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. . . [QUOTES FOLLOW LINKS] see: BUREAUCRACY GEORGE W. BUSH CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS, CAMPAIGNS CAPITALISM JIMMY CARTER COMMUNISM CONGRESS CONSERVATIVES CALVIN COOLIDGE CORRUPTION DEMOCRACY DIPLOMACY, DIPLOMATS ELECTIONS FOREIGN AID, FOREIGN POLICY FREE TRADE JOHN GARFIELD GOVERNMENT INDEPENDENTS INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS LYNDON JOHNSON JOHN F. KENNEDY LIBERALISM, LIBERALS LIBERTY ABRAHAM LINCOLN NIXON YEARS OCCUPATIONS PARTISANSHIP POLITICAL PARTIES POLLS POWER PRESIDENTS PROGRESSIVES RONALD REAGAN FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT SENATE (THE U.S.) SLOGANS SOCIAL SECURITY, SOCIALISM SUPREME COURT TAXATION MARGARET THATCHER HARRY S. TRUMAN UNITED NATIONS VICE-PRESIDENT VOTING WASHINGTON D.C., GEORGE WASHINGTON, WATERGATE Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds. --Henry Brooks Adams (18381918) American historian & man of letters. _The Education of Henry Adams_, ch. 1 [1907] - I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman. --John Adams (17351826) First VP and second President of the United States. Letter to his wife, Abigail Adams. I agree with you that in politics the middle way is none at all. If we finally fail in this great and glorious contest, it will be by bewildering ourselves in groping for the middle way. --John Adams (17351826) First VP and second President of the United States. Letter to Gen. Horatio Gates [23 March 1776], quoted in David McCollough _John Adams_ [2001]. Unfaithfulness in public stations is criminal. But there is no encouragement to be faithful. Neither profit, not honor, nor applause is acquired by faithfulness...There is too much corruption, even in this infant age of our Republic. Virtue is not in fashion. Vice is not infamous. --John Adams (17351826) First VP and second President of the United States. [1776 letter to Abigail Adams], quoted in David McCollough _John Adams_ [2001]. - - Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the friend of the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen onto any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man. --Samuel Adams (17221803) American revolutionary leader. Essay published in The Advertiser [1748] and later reprinted in _The Life and Public Service of Samuel Adams_, Volume 1, by William Vincent Wells; Little, Brown, and Company; Boston [1865]. The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men. --Samuel Adams (17221803) American revolutionary leader. Letter to James Warren [4 November 1775]. - There can not a greater judgment befall a country than such a dreadful spirit of division as rends a government into two distinct people, and makes them greater strangers and more averse to one another than if they were actually two different nations. --Joseph Addison (16721719) English essayist, poet, and dramatist. _The Spectator_ [24 July 1711] Politics is gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other. --Oscar Ameringer (18701943) German-born American socialist. Quoted in Ferdinand Lundberg _Scoundrels All_ [1968]. - REPORTER: Senator, are you for or against the MX missile system? SENATOR: Bob, the MX missile system reminds me of an old saying that the country folk in my state like to say. It goes like this: "You can carry a pig for six miles, but if you set it down it might run away." I have no idea why the country folk say this. Maybe there's some kind of chemical pollutant in their drinking water. That is why I pledge to do all that I can to protect the environment of this great nation of ours, and put prayer back in the schools, where it belongs. What we need is jobs, not empty promises. I realize I'm risking my political career be being so outspoken on a sensitive issue such as the MX, but that's just the kind of straight-talking honest person I am, and I can't help it. --Dave Barry (1947 ) American humorist. "On Presidential Politics" - Here richly, with ridiculous display, The Politician's corpse was laid away. While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged. --Hilaire Belloc (18701953) British poet, essayist, historian, and novelist. "Epitaph on the Politician Himself" We should put the spin-doctors in spin clinics, where they can meet other spin patients and be treated by spin consultants. The rest of us can get on with the proper democratic process. --Tony Benn (1925 ) British Labour politician. In "Independent" [25 October 1997]. - [Of Clement Attlee:] He brings to the fierce struggle of politics the tepid enthusiasm of a lazy summer afternoon at a cricket match. --Aneurin Bevan (18971960) British Labour politician. Quoted in "The Tribune" [1945]. This island is made mainly of coal and surrounded by fish. Only an organizing genius could produce a shortage of coal and fish at the same time. --Aneurin Bevan (18971960) British Labour politician. Speech in Blackpool, in "Daily Herald" [25 May 1945]. - - Demagogue, n. A political opponent. --Ambrose Bierce (18421914) American newspaperman, wit, and satirist. "Wasp" (San Francisco) [20 January 1882] Legislator, n. A person who goes to the capital of his country to increase his own; one who makes laws and money. --Ambrose Bierce (18421914) American newspaperman, wit, and satirist. "Wasp" (San Francisco) [19 June 1886] - People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election. --Otto von Bismarck (18151898) Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Prussia 1862-1890. He unified Germany with a series of successful wars and became the first Chancellor 1871-1890 of the German Empire. Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, The Continental liar from the State of Maine. --Political taunt used by the Democrats during the presidential campaign of 1884. (Blaine supporters responded with their own taunt: 'Ma, Ma, where's my Pa? Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha.' (Candidate Cleveland acknowledged that he had fathered an illegitimate child - GBAQ.) The liberals can understand everything but people who don't understand them. --Lenny Bruce [Leonard Alfred Schneider] (19251966) American comedian. In John Colton (ed.) _The Essential Lenny Bruce_ [1967]. You representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion. --Edmund Burke (17291797) Irish-born Whig politician and man of letters. Speech, Bristol [3 November 1774]. [T]he greatest menace to our civilization today is the conflict between giant organized systems of self-righteousness each system only too delighted to find that the other is wicked each only too glad that the sins give it the pretext for still deeper hatred and animosity. The effect of the whole situation is barbarizing. --Herbert Butterfield (19001979) British historian and religious thinker. _Christianity, Diplomacy and War_, p. 43 [1953] Nowhere have I seen politics simply as an activity, so reviled, mocked, jumped on and derided as in sunny Australia...there is a credibility gap the size of the Grand Canyon and it is very hard for a stranger to see exactly why...The Australians appear to a man to regard their politicians as time-serving crooks or simple minded hirelings; as a direct consequence of this many of them doubtless are. They refuse to take their utterances seriously even on the infrequent occasion when they say something worth a moment's thought. --James Cameron (1954 ) Canadian-born American film director. An honest politician is one who, when he's bought, stays bought. --attributed to Simon Cameron (17991889) American politician, in M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 577. Cohan & Major add: Lincoln reluctantly made Cameron his secretary of war in 1861, and Cameron soon made the war department a byword for corruption. He was removed in Jan. 1862 and sent as minister to Russia to get him out of Washington. In April 1862 his conduct as secretary of war was censured by the House of Representatives. - It is hard enough to understand the politics of one's own country; it is almost impossible to understand those of foreign countries. --Winston Churchill (18741965) British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [19401945, 19511955]. Speech in Commons [22 February 1944]. The multitudes remained plunged in ignorance of the simplest economic facts, and their leaders, seeking their votes, did not dare to undeceive them. --Winston Churchill (18741965) British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [19401945, 19511955]. _The Gathering Storm: The Second World War_ [1948-1951] American journalist: What are the desirable qualifications for any young man who wishes to become a politician? Churchill: It is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen. --Winston Churchill (18741965) British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [19401945, 19511955]. (Describing the qualifications desirable in a prospective politician), in Norman McGowan _His Wit and Wisdom_ [1958]. - A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman, of the next generation. --attributed to James Freeman Clarke (18101888) American preacher and author. In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly. --Samuel Taylor Coleridge (17721834) English poet, critic, and philosopher. _Table Talk_ "5 October 1830" [1835] You have sat here too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go. --Oliver Cromwell (15991658) English soldier and statesman; Lord Protector from 1653. (Speech expelling the Rump Parliament [20 April 1653].) To let politics become a cesspool, and then avoid it because it is a cesspool, is a double crime. --Howard Crosby (18261891) American preacher and teacher. Applause, mingled with boos and hisses, is about all that the average voter is able or willing to contribute to public life. --Elmer Davis (18901958) American radio announcer & news commentator. As long as a relatively few men own the railroads, the telegraph, the telephone, own the oil fields and the gas fields and the steel mills and the sugar refineries and the leather tanneries own, in short, the sources and means of life-- they will corrupt our politics, they will enslave the working class, they will impoverish and debase society, they will do all things that are needful to perpetuate their power as the economic masters and the political rulers of the people. --Eugene V. Debs (18551926) American socialist leader. Speech [23 May 1908]. Only one thing would be worse than the status quo. And that would be for the status quo to become the norm. --Elizabeth Dole (1936 ) American administrator and politician; U.S. senator [20032009]. [1999 campaign speech.] [Of campaign contributions:] Money buys access; access buys influence. --Attributed to (among others) Elizabeth Drew (b. 1935) American journalist and Washington correspondent for "The Atlantic" and the "New Yorker." Political passions, aroused everywhere, demand their victims. --Albert Einstein (18791955) German-American physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. (Final written words in an unpublished manuscript, probably written April 12-14, 1955. Quoted in Abraham Pais' _Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein_, [1982].) Politics is a profession; a serious, complicated, and, in its true sense, a nobel one. --Dwight D. Eisenhower (18901969), American Army General, supreme Allied commander WWII, NATO commander, American President [19531961]. In a letter to Leonard V. Finder [22 January 1948]. The spirit of our Amerian radicalism is destructive and aimless. It is not loving; it has no ulterior and divine ends, but is destructive only out of hatred and selfishness. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. "Politics" _Essays_, Second Series [1844] ^ My father, normally a temperate man, so disliked the [political views of the] Chicago Tribune that once, when he had a flat tire in a snowstorm and the man driving a Tribune truck offered to help him, my father told the man to mind his own damn business and bugger off. (My father used to tell this story as an example of how stupid politics can make you.) --Joseph Epstein "The Last Tycoon?" _The Wall Street Journal_ [9 April 2007] ^ I am truly a candidate with both my feet on the ground . . . And when on next November fifth, I am elected chief executive of this fair land, amidst thunderous cheering and shouting and throwing babies out the window, I shall, my fellow citizens, offer no such empty panaceas as a New Deal, or an Old Deal, or even a Re-Deal. No my friends, the reliable old False Shuffle was good enough for my father and it's good enough for me. --W. C. Fields [William Claude Dukenfield] (18801946) American vaudeville star and film actor. _Fields for President_ [1939] Politics consists more in profiting from favorable circumstances than preparing them in advance. --Frederick II [Frederick the Great] (17121786) King of Prussia [17401786]. _Testament politique_ [1752] Like the effect of advertising upon the customer, the methods of political propaganda tend to increase the feeling of insignificance of the individual voter. --Erich Fromm (19001980) American philosopher and psychologist. _Escape from Freedom_ [1941] The vice-presidency isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss. --John Nance Garner (18681967) American Democratic politician. Come and tell me who and what are you. Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in a desert. --Kahlil Gibran (18831931) Lebanese poet. _The New Frontier_ [1925 article] I always voted at my party's call. And I never thought of thinking for myself at all. --W. S. Gilbert (18361911) English writer of comic and satirical verse. _H.M.S. Pinafore_, act I [1878] On 106 occasions, bribes were offered or discussed. On 105 of those occasions, the public official involved accepted the bribe. And on the other occasion he turned it down because he didn't think the amount was enough. --Rudy Giuliani (1944 ) U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York, reporting the results of a sting operation. "New York Times" [12 August 1987]. If they chased every man or woman out of this town who has shacked up with somebody else, or got drunk, there'd be no government. --Barry Goldwater (19091998) American conservative politician. Quoted in "Time" (mag) [13 March 1989]. There are two major kinds of promises in politics: the promises made by candidates to the voters and the promises made by the candidates to persons and groups able to deliver the vote. Promises falling into the latter category are loosely called 'patronage,' and promises falling into the former category are most frequently called 'lies.' --Dick Gregory (1932 ) American comedian and social activist. _Dick Gregory's Political Primer_ [1972] A man cannot govern a nation if he cannot govern a city; he cannot govern a city if he cannot govern a family; he cannot govern a family unless he can govern himself; and he cannot govern himself unless his passions are subject to reason. --attributed to Hugo Grotius (15831645) Dutch philosopher. playwright, and poet. No British politician has much future these days unless he pays lip service at least to the principles of the welfare state. --John Gunther (19011970) American author. _Inside Europe Today_ [1961] 'Do you pray for the Senators, Dr Hale'? 'No, I look at the Senators and pray for the country.' --Edward Everett Hale (18221909) American clergyman, writer, and chaplain of the Senate. In Van Wyck Brooks _New England Indian Summer_ [1940]. Liberals defend military spending and conservatives social spending in their own districts. --Robert A. Hall "Hall's Law of Politics" Liberals want to strike down the abortion laws, so that unwanted babies can be killed off before they are born. Conservatives want to strike down the welfare laws, so that unwanted babies can be starved to death after they are born. --N. Sally Hass - In politics, being ridiculous is more damaging than being extreme. --Roy Hattersley (1932 ) British Labour politician. In "Evening Standard" [9 May 1989]. Politicians are entitled to change their minds. But when they adjust their principles some explanation is necessary. --Roy Hattersley (1932 ) British Labour politician. In "Observer" [21 March 1999]. - He serves his party best who serves the country best. --Rutherford B. Hayes (18221893) 19th President of the U.S. [18771881]. In his inagural address [5 March 1877]. - Political tags such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort. --Robert Heinlein (19071988) American science-fiction writer. _Time Enough for Love_ [1973] Politics is just a name for the way we get things done... without fighting. We dicker and we compromise and everybody thinks he has received a raw deal, but somehow after a tedious amount of talk we come up with some jury-rigged way to do it without getting anybody's head bashed in. That's politics. The only other way to settle a dispute is by bashing a few heads in... and that is what happens when one or both sides is no longer willing to dicker. That's why politics is good even when it is bad... because the only alternative is force and somebody could get hurt. --Robert Heinlein (19071988) American science-fiction writer. _Podkayne of Mars_ [1962] - Girls shouldn't play with men's balls. Their hands are too small. --Senator Wally Horn of Iowa talking about girls sports in school and specifically, what size basketball they should play with. Those who are in Albany escaped Sing Sing, and those who are in Sing Sing were on their way to Albany. --Elbert Hubbard (18591915) American editor, publisher, and author who died in the sinking of the "Lusitania." _The Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams_ [1923] Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature. Now and then an innocent man is sent t' th' legislature. --Frank McKinney (Kin) Hubbard (18681930) American humorist. _Abe Martin's Broadcast_ [1930] I have seen in the Halls of Congress more idealism, more humaneness, more compassion, more profiles of courage than in any other institution I have ever known. --Hubert H. Humphrey (19111978) 38th vice-president of the United States [19651969] and liberal senator [19491965] & [19711978]. Speech at Syracuse University [6 June 1965]. At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religous or political idols. --Aldous Huxley (18941963) English novelist (grandson of T.H. Huxley.) It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals, let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians. --attributed to Henrik Ibsen (18281906) Norwegian playwright. If we meet an honest and intelligent politican, a dozen, a hundred, we say they aren't like politicians at all, and our category of politicians stays unchanged; we know what politicians are like. --Randall Jarrell (19141965) American poet. - When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. Remark to Baron von Humboldt [1807] in B. L. Rayner _Sketches of the Life, Writings, and Opinions of Thomas Jefferson_ [1832]. I think, myself, that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. Letter to William Ludlow [6 September 1824]. - - Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There's nothing to do but to stand there and take it. --Lyndon B. Johnson (19081973) American Democratic statesman, President [19631969]. All the way with LBJ. --Democratic campaign slogan [1964]. - ^ John Fitzgerald Kennedy (19171963) American politician, 35th President of the United States [19611963]. After the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, the American people rallied around their President. Kennedy's popularity rating was never higher, with 82 percent expressing their approval of him. Kennedy was dumbfounded. 'My God! It's as bad as Eisenhower. The worse I do, the more popular I get.' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.] In politics you have no friends, only allies. --John Fitzgerald Kennedy (19171963) American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [19611963]. (Quoted in John Henry Cutler and Honey Fitz's _Three Steps to the White House_ [1962], Chapter 22.) [Remark to Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.:] Sometimes party loyalty asks too much. --John Fitzgerald Kennedy (19171963) American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [19611963]. - Once you label me, you negate me. --Sφren Kierkegaard (18131855) Danish philosopher. Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. --attributed to Henry Alfred Kissinger (b. 1923) German-born American diplomat. People sometimes ask me, 'What's the difference between what you do today as a political analyst in Washington and what you did in the past as a psychiatrist?' I tell them, 'In both professions, I dealt with people with delusions of grandeur. In my former profession, those who had the delusions of grandeur did not have access to nuclear weapons. So the stakes were a little lower.' --Charles Krauthammer (1950 ) Columnist for the Washington Post who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1987. Interview, _The Limbaugh Letter_ [March 2002]. My first qualification for this great office is my monumental personal ingratitude. --Fiorello La Guardia (18821947) American politician who served three terms as mayor of New York City [19331945]. To job seekers following his first election. In Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Canada has at last produced a political leader worthy of assassination. --Irving Layton (19122006) Romanian-born Canadian poet. _The Whole Bloody Bird_ "Obs II" [1969] I once said cynically of a politician, 'He'll double-cross that bridge when he comes to it.' --Oscar Levant (19061972) American pianist and actor. Successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular not whether it will work well and prove itself but whether the active talking constituents like it immediately. Politicians rationalize this servitude by saying that in a democracy public men are the servants of the people. --Walter Lippmann (18891974) American journalist. _The Public Philosophy_ [1955], ch. 2, sec. 4 The first rule of politics is not to lie to somebody unless it is absolutely necessary. --Russell B. Long (1918-2003) American politician; senator from Louisiana [1948-1987]. Attributed, as quoted in Bill Swainson (ed.) _Encarta Book of Quotations_ [2000]. Every time I fill a vacant office I make ten malcontents and one ingrate. --Louis XIV (16381715) King of France (16431715) Quoted in Voltaire _Le siθcle de Louis XIV_ [1779]. - Whenever a Republican leaves one side of the aisle and goes to the other [Democratic side], it raises the intelligence quotient of both parties. --Clare Boothe Luce (19031987) American playwright and politician. Quoted in James C. Humes _Speaker's Treasury of Anecdotes About the Famous_ [1978]. The politicians were talking themselves red, white, and blue in the face. --Clare Boothe Luce (19031987) American playwright and politician. Attributed in Laurence J. Peter _Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time_ [1977]. - I'm 1000% for Tom Eagleton and have no intention of dropping him from the ticket. --George S. McGovern (1922 ) American politician. Quoted in "N.Y. Times" [27 July 1972]. Democratic candidate for president McGovern was affirming his support for running mate Thomas Eagleton. A few days later McGovern dropped Eagleton from the ticket. This has all the earmarks of an eyesore. --James McSheehy, member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, commenting on a construction project he was against. What I want is men who will support me when I am in the wrong. (Replying to a politician who said, 'I will support you as long as you are in the right.' ODTQ.) ---Lord Melbourne [William Lamb] ] (17791848) British Whig statesman. In Lord David Cecil _Lord M_ [1954]. - The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true desserts. He ascribes all his failure to get on in the world, all of his congenital incapacity and damfoolishness, to the machinations of werewolves assembled in Wall Street, or some other such den of infamy. If these villains could be put down, he holds, he would at once become rich, powerful and eminent. Nine politicians out of every ten, of whatever party, live and have their being by promising to perform this putting down. In brief, they are knaves who maintain themselves by preying on the idiotic vanities and pathetic hopes of half-wits. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. Baltimore "Evening Sun" [15 June 1936] Even as a boy I never had any belief in religion, and even as a youth I never went through the Socialist green sickness that was then almost universal. I was against [William Jennings] Bryan the moment I heard of him, and my interest in Roosevelt 1 was always born of delight in the mountebank, not of belief in the prophet. ... I was not, of course, a partisan of the economic royalists who then ran the Republic on the contrary. I believed that most of them were thieves and that all of them were frauds but it seemed to me that, at their worst, they were appreciably better than the Chaldeans and soothsayers who proposed to drive them out of power, if only because they were at least more or less competent at their nefarious business. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. _My Life as Author and Editor_, ed. Jonathan Yardley [1993] For me to go into politics would be like sending a virgin into a house of ill-repute. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. If he did not come out for spiritualism, chiropractic, psychotherapy, and extrasensory perception, it was only because no one demanded that he do so. If there had been any formidable body of cannibals in the country, he would have promised to provide them with free missionaries, fattened at the taxpayers' expense. (Referring to Harry Truman.) --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. Contemplating such a body as the House of Representatives one sees only a group of men who have compromised with honor. They have been broken to the goose-step. They have kept silent about good causes,and spoken in causes they know to be evil. The higher they rise, the further they fall. The occasional mavericks, thrown in by miracle, last a season and then disappear. The old Congressman, the veteran of genuine influence and power, is either one who is so stupid that the ideas of the mob are his own ideas, or one so far gone in charlatanry that he is unconscious of his shame. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. _Notes on Democracy_ [1926] The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. _In Defense of Women_ [1920] It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. A good [politician] is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. Quoted in "Newsweek" magazine [12 September 1955]. The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. - - To a woman heckler shouting "I wouldn't vote for you if you were the Archangel Gabriel" ..... 'If I were the Archangel Gabriel, madam, I'm afraid you would not be in my constituency.' --Sir Robert Gordon Menzies (18941978) 16th and 21st Prime Minister of Australia [26 Apr 1939 29 Aug. 1941; 19 Dec 1949 26 Jan 1966]. (At Williamstown, Victoria.) - - "Anger Mismanagement" By Stephen Miller March 19, 2004 _The Wall Street Journal_ [ . . . ] The ancients knew that anger was a common emotion and, oddly, a pleasing one. In the "Iliad" Achilles, regretting that anger has disturbed his judgment, speaks of "that gall of anger that swarms like smoke inside of a man's heart / and becomes a thing sweeter to him by far than the dripping of honey." The ancients argued that in certain circumstances anger is appropriate. (In ancient Greek the word for anger is also translated as spiritedness.) Democratic and Republican strategists want their base to be angry so that voter turnout will be high. Yet anger is bad for deliberation. In "Of Duties," Cicero says: "Nothing can be done rightly or thoughtfully when done in anger." He advises that, "even in disputes that arise with our greatest enemies, and even if we hear unworthy things said against us, [we must] maintain our seriousness and...dispel our anger." Are Americans more angry about politics than ever? Maybe not. In the 19th century, many foreign visitors noted the acrimonious nature of American political campaigns. In "Domestic Manners of Americans" (1832), Mrs. Trollope wrote that "electioneering madness... engrosses every conversation, it irritates every temper, it substitutes party spirit for personal esteem; and, in fact, vitiates the whole system of society." In "American Notes" (1842), Charles Dickens referred to the "injurious Party Spirit" that sickens and blights everything. To take but one example from later in the century: James Garfield, a Republican congressman campaigning for Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, said that a victory by the Democratic nominee, Samuel Tilden, would be an "irretrievable calamity." When Garfield learned that the Democrats had captured the House, he angrily exclaimed: "We are defeated by the combined power of rebellion, Catholicism and whiskey." American political campaigns have often featured angry rhetoric, but in the 19th century there was not what might be called an ideology of anger, as there seems to be now. In the past 40 years, counterculture theorists, psychologists, rappers and talk- show hosts have acted as if expressing one's anger is good for the psyche and good for the nation. In his (sadly) influential essay "The White Negro" (1957), Norman Mailer said: "To be an existentialist, one must be able to feel oneself one must know one's desires, one's rages, one's anguish, one must be aware of the character of one's frustration and know what would satisfy it." Existentialist here is a fancy term for a person who gets in touch with his feelings. And feelings are everywhere now, with plenty of fuel to keep the angry fires burning. Three decades ago, in the movie "Network," Howard Beale was shouting that he was "mad as hell" and "not taking it anymore." Today one can stoke one's anger by listening to talk radio, watching contentious television talk shows and visiting Web sites filled with invective. Great political thinkers, including David Hume and James Madison, would not have been pleased by all this. They argued that a nation was in danger of collapsing into violent civil discord if most politicians and most voters were angry. It was important, the young Ben Franklin said, to "command one's temper." Now many observers think political discussion should lead to a higher anger level. The authors of "Salons: The Joy of Conversation" (2001) call for a revival of salons in which "passionate conversation" will lead "to passionate action." Well, passion, yes, if by that is meant full, thoughtful engagement. But anger is something else. It is a kind of sickness, and it distorts all debate. Anger causes people to cast legitimate differences of opinion in stark moral terms, as if all those on one side possess integrity and all those on the other side are corrupt. During the French Revolution the Jacobins, the masters of the Terror, denounced all those who disagreed with them as "corrupt." With politicians from both parties angrily calling opponents lying and corrupt, it's a good thing we don't have guillotines anymore. Mr. Miller is the author of "Three Deaths and Enlightenment Thought: Hume, Johnson, Marat" (2001). - Boss Tweed: "As long as I count the Votes, what are you going to do about it?" --Thomas Nast (18401902) German-born American cartoonist. Caption of cartoon _Harper's Weekly_ [7 October 1871] No country or people who are slaves to dogma and the dogmatic mentality can progress, and unhappily our country and people have become extraordinarily dogmatic and little-minded. --Jawaharlal Nehru (18891964) Indian statesman. I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin, you never know if someone's tape recording what you say. --Richard Nixon (19131994) American Republican statesman, President [19691974]. Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures; there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen. --Peggy Noonan (1950 ) Speechwriter for U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. _What I Saw at the Revolution_ "Another Epilogue" [1990] - In 1919, the great pianist Ignace Paderewski agreed to serve as prime minister of Poland, and he attended the Paris Peace Talks in that capacity. The story is told that the French premier, Clemenceau, said to him, "Are you related to the pianist?" Paderewski replied, "I am, in fact, the pianist." Continued Clemenceau, "And now you are prime minister?" "Yes," answered Paderewski. Sighed the Frenchman: "What a comedown." --Jay Nordlinger, "Beethoven, Verdi - and someone you don't know," NROnline [15 September 2003] - Ten degrees to the left of centre in good times, Ten degrees to the right when it affects me personally. --Phil Ochs (19401976) American "protest" singer. People don't want handouts! People want hand jobs! --CT Gov. William O'Neil As any politician will tell you: you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time and usually that's enough. --Robert Orben (1927 ) American magician and comedy writer. Then there's politics. Just imagine politics with its dumbbell element subtracted. There would be no Republican candidates. There would be no Democratic voters. The whole system would collapse. --P.J. O'Rourke (1947 ) American political satirist. Political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. --George Orwell [Eric Blair] (19031950) English novelist. _Politics and the English Language_ (essay) [1946] ^ Packer, Alfred (18421907) American gold prospector. In 1873, in Utah, Alfred Packer and some friends went on a gold prospecting trip. The weather proved too difficult, and most of the party went home. Packer and six men continued on into the mountains. But it was Packer alone who returned, insisting he had been deserted by his friends, of whom there was no trace. He claimed he had subsisted on roots and small game, but he looked rosy and flush indeed. It was not long before the half-eaten bodies of his companions were found, and Packer confirmed that in a dispute he had killed and consumed them all. As he was sentenced to death, the judge said to him, "Alfred Packer, you depraved Republican cannibal there were only six Democrats in Hinsdale County and, by God, you've et five of them!" --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. --Pericles (495429 B.C.) Leader of Athens. Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber. --Plato (427?347 B.C.) Greek philosopher. A statesman is a politician who places himself at the service of the nation. A politician is a statesman who places the nation at his service. --Georges Pompidou (19111974) French statesman. In "Observer" [30 December 1973]. When I die, I want to be buried in Chicago, so I can still be active in politics. --Charlie Rangel (1930 ) American politician. - Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. --Ronald Reagan (19112004) American President [19811989] and former Hollywood actor. At a conference in Los Angeles [2 March 1977]. Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book. --Ronald Reagan (19112004) American President [19811989] and former Hollywood actor. I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting. --Ronald Reagan (19112004) American President [19811989] and former Hollywood actor. - - A statesman is a politician who is dead. --Thomas Brackett Reed (18391902) American lawyer and politician. Quoted in "L.A. Times" [10 October 1896]. They [two fellow Congressmen] never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge. --Thomas Brackett Reed (18391902) American lawyer and politician. Quoted in Samuel W. McCall _The Life of Thomas Brackett Reed [1914]. - All politics are based on the indifference of the majority. --James Barrett "Scotty" Reston (19091995) Scottish-born American journalist; two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for reporting. It is but shaping the bribe to the taste, and every one has his price. --Samuel Richardson (16891761) English novelist. _A Collection Of the Moral and Instructive Sentiments_, p. 138 [1755] - There is good news from Washington today. Congress is deadlocked and can't act. --Will Rogers [William Penn Adair Rogers] (18791935) American humorist and actor. Quoted in John Kao _Innovation Nation_, p. 209 [2007]. The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. --Will Rogers [William Penn Adair Rogers] (18791935) American humorist and actor. _The Illiterate Digest_ [1924] The taxpayers are sending congressmen on expensive trips abroad. It might be worth it except they keep coming back! --Will Rogers [William Penn Adair Rogers] (18791935) American humorist and actor. Quoted in Bob Fenster _Laugh Off_, p. 135 [2005]. - He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch. (On President Somoza of Nicaragua, 1938.) --attributed to Franklin D. Roosevelt (18821945) American Democratic statesman, President [19331945]. - Here is the thing you must bear in mind. I do not represent public opinion: I represent the public. There is a wide difference between the two, between the real interests of the public, and the public's opinion of these interests. --Theodore Roosevelt (18581919) American Republican statesman and President [19011909]. Interview with reporter Ray Stannard Baker [9 Feb. 1906], quoted in Edmund Morris, _Theodore Rex_ [2001]. There is a homely old adage which runs: 'Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.' If the American nation will speak softly, and yet build, and keep at a pitch of the highest training a thoroughly efficient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far. --Theodore Roosevelt (18581919) American Republican statesman and President [19011909]. Quoted in Edmund Morris _Theodore Rex_ [2001]. - The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately. --Bertrand Russell (18721970) British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate. _The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell_ [1914-1944] I will not accept if nominated, and will not serve if elected. --William Tecumseh Sherman (18201891) American Union general. Message to the Republican Convention [1884]. In your country club, your church and business, about 15 percent of the people are screwballs, lightweights and boobs and you would not want those people unrepresented in Congress. --Alan K. Simpson (1931 ) American politician. U.S. Senator from Wyoming [19791997]. I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live. --Socrates (470?399 B.C.) Greek philosopher. - If you mean whiskey, the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean that evil drink that topples Christian men and women from the pinnacles of righteous and gracious living into the bottomless pits of degradation, shame, despair, helplessness, and hopelessness, then, my friend, I am opposed to it with every fibre of my being. However, if by whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the elixir of life, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer, the stimulating sip that puts a little spring in the step of an elderly gentleman on a frosty morning; if you mean that drink that enables man to magnify his joy, and to forget life's great tragedies and heartbreaks and sorrow; if you mean that drink the sale of which pours into Texas treasuries untold millions of dollars each year, that provides tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitifully aged and infirm, to build the finest highways, hospitals, universities, and community colleges in this nation, then my friend, I am absolutely, unequivocally in favour of it. This is my position, and as always, I refuse to be compromised on matters of principle. --Noah S. "Soggy" Sweat, Jr. (19221996) American judge and politician. [1952 speech] - And he gave it for his opinion, 'that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.' --Jonathan Swift (16671745) Anglo-Irish poet and satirist. _Gulliver's Travels_ [1726] "Voyage to Brobdingnag" Ch. 7 ^ William Howard Taft (18571930) 27th President of the United States [19091913] and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court [19211930]. During a political speech a listener threw a cabbage at Taft, who then paused, examined the cabbage, and said, 'I see that one of my opponents has lost its head.' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ Being prime minister is a lonely job . . . You cannot lead from the crowd. --Margaret Thatcher (1925 ) British conservative stateswoman and Prime Minister [19791990]. _The Downing Street Years_ [1993], ch. 1 If this thing starts to snowball, it will catch fire right across country. --Robert Thompson, former Canadian Social Credit leader. I went to the store the other day to buy a bolt for our front door, for, as I told the store, the Governor was coming here. "Aye," he said, "and the Legislature too." "Then I will take two bolts," said I. He said that there had been a steady demand for bolts and locks of late, for our protectors were coming. --Henry David Thoreau (18171862) American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher. _Journal_ [8 September 1859] - My early choice in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference. --Harry S. Truman (18841972) American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [19451953]. A politician is a man who understands government, and it takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead 10 or 15 years. --Harry S. Truman (18841972) American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [19451953]. Speech in Washington, D.C. [11 April 1958]. - - 1907: All democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it; none but the republicans and mugwumps know it. All the republicans are insane, but only the democrats and mugwumps can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. "What Is Man and Other Philosophical Writings" The chances are that a man cannot get into congress now without resorting to arts and means that should render him unfit to go there. --Mark Twain & Charles Dudley Warner _The Gilded Age_, ch. 50 [1873] It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. _Following the Equator_, ch. 8 [1897] - I have learned the difference between a cactus and a caucus. On a cactus, the pricks are on the outside. --Morris King (Mo) Udall (19221998) American politician and professional basketball player. Half of the American people never read a newspaper. Half never voted for president. One hopes it is the same half. --Gore Vidal (1925 ) American writer. Politics makes strange bed-fellows. --Charles Dudley Warner (18291900) American newspaperman, author, editor, and publisher. _My Summer in a Garden_ "Fifteenth Week" [1871] Edwin Goodwin, a doctor living in Solitude, Indiana in 1897, "supernaturally" discoved that pi was equal to 9.2376. Goodwin had his "solution" published in the "American Mathematical Monthly,' then set about getting government approval for his own private pi. He convinced his local legislators to introduce a bill before Indiana's House offering state schools free use of his "new mathematical truth." The bill, chocked full of math jargon, fooled the House and passed by a 67-0 vote. (It later failed to pass the Indiana Senate.) --Bruce Watson _Smithsonian Magazine_ - Once when Disraeli was canvassing for votes door to door, a woman opened the door. Disraeli paused and then, explaining his pause, exclaimed: 'I was overcome by the resemblance to my sainted motherand she was a very beautiful woman.' --George F. Will (b. 1941) American columnist. Quoted in "Newsweek" [1982]. In his first campaign, in 1976, Moynihan's opponent was the incumbent, James Buckley, who playfully referred to "Professor Moynihan" from Harvard. Moynihan exclaimed with mock indignation, "The mudslinging has begun!" --George F. Will (b. 1941) American columnist. - ^ Woodrow Wilson (18561924) American politician; president of Princeton University [19021910], President of the United States [19131921]. One afternoon during his time as governor of New Jersey, Wilson received news of the sudden death of a personal friend, a New Jersey senator. He was still recovering from the shock when the telephone rang again. It was a prominent New Jersey politician. 'Governor,' he said, 'I would like to take the senator's place.' Wilson replied, 'It's perfectly agreeable to me if it's agreeable to the undertaker.' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ - Will it play in Peoria? --traditional rhetorical question of American politics (implying that a political action, in order to work, must have the support of the citizens of the so-called average American town. GBAQ.) - Let me tell you about Florida politicians. I make them out of whole cloth, just like a tailor makes a suit. I get their name in the newspaper. I get them some publicity and get them on the ballot. Then after the election, we count the votes. And if they don't turn out right, we recount them. And recount them again until they do. --Edward G. Robinson talking to Humphrey Bogart in the 1948 thriller, "Key Largo." - Q: Mr. Secretary you say you're innocent, yet five people swore they heard you make the statement. A: Senator, I can produce 500 people who didn't hear me say it. -- Bush told his senior aides Tuesday that he 'didn't want to see any stories' quoting unnamed administration officials in the media anymore, said a senior administration official who asked that his name not be used. --_The Philadelphia Inquirer_ [16 October 2003], quoted in _Reason_ [January 2004]. -- TRIVIA: William Howard Taft was the only man in the history of the country to become the head of both the Executive and Judicial Departments of the Federal Government. TOPICAL Through nearly a dozen hearings, we were frankly trying to fix something that wasnt broke. Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Franklin Raines. --Maxine Waters (1938 ) American politician. At a 2004 Congressional hearing about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These two entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing. --Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) American politician. [11 September 2003] - Great Orators of the Democrat Party..... YESTERDAY 'One man with courage makes a majority.' -Andrew Jackson 'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.' -Franklin D. Roosevelt 'The buck stops here.' -Harry S. Truman 'Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.' -John F. Kennedy TODAY 'That Obama - I would like to cut his NUTS off.' -Jesse Jackson 'The next Person that tells me I'm not religious, I'm going to shove my rosary beads up their ASS.' -Joe Biden 'You don't need God anymore, you have us Democrats.' -Nancy Pelosi (Quoted 2006) 'Paying taxes is voluntary.' -Sen. Harry Reid 'America is--is no longer, uh, what it--it, uh, could be, uh, what it was once was...uh, and I say to myself, 'uh, I don't want that future, uh, uh for my children.' -Barack Obama (Without a teleprompter) - ----- demagogue (noun) 1. A political leader who gains power by appealing to peoples emotions and prejudices rather than their rationality. filibuster (noun) A tactic used to delay or prevent the passage of legislation, e.g. a long irrelevant speech gerrymander [JER-i-man-der], verb: The dividing of a state, county, etc., into election districts so as to give one political party a majority in many districts while concentrating the voting strength of the other party into as few districts as possible. malfeasance (noun) An illegal act or wrongdoing, esp. by a public official. Cr.Syn.: abuse, misconduct Related: crime, injury, misconduct, iniquity, malpractice malfeasant (adj.) mugwump [MUHG-wuhmp], noun: 1. A person who is unable to make up his or her mind on an issue, esp. in politics; a person who is neutral on a controversial issue. 2. A Republican who refused to support the party nominee, James G. Blaine, in the presidential campaign of 1884. pelf [PELF], noun: Money; riches; gain; -- generally conveying the idea of something ill-gotten. Ex.: As so often happens, pelf is talking louder than principle at the Colorado legislature. --"Legislature Goes Belly Up," "Denver Rocky Mountain News" [27 April 1997] end page | PACIFISM - PAIN | PAINTING - PARENTING | PARIS - PASSPORTS | PAST (THE) - PATRIOTISM | PEACE - PERCENTAGES | PEOPLE | PERCEPTIONS - PERSUASION | PESSIMISM - PHILOSOPHY | PHONIES - PHYSICS | PIANO - PLANS | PLACES | PLANTS - POETRY | POISON - POLITICAL PARTIES | POLITICS & POLITICIANS | POLLS - POPES | POPEYE - POTENTIAL | POVERTY | POWER | PRACTICALITY - PRAYER | PREACHERS - PREPARED (BE) | PRESENT (THE) - (THE) PRESS | PRETENSION - PRIVACY | PROBLEMS - PROGRESSIVES | PROGRESS - PROPAGANDA | PROPOSALS - PUBLIC (THE) | PUBLIC OPINION - PURPOSE (ON HAVING A) | QUALITIES - QUIPS | QUIRKS - QUOTATIONS | | H | I - J | K - L | M | N - O | P - Q | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews | |
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