There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.
Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.
In politics, a lie unanswered becomes truth within 24 hours.
I have to remind my dad, 'Journalists - no matter how many cigars they smoke with you - are not your friends, so don't talk to them.'
You can't believe everything you read in a newspaper or everything that's coming out of the president's mouth. And you can't believe when someone posts a picture from their personal life, because most of the time, it's staged - we're showing each other these idealized versions of ourselves so that we seem better and other people will feel worse.
Politics won't allow for the truth.
TV is set up to be just a shout fest: Is this good for Republicans or bad for Republicans; is this good for Cain or bad for Cain... tell me something that I need to know.
It's the oldest trick in Washington - when presented with a policy solution you don't like, characterize it as the bogeyman.
Mudslinging – In politics, anything bad the opponent says about our candidate; in contrast, when our candidate does this, it is called 'making a good point.
The Grammar Curmudgeon
I'm not the inventor of negative campaigning, but I'm an ardent practitioner.
The politician must always tell people what they want to hear.
There is a lot of spinning and a lot of lying in our times—in politics, in government, in sports and everywhere. It’s gotten to the point where … you no longer believe the first version of anything. It wasn’t always that way. I guess it started for me with Vietnam, when the establishment felt it had to lie to justify a policy that as it turned out was never going to work.
Tony Blair is not a villain, but he's played the part very well.
For most politicians, facts lead to conclusions. For George W. Bush, conclusions lead to facts.
Every reporter inhales skepticism. You interview people, and they lie. You face public figures, diligently making notes or taping what is said, and they perform their interviews to fit a calculated script. The truth, alas, is always elusive.
Establishment, career politicians are about saying one thing and doing another.
Sean Hannity is a hypocrite!He's blasting anonymous sources and saying journalism is dead when he uses an anonymous source in the form of President Trump.
I think all politicians lie.
I hate programmes where some TV personality looks you in the eye and tells you what to think - the Andrew Marr version of history. I hate the authorial voice telling you what to think.
That's basically what's going on now: Everything is propaganda.
Downplaying their faults is pretty much the point of campaigns. But we do count on them living with the constant terror of public rejection.
One of the main functions of politicians - and journalists - is to simplify the world for us.
Big media are all about the angle, the spin. Look to the overarching theme that runs through each and every news story. Be hip to the meta-narrative peddled.
Ronald Reagan's legacy is deeply misunderstood because there are political actors in America who, for several reasons, have privately held agendas that they want to sell to the American public in the most appealing way possible. They often find the best way to do that is to package their product with the Reagan brand.
Scientifically speaking, if I say something, or it gets misquoted, or people put a spin on it... I mean, are you interested, really, in what people are saying?
