Michael Parenti Quotes

I have no more obligation to spin. When you’re in the White House, you spin.

Our presidents have been getting to be synthetic monsters, the work of a hundred ghost- writers and press agents so that it is getting harder and harder to discover the line between the man and the institution.

We never heard a politician so desperate not to offend conventional elite opinion while pretending to be fearless and forthright.

Every successful president has suffered imputations that he has in sinister fashion charmed the press or used a new medium of communication (radio, television, the Internet) to claim an undeserved standing.

[…] our world is far too indulgent of politicians saying blatantly insincere things.

I will say this: One thing I did see in my reporting again and again is that the Obamas themselves are much more involved in handling stories than is usually known.

Political leaders are expert at saying nothing.

Politicians around the world are very different, but they all have one thing in common: The first thing they respond to is public opinion.

John Kerry was always in front of the camera but not out doing the hard work.

The political classes are despised when they deal in sound bites, embrace tokenistic campaigns and feather their own nests while trying to please all of the people all of the time.

A pastor has to be media-savvy if he's going to reach everybody. I don't mean to be ugly and harsh, but to be forthright and candid. And the result is that people that don't like you start listening.

That is the core of Trump. He is undoubtedly an idiot, but do not underestimate how good he is at that.

During Ronald Reagan's administration, '60 Minutes' ran a segment about the difference between Reagan's rhetoric and Reagan's actions. The show thought it had produced a hard-hitting piece; Reagan's team called up '60 Minutes' to thank them for the 15-minute commercial.

One of the bad things about bad behavior by politicians (particularly by Donald Trump, because he's president, but by others as well) is that it not only can encourage bad behavior by politicians of all ideological stripes but also can be cited to justify it.

Having watched 'X Factor' over the years, they just haven't got it right. The male winners haven't been believable. They look like puppets; they sound like puppets.

We say we want politicians who are open and honest. And then, when we get one, we angrily pelt him with slime until he cringes to the mob, starts hiding his real views, and hires a spin doctor just like all the others.

No matter the candidate, every detail in a campaign is carefully and strategically framed for our consumption. The devil is in them.

For me, the whole fame and industry facade is a load of rubbish.

A conveyor belt of Think Tank pundits and allied operatives poured into the TV studios, and together they built a fortress around Mrs. Thatcher's memory that was rooted in theories about economics. They did this because economics is the only language that wonks understand.

Certain people in politics and the press felt there was a political spin to 'Cardiac Arrest,' but there was no political agenda to what I was doing.

The desire to look strong and decisive, instead of looking human, is the fatal flaw of so many politicians, and I will never understand why the favoured path of the political class is akin to a child with chocolate smeared on their face insisting that they didn't eat the edible Christmas tree ornaments while their parents slept.

They sell us the President the same way they sell us our clothes and cars.

John Kerry suspended his campaign for five days this week in honor of President Reagan. And right now, he's ahead in the polls. How's that make him feel? Disappears for a week and he's up in the polls. What else can he do now but go into hiding.

The Democrats are all over this. Democratic strategists feel John Kerry's war record means he can beat Bush. They say when it comes down to it voters will always vote for a war hero over someone who tried to get out of the war. I'll be sure to mention that to Bob Dole when I see him.

Anything said three times in Washington becomes a fact.