Bob Hawke Quotes

Well, I think that those of us in public life that are trying to do a good job, and that are faced with this popular new game that the media has of being critical of everything that anybody in public office does probably are thin-skinned.

I made a decision when I ran for president that I wouldn't whine about my coverage in the media, and I never did.

If you interviewed 1,000 politicians and asked about whether the media's too soft or too hard, about 999 would say too hard.

If politicians are good copy, I like them. If not, I don’t care about them.

If it becomes accepted that politicians' private lives are fair game, many of the best and most talented people, male or female, will refuse to enter politics. We need strong, determined people in politics, but we also need people who are sensitive and compassionate. The way we are going, we'll end up with only the hard men.

Politics has almost become an increasingly pejorative term in our culture. "Politicking" is not something to which we attribute a lot of value, but that itself is a major issue and a problem, and it is a decline in public culture, to have come to that point.

Many people hardly ever see a politician as a person anymore. Instead, a politician is a shadow they watch on television, not knowing whether he is speaking impromptu or reading a text written for him by anonymous advisers or experts from a screen hidden behind the cameras. Citizens no longer perceive their politician as a living human being, for they never have and will never see him that way. They see only his image, created for them by TV, radio and newspaper commentators. It also happens, rather often, that politicians do not actually talk to each other but only to one another's shadows as they appear in the media.

Politicians are not the most reflective people in the world.

Regardless of how people love to deride politicians, democracy is not an easy gig. My decisions, views and heartfelt principles are dismissed by so many as careerist, opportunist or attention-seeking.

Media scrutiny is a great trademark of the American political arena.

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

You know, everybody knows some of what politicians say is malarkey, and having somebody there to call them on it is good. I'd be happy to do that any time and any place.

In the old days, the media is who held people accountable when they lied in politics. That isn't happening anymore.

The days of the Pentagon Papers debates seem long past, when a sudden transparency yielded insight into fights over war and peace and freedom and security; the transparency afforded by Twitter and Facebook yields insights that extend no further than a lawmaker's boundless narcissism and a culture's pitiless prurience.

One of the things that you have trouble with politicians, particularly in Washington, is when you get mad at them and you can't touch them; you can't punch them; you can't yell at them.

We have a media that presents every politician as being as bad as the next. There is no distinguishing between one good idea or another; no explanation of why constitutional change should be uppermost in the minds of the people I represent.

There is a continuous stream of opinions on governance issues expressed daily, not only in our Parliament and in the print media, but also on talk-radio and social media.

Since the time of Richard Nixon, there has been a strange lack of will in the media to identify the real cause for Americans' anger at politicians who fall, publicly and spectacularly.

The seventh year is always a big problem for [political] executives. Programs that were initiated with promise show they have been inadequate or failed. The majesty of the office is diminished by familiarity. People find out you're just like the other guys.

We are narrowing the field of those who will run for office when we allow them so little privacy.

American newspapers disregard principles to seize on people, following them into their private lives and laying bare their weaknesses and their vices.

Past occurrences have generally shown that there hasn’t been satisfaction from politicians in the manner they were covered [by the press.]

Since the rise of television in the 1950s, the media have become the central forum for American politicking, and increasingly today that role is being played by the blogosphere. With the blogger and the viewer replacing the pamphleteer and the parader, politicians focus on marketing themselves and their causes to passive consumers rather than mobilizing passionate soldiers. The new language of politics sounds like this: Spin doctors stage photo ops as pollsters survey voter preferences, spawning celebrity candidates.

I don't get bothered by the media. There is nothing in the media that makes me lose any sleep at night.

I sympathize with politicians who have to watch every syllable they utter for fear it will be misused by somebody with an agenda.