I haven't given up on that hope yet. Of course, a lot of those agencies, as we all know well, are minor commissions and boards and so forth that have been established by statute and you know can be eliminated when the need for them is no longer there. But I have not been unpleasantly surprised, Billy. I had a good bit of experience, as you know, as Governor of Georgia and was familiar with at least a State bureaucracy. And I had heard such horrible stories about the Federal Government that I didn't expect to find a smooth-running, well organized mechanism here in place. So, I wasn't very greatly surprised. I have been pleasantly surprised at the quality of my Cabinet; that there is not a weak person on it, and not a single one that I would want to change if I had the whole choice to do over again. They've worked well together. We have, for the first time in years--I don't know how long--we've got a weekly Cabinet meeting. And any defects that are carrying over in the governmental structure are partially overcome by the close-knit working relationship between the White House staff and the members of the Cabinet. We have established now--almost completed the Department of Energy, which is to some degree a replacement for about 40 other Federal agencies. And our plan for reorganizing the entire structure of the Government is well in place. I've been through this before, for 4 years in Georgia, and I think there's a good parallel there to serve as a guide for me. So to answer your question, I'm not disappointed nor unpleasantly surprised. And what defects are here, we are overcoming them by close relationship among the officials involved.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "I haven't given up on that hope yet. Of course, a lot of those agencies, as we all know well, are minor commissions and boards and so forth that have been established by statute and you know can be eliminated when the need for them is no longer there. But I have not been unpleasantly surprised, Billy. I had a good bit of experience, as you know, as Governor of Georgia and was familiar with at least a State bureaucracy. And I had heard such horrible stories about the Federal Government that I didn't expect to find a smooth-running, well organized mechanism here in place. So, I wasn't very greatly surprised. I have been pleasantly surprised at the quality of my Cabinet; that there is not a weak person on it, and not a single one that I would want to change if I had the whole choice to do over again. They've worked well together. We have, for the first time in years--I don't know how long--we've got a weekly Cabinet meeting. And any defects that are carrying over in the governmental structure are partially overcome by the close-knit working relationship between the White House staff and the members of the Cabinet. We have established now--almost completed the Department of Energy, which is to some degree a replacement for about 40 other Federal agencies. And our plan for reorganizing the entire structure of the Government is well in place. I've been through this before, for 4 years in Georgia, and I think there's a good parallel there to serve as a guide for me. So to answer your question, I'm not disappointed nor unpleasantly surprised. And what defects are here, we are overcoming them by close relationship among the officials involved." in the context of "" to mean that wisdom is timeless.