Blanche Wiesen Cook Quotes

Political spouses don't announce that they're staying, only that they're leaving. And that I have no announcements to make here tonight, at this time, with you, on this occasion.

I was not meant for the job or the spotlight of public office in Washington. Here ruining people is considered a sport … Politics is a blood sport.

The tone is toxic here in Washington and we are exporting it around the country.

Another reason commissions are able to produce consensus—perhaps the rarest of Washington commodities—is the simple opportunity they provide for intense private deliberations.

Washington is a city of important men and the women they married before they grew up.

The truth of the matter is the tone is toxic here in Washington, and we have been exporting it around the country.

It's long been a cliche in Washington that if you hang a lamb chop in your window, guests will come.

I love Washington. I have an affection for the place. For a satirist, I think it's sort of Disneyland. I mean, you know, there's always some inspiration in the morning's headlines.

People in Washington do things that they shouldn’t do because they owe somebody.

Washington is riddled with unstable people who are either depressed or make other people depressed.

In Washington the politicians lie on the record and tell the truth off the record. In the Middle East, it’s the opposite. They lie off the record, and tell the truth on the record.

Everyone in Congress represents Washington.

Here’s a little Washington clue. When they say, “With all due respect,” they’re about to insult you.

Washington is a city of arrogance.

There is more opportunity for a nobody to become a somebody in Washington than in the whirl-pool of New York.

Washington is not a geographical entity, it is a state of mind.... People understand how Cleveland works. They even understand how New York City works, but they can't figure Washington out.

Washington doesn't understand interest rates and Wall Street doesn't understand Washington.

Washington's got to loosen up a little bit—learn to laugh at itself a little.

Washington has political power combined with the insider illusion of being in control.

The product of Washington is politics. Other places produce steel.

I don’t have to live with the American People, but I do have to live with Lou (his wife).

Washington: A city obsessed with the present.

Washington talks about herself and almost nothing else.

Washington thrives on scapegoats.

It’s a strange thing in American politics that everyone who runs for office in Washington, runs against Washington.