Nat Hentoff Quotes

I do what I do. Barack Obama does what politicians do.

I think politicians who suggest they are uninterested in the support of newspapers are not being straight with people.

Very few people go into politics to be reviled.

Look, when you're the president, there's all kinds of things said about us. I mean, it's just the nature of the job.

In one way or another, President Obama's critics will dog him all the way to Oslo for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, and even his admirers will continue to have doubts about his accomplishments if not his promise.

Obama hasn't lost his standing because of tricks played by the Republicans. He hasn't lost his standing because the media's not fair to him. He hasn't lost his standing or his approval number because the media spent four years attacking him like they did George W. Bush. This is all on him.

Barack Obama is the worst President in history.

The American people don't believe politicians. They don't believe business leaders or Hollywood celebrities or athletes or other supposed role models. And they certainly don't believe the news media.

Journalists, especially English journalists, were very cruel to me. They said I only knew three chords when I knew five!

Before I entered politics, when I used to appear in public everyone would applaud; now half of the people applaud, and half of them boo.

I am reading it [his press coverage] more and enjoying it less.

People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard. But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher — a Roosevelt, a Tolstoy, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away. My Lord, no man can stand prominence these days. It's the surest path to obscurity. People get sick of hearing the same name over and over.

Criticizing presidents for weakess is standard in Washington because the world is a messy place and when bad things happen, Washington and the President can easily be blamed for them.

For a profession that holds dear both the ability to vivisect politicians in prose and the expectation that these carved-up subjects will not complain, the media is horribly thin-skinned and vengeance-seeking when on the receiving end of criticism.

It's easy if you're Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or even sometimes Newt Gingrich to stand back and throw bricks.

We cannot forget about Rachel Maddow. She is the Peter Pan of MSNBC. But instead of never growing up, she never gets to the point.

Google my name and 'Barack Obama.' There were many days I was tough on him. People have short-term memories. They think we're only being tough on Trump. That's just not true.

It is hard to write about politicians, see them at such close range, and still think of any of them as heroes.

The metal press has a certain type of audience, and I think most of them support the magazines' negative focus on me.

A man in public life expects to be sneered at -- it is the fault of his elevated situation, and not of himself.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but Obama looks like he DOES need a teleprompter.

Beware of all politicians everywhere. They excelled at recess when they were in school but have excelled at little since.

When hot dogs like Mr. D'Amato or the Republican apologist Roger Ailes say that Whitewater is worse than Watergate, it's because they're suffering from a disease. It's called bull-imia, and it's the regurgitation of patent hyperbole.

[I]f you want instant, reflexive support for the US government's police and military powers, MSNBC is the place to turn these days.

Republicans are always criticizing President Obama for using the teleprompter. Is that a big deal? After eight years of George Bush, I'm glad we have a president that can read.