Holman W. Jenkins Jr. Quotes

Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him.

Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.

People are fed up of politicians who say one thing one day and another the day after.

There's the disingenuous duplicitousness, but you can apply that to every politician, really.

I don't think people maybe think that the government does tell them the truth. I think they expect politicians who are going to tell them one thing and then when they get in office do something else.

The public should begin to understand that there's nothing that comes out of this campaign, or this Obama White House, that they can believe. It truly is all misrepresentation and deception.

Most politicians are not authentic.

A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies.

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

Almost all political campaigns involve falsity and playacting.

I mean if you have ever found a politician who says, 'No, no, I would do everything exactly as I did,' then you can tell when he is lying because his lips are moving.

Politicians like to tell people what they want to hear - and what they want to hear is what won't happen.

Professional politicians will say anything, and they're always careful to leave themselves room to turn around and do the other.

Barack Obama isn't the first politician to break a promise, torture the truth or outright lie to the American people. But, he certainly is among the most accomplished at it.

Certainly, it seems true enough that there's a good deal of irony in the world... I mean, if you live in a world full of politicians and advertising, there's obviously a lot of deception.

In politics, sometimes you have to lie, or you make a promise that you cannot keep.

I know every politician spins the truth a little.

If you're lying, you're lying.

There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true.

A politician really gets into trouble when he starts to believe his own rhetoric.

A half truth is a whole lie.

Politicians learn to turn the truth into something that they want the truth to be.

Sometimes hyperbole and lying are not easily distinguishable [in politics].

I would despise myself if I thought that I was procuring your votes by concealing my opinions, and by avowing one set of principles in one part of the state and a different set in another.

Administrations of both parties lie. The question is the weightiness of the lies.