A Quote by Randall Jarrell
If we meet an honest and intelligent politician, 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.
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Indians mock their corrupt politicians relentlessly, but they regard their honest politicians with silent suspicion. The first thing they do when they hear of a supposedly 'clean' politician is to grin. It is a cliche that honest politicians in India tend to have dishonest sons, who collect money from people seeking an audience with Dad.
There's no pleasing the British, or winning their favor. They simply hate politicians. All politicians. Hatred goes with politicians like mint sauce with lamb. It's as old as Parliaments.
One can say all they want about politicians, but politicians to other politicians, their word is almost always good.
All my life I've dealt with politicians. I know politicians better than anybody. And honestly, if you can't deal with a politician, there's something wrong with you.
Be honest. Be honest with yourself, be honest with, you know, your fellow politicians. This is a rare quality of politicians.
For politicians to be honest, the public needs to allow them to be honest, and the media, which mediates between the politicians and the public, needs to allow those politicians to be honest. If local democracy is to flourish, it is about the active and informed engagement of every citizen.
I am cynical about politicians. My experience of politicians has been thoroughly negative. I have found that politicians are people that can not be taken at face value. There are very few politicians I have been impressed with.
There are politicians who seethe with ambition all the time, and there are a lot of other politicians who don't. I'm in the second category, that's all.
Political science has long tried to tackle a fundamental question of voter behavior: Do voters choose politicians because those politicians hold views that they like, or do voters choose policy positions because the politicians they like say those positions are correct?
The fact is that in England so many of our politicians are career politicians - they've always been politicians since they left their education. And in the old days of course politicians used to be fish mongers or doctors or whatever. They'd lived life. These days, power seems to go to the hands of people that that's all they've done. And I'm not sure that's a good thing, because it does remove them from the realities of life.
Politicians detest self-sufficient citizens. Politicians need to be needed. When we get socialized medicine, you will be completely dependent upon politicians for your medical care, as Canadians are today. That's why if you need an MRI in Canada, you have to wait three months - unless you pay certain kinds of homage to the right politicians.
To be honest, I find most politicians very untrustworthy. When I listen to them talking - or rather, lying - I just feel there are very few politicians with integrity, so I never know who to bat for.
I think politicians know how to misrepresent data in order to support a political agenda. Politicians and the people that work for them - I should say - are expert at that.
What passes for real debate in Washington often seems more like an echo chamber, with politicians talking at politicians.
I'm less upset with politicians than the media. I feel like politicians, there is a certain, inherent - you know, the way I always explain it is, when you go to the zoo and a monkey throws its feces, it's a monkey. But, when the zookeeper is standing right there, and he doesn't say bad monkey... Somebody's got to be the zookeeper.
The only people who say worse things about politicians that reporters do are other politicians.
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