Top 13 Quotes & Sayings by Hendrik Hertzberg

Unfair in practice is not the same thing as wrong in principle, but sometimes it has to do.

The dismaying truth is that birtherism is part of a larger pattern of rejection of reality that has taken hold of intimidating segments of one of the two political parties that alternate in power in our governing institutions. It is akin to the view that global warming is a hoax, or that the budget can be balanced through spending cuts alone, or that contraception causes abortion, or that evolution is just another theory, on a par with the theory that the earth is six thousand years old.

It’s a strange sort of attack, to be sure: a wonderfully pacific attack, a supportive attack, an attack without the slightest intention or capacity to cause harm, consisting, as it does, of the earnest wish of certain loving couples to join themselves to that very institution and thus to feel themselves, and be accepted as, full members of the American (and human) family.

[If the Democratic nominee turns out to be] Walter Mondale, I hope he picks Representative Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate. It would be a desperate move, but that's what it'll take to get rid of Reagan. Ms. Ferraro is no more unqualified than a lot of Vice Presidential candidates have been, and anyhow Mondale's in good health.

I don't think that the "freedom movement" is a racist movement as such. But it's a virulent example of identity politics. "Whiteness" is part of the identity, but not the most important part.

I`m pretty sure there is no such thing as God.

A person's character is what it is. It's a little like a marriage - only without the option of divorce. You can work on it and try to make it better, but basically you have to take the bitter with the sweet.

Marriage should be between a spouse and a spouse, not a gender and a gender.

A political ideology is a very handy thing to have. It's a real time-saver, because it tells you what you think about things you know nothing about.

I can't agree that what we're seeing is a matter of the American bourgeoisie confronting workers everywhere. It's more like the international plutocracy eliminating the American middle class while inadvertently creating a bourgeoisie in India, China, etc. I do agree that Soros's role is paradoxical, but if all billionaires (or even a few more) were like Soros, the dialectic would give us global social democracy PDQ.

The filibuster is an affront to commonly understood democratic norms, but then so is the Senate.

A "communist/socialist/progressive" is an oxymoron, like an "atheist/evangelical Christian/Muslim."

Where is it written that if you don't like religion you are somehow disqualified from being a legitimate American? What was Mark Twain, a Russian?