking: Blasts from the past wound Romney

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October 12, 2009

When It's Hard to Learn from History

George Packer: "Making policy is about making choices, and they are never the same twice. Over the past few years, I've come to believe that doing it well is hard -- almost impossible. It takes imagination, a knowledge of history, a certain analytical coldness, an ability to hold contradictory ideas in one's head at the same time, intellectual courage, and prolonged immersion in staggering depths of facts. Few leaders are capable of more than one or two of these, let alone all. And given the complexities, there's only so much policymakers can learn from their predecessors."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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October 12, 2009