Zitat des Tages von Joe Klein:
You can't get all of your news from Jon Stewart, especially since it's a comedy show.
Back in George W. Bush's second term, when diplomatic realism began to overtake foolish bellicosity, the president developed one of his patented nicknames for the two most powerful neoconservative journalists, William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer: he called them 'the Bomber Boys.'
Affirmative action was always racial justice on the cheap.
I think that if you make a strong statement of principle, even if the folks disagree with you, people will respect you for it.
You know, larger-than-life politicians have larger-than-life strengths and larger-than-life weaknesses.
Bush promised a foreign policy of humility and a domestic policy of compassion. He has given us a foreign policy of arrogance and a domestic policy that is cynical, myopic and cruel.
That was the miracle of Abraham Lincoln, politician. He pursued the high purpose of moving justice forward via the low arts of patronage and patronization. Indeed, in a democracy, it is usually the only way great deeds are done.
I got into journalism because I came of age in the '60s. It just seemed one way for me to get things done.
Anonymous sources are a practice of American journalism in the 20th and 21st century, a relatively recent practice. The literary tradition of anonymity goes back to the Bible.
I invented the psychological histories and the relationship between Jack and Susan Stanton. I didn't know anything about the Clintons. I don't know more about the Clintons' marriage than you do.
What do you do in a novel? You take recognizable characters from your own life, and you fantasize about what they're really like.
If every American automatically has health coverage, the age at which Medicare kicks in becomes a less fraught issue. We could gradually raise the age of Medicare eligibility a bit, according to income, and save money.
You know that Moses was spinning like crazy in Exodus XIV through XVII when the Jewish people wanted to go back and become a place again because tramping through the desert was a bit too hard.
Novel writing should never be confused with journalism. Unfortunately, in the case of Primary Colors, a fair number of journalists confused.
I've been described as a grizzled political veteran.
Diversity has been written into the DNA of American life; any institution that lacks a rainbow array has come to seem diminished, if not diseased.
There's a basic law, Klein's second, or third, or fourth law of politics in the TV age, which is warm always beats cold, with the exception of Richard Nixon. The nicer guy usually wins.
If he'd been negotiating Obamacare, Lincoln would have made the infamous 'Cornhusker Kickback' deal - $100 million in Medicaid funds for Nebraska to secure a Senator's vote - in a heartbeat, even if the press howled as it did when Barack Obama agreed to it, forcing its cancellation.
Bush the Elder's stature as president grows with every passing year. He was the finest foreign policy president I've ever covered and a man who defied his party on tax increases while imposing budget restrictions on the Democrats.
We journalists are never so idiotic as when we analyze things that we shouldn't be analyzing.
You know, larger than life is always better than smaller than life in politicians. And, you know, God save us from mediocrities.
