The mistake a lot of politicians make is in forgetting they've been
appointed and thinking they've been anointed.
--  Author Unknown

I think gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman.
--  California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

Things are more like they are now than they have ever been.
--  President Gerald Ford

My vision is to make the most diverse state on earth, and we have people
from every planet...On the earth in this state.
--  Gray Davis, former governor of California

I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!
--  Will Rogers

The reason there are so few female politicians is that it is too much trouble
to put makeup on two faces.
--  Maureen Murphy

In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence
is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
--  Ambrose Bierce

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and the government when
it deserves it.
--  Mark Twain

I think it's about time we voted for senators with breasts.
After all, we've been voting for boobs for long enough.
--  Author Unknown

A politician is a man who will double cross that bridge when he comes to it.   
--  Oscar Levant

Politicians are people who, when they see the light at the end of the tunnel,
order more tunnel.
--  Author Unknown

I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency --
even if I'm in a Cabinet meeting.
--  Ronald Reagan

Honor is not the exclusive property of any political party.
--  Herbert Hoover

Richard Nixon impeached himself. He gave us Gerald Ford as his revenge.
--  Bella Abzug

Nixon's motto was, 'If two wrongs don't make a right, try three.
--  Norman Cousins.  

Gerry Ford is so dumb that he can't fart and chew gum at the same time.
--  former U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson. 

Harry Truman proves that old adage that any man can become President of
the United States.
--  U.S. politician Norman Thomas

A taxpayer, that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't
have to take the civil service examination.
--  Ronald Reagan

To the best of my knowledge, no gentleman of the press has ever risen to
scold the President for an unsatisfactory answer and to push him for a better
one. Indeed, the first gentleman to do it will probably be the last.
--  Author Unknown

Conservatives are wasting their time, energy and votes if they stay in
the Republican Party. No more than the Democrats do the Republicans honor
the Constitution. They merely violate it at a slower pace.
-- Joseph Sobran 

In America, anyone can become president. That's one of the risks you take.
--  Adlai Stevenson

Politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
--  Charles De Gaulle

In the U.S., obesity is a critical problem. Many voters have extremely
fat touch-screen voting fingers, causing them to vote for three candidates
at once, throwing an already dubious system into utter chaos.
--  Don Wright

Politicians & diapers, both need to be changed --   and for the same reason!
--  Author Unknown

Let me tell you something, and hey, believe me, I'm no pundit. I'm no
expert in politics, but I think it's a bad sign when your speech ends
with your aide shooting you with a tranquilizer gun.
--  Jay Leno

We'd all like to vote for the best man but he's never a candidate.
--  Kin Hubbard

[the action of] Russia is a riddle, wrapped inside a mystery, inside an enigma?
--  Winston Churchill

Legislative Slips of the Tongue

I don't know anyone here that's been killed with a handgun.
--  Rep. Avery Alexander, D-New Orleans

I think we have passed something that we didn't want to do.
--  Rep. Chuck McMains, R-Baton Rouge

I can't believe that we are going to let a majority of the people decide
what is best for this state.
--  Rep. John Travis, D-Jackson

This amendment does more damage than it does harm.
--  Rep. Cynthia Willard-Lewis, D-New Orleans

Y'all are hurting my tender ears. I would appreciate it if y'all would
scream one at a time.
--  House Speaker John Alario, D-Westwego

I was 15 years old before I ate my first chicken without tire tracks.
--  Rep. Jay McCallum, D-Farmerville

Describing how it is to run through a gauntlet of lobbyists to get to the
Senate chamber They're lined up like cooters on a log on a sunshiny day.
--  Sen. B.B. Sixty Rayburn, D-Bogalusa

Congress is so strange.  Someone gets up to speak, talks for a long time,
but says nothing. Nobody listens, and then everybody disagrees.
--  Author Unknown

Governor Gray Davis has asked the California state Supreme Court to delay the
October recall vote because he says that's not enough time to put on a fair election.
Hey, let me tell you something. If we didn't need a fair election to pick the president
of the United States, we don't need a fair election to pick the governor of California.
--  Jay Leno

In other news, Gray Davis got some good news this week. The Clintons
are out here in California campaigning for him -- actually Hillary is
campaigning for Davis, Bill is out here for Larry Flynt.
--  Jay Leno

The trouble with political jokes is that they get elected.
--  Author Unknown

It is useless to hold a person to anything he says while he's in love,
drunk, or running for office.
--  Shirley MacLaine

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being
governed by those who are dumber.
--  Plato

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on
what to have for dinner.
 --  James Bovard (1994)

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
--  George Bernard Shaw

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which  debt
he proposes to pay off with your money.
--  G.  Gordon Liddy

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich
countries to rich  people in poor countries.
--  Douglas Casey (1992)

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys
to teenage boys.
--  P.J. O'Rourke

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to
live at the expense of everybody else.
--  Frederic Bastiat

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases
If it moves, tax it.  If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving,
subsidize it.
--  Ronald Reagan (1986)

I don't make jokes.  I just watch the government and report the facts.
--  Will Rogers

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it
costs when it's free.
--  P.J.  O'Rourke

If you want government to intervene domestically, you're a liberal.   If
you want government to intervene overseas, you're a conservative.   If you want
government to intervene everywhere, you're a moderate.  If you don't want
government to intervene anywhere, you're an extremist.
 --  Joseph Sobran (1995)

In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as
possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
--  Voltaire (1764)

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.
 --  Pericles (430 B.C.)

No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in
session.
 --  Mark Twain (1866)

Suppose you were an idiot.  And suppose you were a member of Congress.
But, I repeat myself.
--  Mark Twain

Talk is cheap-except when Congress does it.

The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at
one end and no responsibility at the other.
 --  Ronald Reagan

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings.
The inherent  blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
 --  Winston Churchill

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
 --  Mark Twain

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
 --  Herbert Spencer (1891)

There is no distinctly native American criminal class save Congress.
 --  Mark Twain

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

There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well
please.  And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the
consequences.
 --  P.J.  O'Rourke (1993)

We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like
a man standing in a  bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
 --  Winston Churchill

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
 --  Edward Langley

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things
to be bought and sold are legislators.
 --  P.J.  O'Rourke

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want,
and deserve to get it good and hard.
--  H.L. Mencken

Politicians profit by confusing theories with conditions.
--  Author Unknown

Politics is stealing from the many and giving to the few.
--  Author Unknown

In America you can go on the air and kid the politicians, and the politicians
can go on the air and kid the people.
--  Author Unknown

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and
then misapplying the wrong remedies.
--  Groucho Marx

Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.
--  John Kenneth Galbraith

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are
putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.
--  Mark Twain

The next 2 are thanks to Marsha in Texas

Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue.
Fleas are interested in dogs.
--  P. J. O'Rourke

A politician is a man who will double cross that bridge when he
comes to it.
--  Oscar Levant

In the United States Senate, one of the things I observed in the early
days - and it's still used - and that is that you take someone's argument
and then you misrepresent it and misstate and disagree with it. And it's
very effective. I've done it myself a number of times. But eventually,
eventually people catch on.
--  Sen. Edward M. Kennedy

The President has kept all the promises he intended to keep.
--  Clinton aide George Stephanopolous

The government's health care policy is as significant as a blush on a
dead man's cheek.
--  Clive Jenkins

Making a speech on economics is a bit like pissing down your leg.
It seems hot to you but never to anyone else.
--  Lyndon B Johnson

Don't get excited about a tax cut. It's like a mugger giving you back
fare for a taxi.
--  Arnold Glasow

It is wonderful to be here in the great state of Chicago.
--  Dan Quayle

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere,
diagnosing it incorrectly and then applying the wrong remedies.
 

If we moms can push 9 pound babies through our bodies, some of them
with heads as big as bowling balls, surely we can push legislation
through the halls of Congress.
--  Donna Dees-Thomases

With George W. Bush as the President ... well, uh, look at the bright
side.  All Americans will share a common bond.  Everyone will be
able to say, "I'm smarter than the President of the United States!"
Not bad, eh?
--  Michael Moore

Scientists believe that monkeys can be taught to think, lie and
even play politics within their community. If we can just teach
them to cheat on their wives we can save millions on congressional
salaries.
--  Jay Leno

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President.
Now I'm beginning to believe it.
--  Clarence Darrow

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the
people are right more than half of the time.
--  E.B. White

Politician, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure
of organized society is reared. When he wriggles he mistakes the agitation
of his tale for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the
statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive.
--  Ambrose Bierce

What would happen if everybody believed what the candidates said about
one another and nobody won?
--  Milton Berle

The flood of money that gushes into politics today is a pollution
of democracy.
--  T.H. White

How come we get to pick from so few candidates for the U.S.
President?  After all, they pick Miss America from 50 contestants!
--  Author Unknown

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to
trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both
commonly succeed, and are right.
--  H.L. Mencken

The people who vote decide nothing. The people who count the vote
decide everything.
--  Josef Stalin.

Where is lawyer Johnnie Cochran when the Democrats need him most?
If the votes don't amount, you must recount.
-- Charlie Skuba (during the 2000 US election re-count fiasco)

These corrupt ways of operating are a danger to the very nature of
American government. If you can steal an election by blackmailing
members of the electoral college, then democracy becomes a farce.
--  Thomas Sowell

He makes George Bush seem like a personality.
--  Jackie Mason on John Major.

He is a sheep in sheep's clothing.
--  Winston Churchill on Clement Attlee.

He could not see a belt without hitting below it.
--  Margot Asquith on David Lloyd George.

Richard Nixon impeached himself. He gave us Gerald Ford as
his revenge.
--  Bella Abzug

Nixon's motto was, 'If two wrongs don't make a right, try three.
--  Norman Cousins

Gerry Ford is so dumb that he can't fart and chew gum at the
same time.
--  Lyndon B. Johnson.

I wouldn't say she is open-minded on the Middle East, so
much as empty-headed. She probably thinks Sinai is the
plural of sinus.
--  Jonathan Aitken on Margaret Hatcher.

Harry Truman proves that old adage that any man can become
President of the United States.
--  Norman Thomas

How do you do the dance called the "Politician"?
You take two steps forward, three steps back; pause, then side-
step, side-step, and turn around-about.
--  Author Unknown

Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have
come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.
--  Ronald Reagan

Senator: a person who makes laws in Washington when
not doing time.
--  Mark Twain

There are always going to be people who want to be President,
and some days I'd like to give it to them.
-  President Bill Clinton

Anyone can be elected governor. I'm proof of that.
--  Joe Frank Harris, two-term Georgia Governor

John Redwood is a young man, but, let's face it, so was Margaret
Thatcher in 1975.
--  Edward Leigh, member of Parliament, during a radio interview

These are not my figures I'm quoting. They're from someone who
knows what he's talking about.
--  Unidentified Congressman during a debate

I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have
looked like if Moses had run them through the US Congress.
--  Ronald Reagan

If God had intended for us to vote, He would have given us candidates.
--  Author Unknown

Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There's nothing
to do but to stand there and take it.
--  Lyndon B. Johnson

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not
know whether to answer "Present" or "Not guilty".
--  Theodore Roosevelt

Ninety eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking,
honest Americans. It's the other lousy two-percent that get all the publicity.
But then, we elected them.
--  Lily Tomlin

Early today the senator called a spade a spade.  He later issued
a retraction.
--  Joe Mirachi

I will talk to my stockbroker, and unless he gives me some good
reason why I shouldn't, I would be pleased to dispose of (my South
African investments.)  I am very much opposed to apartheid.
--  California State Senator Milton Marks

The profits shall be equally divided and the residue goes to
the governor.
--  Irish Bank Bill of 1808

The Senate decided they will be smoke-free. They ordained that
all public areas in the Senate are now smoke-free. However, the
senators themselves will still be allowed to blow smoke up
each other's asses.
--  Bill Maher

For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.
--  Bob Wells

Capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of
human life.
--  Sen. Orren Hatch

I've read about foreign policy and studied -- I know the number
of continents.
--  George Wallace

Democracy used to be a good thing, but now it has gotten into
the wrong hands.
--  Senator Jesse Helms

I'm going through eye exercise therapy, strengthening my eyes.
I'm supposed to…like, rest them.
-- Martha Stewart, denying that she was dozing off during an Al Gore speech

Sometimes in order to make progress and move ahead, you have to
stand up and do the wrong thing.
--  Congressman Gary Ackerman

For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.
--  M. Harris

What does an actor know about politics?
--  President Ronald Reagan
    (complaining about Screen Actors’ Guild president
    Ed Asner speaking out on U.S. foreign policy)

People who like this sort of thing will find this is the sort of
thing they like.
--  Richard Nixon

Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're
paying for.
--  Will Rogers

I was provided with additional input that was radically different from
the truth. I assisted in furthering that version."
-- Col. Oliver North (from his Iran-Contra testimony)

Politics and Pornography...Someone always gets screwed in the long run.
--  Author Unknown

I want to be sure that he is a ruthless son of a bitch, that he
will do what he's told, that every income-tax return I want to
see I see, that he will go after our enemies and not our friends.
Now it's as simple as that.  If he isn't. he doesn't get the job.
--  President Richard Nixon, in May 1971 tapes, describing his
criteria for a new IRS commissioner, as quoted in Newsweek

It just makes good sense to put all your eggs in one basket.
--  Texas Rep. Joe Salem (speaking on an amendment requiring all
revenues to go into the state treasury)

Lemme give ya' a hypothetic.
--  Texas Rep. Renal Rosson

Ain't nothin' in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.
--  Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower

And now, will y'all stand and be recognized?
--  Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis (to a group of handicapped people in wheelchairs)

Dallas salutes a person who can buy a piece of art, but not a person who can create one.
--  A. C. Greene

No thanks, once was enough.
--  Texas Governor Bill Clements, when asked if he had been born again

Oh good.  Now he'll be bi-ignorant.
--  Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower when told that Texas
Governor Bill Clements had been studying Spanish

I'd just make a little bit of money, I wouldn't make a whole lot.
--  Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis defending himself against the
charge that he would personally profit from a bill he had introduced.

Well, there never was a Bible in the room.
--  Texas Governor Bill Clements, asked about repeatedly lying
about the SMU football scandal.

I am filled with humidity.
--  Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis

If ignorance ever goes to $40 a barrel, I want drillin' rights on that man's head.
--  Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower discussing
President George Bush's policies

If it's dangerous to talk to yourself, it's probably even dicier to listen.
--  Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower

I move we recess to go outside and throw up.
--  Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis during a budget hearing

This is a real competitive business.
--  A gas station owner, when asked to explain the rapid rise in
gasoline prices when Kuwait was invaded

...idiots, imbeciles, aliens, the insane and women...
--  Law standing in Texas until 1918 regulating who could not vote

It's the sediment of the House that we adjourn.
--  Texas House Speaker Wayne Clayton

Let's do this in one foul sweep.
--  Texas House Speaker Wayne Clayton

This is unparalyzed in the state's history.
--  Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis

I want to thank each and every one of you for having extinguished
yourselves this session.
--  Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis

We'll run it up the flagpole and see who salutes that booger.
--  Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis

There's a lot of uncertainty that's not clear in my mind.
--  Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis

There are still places where people think that the function of the media
is to provide information.
--  Don Rottenberg

Ask a man which way he is going to vote, and he will probably tell you.
Ask him, however, why, and vagueness is all.
--  Bernard Levin

A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both
ears to the ground.
--  H. L. Mencken

Any party which takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its
opponents blame it for the drought.
--  Dwight Morrow

I don't care what anyone says, I think George W Bush is a shining wit.
(But then I am prone to spoonerizing.)
--  Bruce Chilton

Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build bridges even
when there are no rivers.
--  Nikita Khruschev

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.
--  Mao Zedong

In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
--  Thomas Jefferson

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
--  Samuel Johnson

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from
ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference,
and undernourishment.
--  Robert Hutchins

Take away the right to say "fuck" and you take away the right
to say, "Fuck the government."
--  Lenny Bruce

Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature.
--  Frank McKinny "Kin" Hubbard

The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
--  Abbie Hoffman

Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.
--  John Kenneth Galbraith

Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the
disastrous and the unpalatable.
--  John Kenneth Galbraith

We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.
--  Dwight D. Eisenhower

The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun.
--  R. Buckminster Fuller

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days
government had better get out of their way and let them have it.
--  Dwight D. Eisenhower

The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful
one a criminal.
--  Erich Fromm

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm
beginning to believe it.
--  Clarence Darrow

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--  Henry Kissinger

The NBA's Washington Bullets will be changing their name to avoid being
associated with an image of crime. So from now on, they're just going to be
known as the Bullets.
--  Jay Leno

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to
improve it is largely a waste of time.
--  H.L. Mencken

An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.
--  Simon Cameron

Vote early and vote often.
--  Al Capone

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings;
the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
--  Winston Churchill

Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective
stories.
--  Arthur C. Clarke

We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and
complex - but Congress can.
-- Jim Kelty

Before you kill something make sure you have something better to
replace it with; something better than political opportunist
slamming hate horse shit in the public park.
--  Charles Bukowski

People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before
an election.
--  Otto von Bismarck

We love your adherence to democratic principles.
--  William F. Buckley

I went to a good school where some of our foremost politicians
learned their three R's - this is Ours, that is Ours, everything
is Ours.
--  Author Unknown

No more than the Democrats do the Republicans honor the Constitution.
They merely violate it at a slower pace.
--  Joseph Sobran

Congress must decide whether to support the parasitic culture of
Washington life -- taking something and delivering nothing -- or
acknowledge that wages rightfully belong to the people who actually
earned  them.
--  Tony Snow

I am not part of the problem. I am a Democrat.
--  Vice President Al Gore

A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.
--  Vice President Al Gore

If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.
-- Jay Leno

In any country there must be people who have to die. They are the
sacrifices any nation has to make to achieve law and order.
-- Idi Amin Dada

There is no little enemy.
--  Benjamin Franklin

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
--  Benjamin Franklin

If God had wanted us to use the metric system,
Jesus would have had 10 apostles.
-- US Senator Jesse Helms

The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must
be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated
and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced,
if the nation doesn't want to go bankrupt. People must again learn
to work, instead of living on public assistance.
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero, 55 B.C.

What's the difference between people getting welfare checks
and doing nothing and people punching a time clock and doing
nothing for eight hours? Answer, one is a liberal Democrat and
the other is a conservative Republican.
--  Author Unknown

The problem facing almost all leaders in the future will be
how to develop their organizations' social architecture so
that it actually generates intellectual capital.
 --Dr. Warren Bennis

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed lamb denying enforcement of the vote.
--  Author Unknown

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-- Benjamin Franklin

A politician is a man who will double cross that bridge when
he comes to it.
--  Oscar Levant

Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession.
I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance
to the first.
-- Ronald Reagan

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician
a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.
-- Aristophanes

Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is
always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs.
-- P. J. O'Rourke

When he first ran for office, he appealed to the voters:
"I never stole anything in my life. All I ask is a chance."
-- Author Unknown

In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man; if you want
anything done, ask a woman.
-- Margaret Thatcher

Dan Quayle says he's running for president. He received congratulatory
telegrams from Jay Leno, David Letterman and Bill Maher.
--  Daily Scoop

President Clinton announced the government had a record $76 billion surplus.
A lot of Democrats were urging him to spend that money on aid to unwed
mothers, or as Clinton calls it, "hush money."
--  Jay Leno

Researchers said Wednesday that birds sleep with one eye
open and half of their brain awake. The only other living
thing known to do this is the Government Employee in its
natural daytime habitat.
 ---From Jim Rosenberg's Daily Monologue

I don't know what's wrong with my television set. I was getting
C-Span and the Home Shopping Network on the same station.
I actually bought a congressman.
--Bruce Baum

Politics comes from the Latin root poli, meaning many, and ticks,
which are blood-sucking insects.
--  Author Unknown

Wishington. (n., place) the political capital (sic) of the United
States; a place where Federal politicians go if elected; where
hope is confused with greed.
--  Author Unknown

It is error alone which needs the support
of government.  Truth can stand by itself.
-- Thomas Jefferson

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to
test a man's character, give him power.
-- Abraham Lincoln

A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will
lose both, and deserve neither.
-- Thomas Jefferson

One man with courage makes it a majority.
-- Andrew Jackson

The great dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment
by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
-- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

Laws are sand, customs are rock.  Laws can be evaded
and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed
custom brings sure punishment.
-- Mark Twain

You can't use tact with a Congressman.  A congressman is a hog.
You must take a stick and hit him on the snout.
-- Henry Adams

The problem with a government-run trust fund is that there is too
little of either.
--  Author Unknown

What a beautiful fix we are in now; peace has been declared.
-- Napolean Bonaparte

Television is democracy at its ugliest.
-- Paddy Chayevsky

There is no distinctly American criminal class...except for Congress.
--  Mark Twain

I'm not a member of any organized party...I'm a Democrat!
--  Will Rogers

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent
revolution inevitable.
-- John F. Kennedy

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of
Congress. But I repeat myself.
-- Mark Twain

The government which governs best, governs least.
--  Author Unknown

I'm glad I'm not President of the United States, because then I would be limited to having sex
with pretty much whoever shows up in my office.
--Patti North-Rudin

I am not part of the problem.  I am a Republican.
--Vice President Dan Quayle

A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.
--Vice President Dan Quayle

It's time for the human race to enter the solar system.
--Vice President Dan Quayle
 

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
-- Voltaire

A committee is:
a group of the unprepared,
appointed by the unwilling,
to do the unnecessary.
-- F. Allen

A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.
-- Henrik Ibsen

A Government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support
of Paul.
-- Bernard Shaw

A million here, a million there, pretty soon you're talking real money.
-- Senator Evrett Dirkson

A statesman who keeps his ear permanently glued to the ground will have neither
elegance of posture nor flexibility of movement.
-- Abba Eban

America wasn't founded so that we could all be better.  America was founded
so we could all be anything we damn well pleased.
-- P. J. O'Rourke

Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to
lie well.
-- Samuel Butler

Any politician who starts shouting election-year demagoguery about the rich and
the poor should be asked, "What about the other 90 percent of the people?"
-- Thomas Sowell

Education will never become as expensive as ignorance.
-- Author Unknown

Election campaigns are like cleaning a window.
The dirt is always on the other side.
-- William H. Herles

Election year is that period when politicians get free speech mixed up with
cheap talk.
-- J.B. Kidd

Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom consists not in
doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.
--  Pope John Paul II

Far more often than poverty breeds crime, crime breeds poverty.
--  Michael Levine

Few things are as democratic as a snowstorm.
--  Bern Williams

Governing a large country is like frying a small fish.
You spoil it with too much poking.
-- Lao-tze

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence - it is force.
-- George Washington

Government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it got
out of its way.
-- Henry David Thoreau

Government subsidies can be critically analyzed according to a simple principle.
You are smarter than the government, so when the government pays you to do something
you wouldn't do on your own, it is almost always paying you to do something stupid.
-- P.J. O'Rourke

He's retiring from public service due to ill health.  The voters got sick of him.
-- Howie Carr

I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, two are
called a law firm, and three or more become a Congress.
-- John Adams

I have finally figured out how the Government works:
The senate gets the bill from the House.
The President gets the bill from the Senate.
And we get  the bill for everything.
-- Author Unknown

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose
happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.
-- Thomas Jefferson

I support an air bag in every car, unless a Senator is on board, in which case it
becomes redundant.
--  Rep. Robert Michel, Ill.

If you examine two snowflakes, you'll see that no two are alike.  This is
in contrast to politicians, where all flakes are alike.
-- Joe Hickman

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it's free.
-- P.J. O'Rourke

If you think it's easy to be a politician, try to straddle a fence and keep both
ears to the ground at the same time.
-- The Globe & Mail

Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery.
-- Parts Pups '94

Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change
the locks.
-- Doug Larson

It's awfully hard to get a hog to butcher itself.
-- Senator Strom Thurmond  (Explaining why Congress doesn't decrease spending.)

It's every American's duty to support the government, but not, necessarily,
in the style to which it is accustomed.
-- Thomas Clifford

It's no exaggeration to say the undecideds could go one way or the other.
-- George Bush

It's tough being a politician.  Half your reputation is ruined by lies;
the other half is ruined by truth.
-- Joe Hickman

It's tough being a politician.  Half your reputation is ruined by lies; the other
half is ruined by the truth.
-- Joe Hickman

It can be argued that the entertainment industry as a whole has given more
thought to the pollution of rivers than it has to the pollution of minds.
-- Ken Auletta

It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it
taken from you.
-- Dick Cheney

Nothing will divide this nation more than ignorance, and nothing can bring
us together better than an educated population.
-- John Sculley

Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature.
-- Kin Hubbard

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may
be the most oppressive....  Those who torment us for our own good will torment
us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
--  C.S. Lewis

One American put it this way:  Every tomorrow has two handles.  We can take
hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Political debates are sort of like stock-car races-- no one really cares who
wins; they just want to see the crashes.
-- Molly Ivins

Politician's statements tend to have a low specific gravity:  they carry less weight
than their volume would suggest.
-- Jonathan Miller

Politicians and crabs are creatures who move in such a way it is impossible to
tell whether they are coming or going.
-- Barbay Conrad III

Politicians are like cushions, they bear the impression of the last person who
sat on them.
-- Author Unknown

Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out
and buy some more tunnel.
-- John Quinton

Politicians say they're beefing up our economy.  Most don't know beef from pork.
-- Harold Lowman

Power undirected by high purpose spells calamity; and high purpose by itself
is utterly useless if the power to put it into effect is lacking.
-- Theodore Roosevelt

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all
subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.
-- William O. Douglas

Spin Doctors say that their candidate is "picking up steam" when all he's really
doing is blowing smoke.
-- Angie Papadakis

Tax reform is taking the taxes off things that have been taxed in the past and
putting taxes on things that haven't been taxed before.
-- Art Buchwald

Texas Political Ethics:  If you can't take their money, drink their whiskey and
vote against 'em anyway, you don't belong in the legislature.
-- Molly Ivins

The botanical name for the yew, used exclusively around Washington government
buildings is TAXUS.
-- Philip B. Brill

The extravagance of government rhetoric is inversely proportional to the
seriousness of the act involved.
--  George F. Will

The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of government power.
-- Woodrow Wilson

The mistakes made by Congress wouldn't be so bad if the next Congress didn't
keep trying to correct them.
-- Cullen Hightower

The most important political office is that of private citizen.
-- Louis Brandeis

The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.
-- P.J. O'Rourke

The punishment suffered by the wise who refuse to take part in the government,
is to live under the government of bad men.
-- Plato

The reason Congressmen try so hard to get reelected is that they would hate to
have to make a living under the laws they've passed.
-- Quoted in Nuggets

The service we render others is the rent we pay for our room on earth.
-- Wilfred Grenfell

The trouble with politicians is they always put our money where their mouths are.
-- Baloo

The truth about government of the people, by the people, and for the people is
that we are getting billed in triplicate.  Which is  not what Honest Abe had
in mind.
-- Oren Arnold

There are no limits on our future if we don't put limits on our people.
--  Jack Kemp

There is no little enemy.
-- Benjamin Franklin

Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.
-- Benjamin Franklin

Too bad the only people who know how to run the country are too busy driving cabs
and cutting hair.
-- George Burns

Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
-- Montesquiue

Washington is a place where politicians don't know which way is up and taxes don't
know which way is down.
-- Robert Orben

Western civilization would be a good idea.
- Parts Pups '94

What do you call a politician that has lost an election?   A consultant.
-- Rich's Current Humor

What government is the best? That which teaches us to govern ourselves.
-- Goethe

What this country needs is fewer people who know what this country needs.
-- Parts Pups '94

Without concern, no justice. Without justice, no peace. Without peace, no future.
-- Author Unknown