Creative betrayal is the essence of successful statesmanship.
Politics, so far as mobilizing support is concerned, represents the art of calculated cheating, or more precisely how to cheat without being really caught
The cunningest dissimulation is when a man pretends to be caught in the traps others set for him; and a man is never so easily over-reached as when he is contriving to over-reach others.
Although deceit is detestable in all other things, yet in the conduct of war it is laudable and honorable; and a commander who vanquishes an enemy by stratagem is equally praised with one who gains victory by force.
Since the end of the nineteenth century, if not earlier, presidents have misled the public about their motives and their intentions in going to war.
I keep my enemies close/ I give 'em enough rope/ They put themselves in the air/ I just kick away the chair.
Women scheme when they are weak, they lie out of fear. Men scheme when they are strong, they lie out of arrogance.
Playing the Cretan with the Cretans (i.e. lying to liars).
Would it not be much better to have a president who deliberately lied to the people because he thought a war was essential than to have one who was so dumb as to be taken in by intelligence agencies, especially those who told him what he wanted to hear?
Deception is a developed art of civilization and the most potent weapon in the game of power
