Bret Stephens Quotes

Facts are a thing of the past. Americans may find it impossible to debate politics clearly because of a lack of agreement on basic matters of fact: that was certainly the case in this yea'rs Presidential election [2016]. And no one has taken more advantage of this than Donal;d Trump ... Trump and his talking heads didn't create this world. It is the result of decadews-long stategy devised devised by a numbe of public affairs practitioners who recognized that lies were the most potent weapoin in the fight against progress,

Trump followed Fox's lead. He parroted what he heard on TV. He lied and lied, but rather than suffer the consequences, his lies were excused and supported and even celebrated by his media enablers.

I have opened newspapers and read incredible lies.

There's so many lies being told throughout the media and people just run with the lies. They're numb to it. Too many followers, not enough leaders.

Governments are supposed to lie to their citizens.

I remain terrified of the capacity of the media, the capacity of spin doctors, here and abroad, particularly the United States media, to perpetuate false lies, perpetuate lies.

Each day a few more lies eat into the seed with which we are born, little institutional lies from the print of newspapers, the shock waves of television, and the sentimental cheats of the movie screen.

Appreciate the power of rumor, often malicious, no matter how preposterous, within the local populations you are seeking to help.

You don't need a digital David Petraeus or a President Bush avatar to distract you from the truth. You don't need to wait decades to have disinformation beamed into your head. You just need a constant stream of misleading information, half truths, and fictions to be promoted, pushed, and peddled until they are accepted as fact.

Half a truth is better than no politics.

If members of the security apparatus could, with impunity, keep from those elected by the people that which they're entitled to know - or worse, feed false information - those who could control the classified data could be the real decision makers.

The campaign commercials don't tell you anything.

There is no fact-checking on tertiary celebrities. You can say whatever you'd like, and it will just rise up again.

How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.

In politics, not all lies are all lies. And not all truths are complete.

I'm not an absolutist about free speech. Intellectually, I believe that most of the time it's better to let things get said, argue them, and put lies and stupidities to rest. Practically, I know that newspapers rarely issue corrections with the same prominence they give to denouncements - and Twitter, by its nature, never does.

I was cranking out that bullshit on Nixon's crime policy before he was elected. And it was bullshit too. And we knew it.

All political power is primarily an illusion …. Mirrors and blue smoke …

In this crazy political business, at least in our times, a lie unanswered becomes truth within 24 hours.

The press ... is but the servant of human intellect and its ministry is for good or evil, according to the character of those who direct it. The press is a mill that grinds all that is put into its hopper. Fill the hopper with poisoned grain and it will grind it to meal, but there is death in the bread.

Of all newspaper presses, I never heard anyone deny that the American is the worst.... [N]othing is easier than to make the people know only one side of a question; few things are easier than to keep them altogether from the knowledge of any particular affair; and, worse than all, on them [the American people] may easily be practiced the discovery that lies may work their intended effect, before the truth can overtake them. It is hard to tell which is worse; the wide diffusion of things that are not true or the suppression of things that are.

Sometimes hyperbole and lying are not easily distinguishable [in politics].

Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read.

It is the oldest story in the coverage of Government: The failure to tell the truth.

We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.