Deceptive Politics Quotes

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

It's the oldest trick in Washington - when presented with a policy solution you don't like, characterize it as the bogeyman.

For most politicians, facts lead to conclusions. For George W. Bush, conclusions lead to facts.

My deepest feeling about politicians is that they are dangerous lunatics to be avoided when possible and carefully humored; people, above all, to whom one must never tell the truth.

the insight that peace is the end of war, and that therefore a war is the preparation for peace, is at least as old as Aristotle, and the pretense that the aim of an armament race is to guard the peace is even older, namely as old as the discovery of propaganda lies.

When American presidents prepare for foreign wars, they lie.

Concerned we're in a time where politicians can't even fake sincerity. Aren't they supposed to be good at that?

Voters never grow weary of illusory promises.

If you add up all the promises any politicians makes, the math doesn't work.

The Grand Bargain is a Grand Lie. Anyone who argues for it is either a fool or a charlatan. If President Obama was anything but the establishment hack that he is, he would never consider it.

If the present is any guide, government-sanctioned, counterfeit history is in your future.

Bush and Cheney were not misled by flawed intelligence; they used the flawed intelligence to mislead.

The dull flat falsehood serves for policy, and in the cunning, truth's itself a lie.

Democrats always like to brag that their guys are smarter than the opponents and Republicans always like to brag that their guys are more moral than the opponents. But if you're looking for morals in politics you're looking for bananas in the cheese department.

I learned everything I ever need to know about questioning artful dodgers by covering the most artful of them all, Ronald Reagan. For Reagan, performance was as much a part of governing as understanding the details of the federal budget.

Politicians make phony promises all the time that they can't deliver.

Unfortunately in this country we now have a demagogue ... one that is reckless with the truth.

I am commonly opposed to those who modestly assume the rank of champions of liberty, and make a very patriotic noise about the people. It is the stale artifice which has duped the world a thousand times, and yet, though detected, it is still successful. I love liberty as well as anybody. I am proud of it, as the true title of our people to distinction above others; but . . . I would guard it by making the laws strong enough to protect it.

The man is the Piltdown Man of modern politics.

My father had a deep and lifelong contempt for politicians in general ("They tell lies," he used to say with wonder, "even when they don't have to").