Mark Leibovich Quotes

Many of us become walking self-caricatures at a certain point, and politicians can be particularly vulnerable, especially those who have maneuvered their very public lives as conspicuously as McCain. They tell and retell the same stories; things get musty. They engage in a lot of self-mythologizing,

To cover politics in Washington allows you to live in the very, very wide gap between what the actual truth is, and how people are trying to manipulate the truth. They speak in the language of spin, obsequiousness, obfuscation. The meta of politics is just this endless source of material that can shed light on the psychology of the process.

I always keep my repertorial hat on.

I work for a big newspaper, and I guess I'm an insider. I don't have the luxury of calling myself a foreign correspondent and just swooping in and then leaving.

a sinner is pleading to Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates: "Wait, those weren't lies," the sinner says. "That was spin!

I've done a lot of tough stories over the years. I've done a lot of profiles over the years that have not always been, shall we say, helpful for the person who is being written about.

I always prided myself on being apart from the ruling class. I think it's always important, not just in Washington but in life, to be able to able to balance your sense of belonging with what it's like to be someone who doesn't belong.

I'm just a journalist. I shine a mirror to the culture. I give the cop-out answer.

I don't think people talk to me because I'm such a good, charming, good-looking guy. I don't - whether that's true or not. I think they do it because I work for a major news organization, and they think that it can probably be helpful to them and their business interests or their personal interest and what have you.

Cynicism is idealism turned inside out. It stems from an expectation unrealized and a promise perverted. That is so much of Washington today in a nutshell.

Spirituality in Washington can be more of a - I don't want to say it - but, a networking opportunity. Religion is often used opportunistically in the political conversation.

If you can sell yourself as someone who knows how Washington works, someone who has these relationships, that's a very marketable commodity. If you're seen as someone who knows how this town works, someone who is a usual suspect in this town, you can dine out for years - that's why no one leaves.

I think that part of being a good journalist, part of being an awake member of the world you're in, is to view yourself as an outsider, and I always have, to some degree.

When you live in Washington, D.C., you do get a sense, in a very direct way, of the durability of our government and really, the greatness of the American system.

The founding fathers, whose infinite wisdom gave us a Constitution and form of government well nigh perfect, located the seat of that government in a stinking, steaming swamp.

I think the job of a good journalist, especially in Washington, is to create discomfort, and I think for a certain class of people, and for whom life is quite comfortable, I've created discomfort. So I take that as a badge of honor.

I've always tried to walk a line between being incisive and acerbic, but not mean. Sometimes I'm going to tip over the line a little bit, but that's usually a line I try not to cross.

The American system is a beautiful and durable thing, but flawed. I would like to think that this decadence is not sustainable, whether in the eyes of the electorate or the eyes of whatever the local economy is built on; that would bring me hope.

There is an expression here on Capitol Hill," Issa told me. "'Don't ever get between a member and a camera.'" That can be particularly harrowing in the case of Issa, who had purchased a T-shirt for Bardella that said: "It's all about me.

Politicians, in many cases - their moral code will be dictated by what can get them reelected, what they can get away with. When you're out of office, I guess you're freed from those checks and balances.

The people who are doing really well and who are getting stopped in airports are the people who are going to say the more outrageous things and get on TV and state their opinion on a regular basis.

Washington read": the act of telling someone, "I didn't read your book but did praise it on TV.")

The nation's leaders keep throwing out the word "Washington" as a vulgar abstraction. Nothing new here: the anti-Washington reflex in American politics has been honed for centuries, often by candidates who deride the capital as a swamp, only to settle into the place as if it were a soothing whirlpool bath once they get elected. The city exists to be condemned.

No benign deity plucks television news show hosts from their desks in the prime of life and then hastily compensates their friends and family by displays of irradiated droplets in the sky.

There's something called the 'Washington Read,' which is the habit of many locals to go into a bookstore, pull a book off the shelf, rifle through the index to see if they're in there.

The Founding Fathers are always spinning in their graves over something, as is Ronald Reagan, or FDR. Edward R. Murrow is a perennial grave spinner in the news business (though in fact, Murrow was cremated).

I violated, apparently, an unspoken rule that we are supposed to take care of our own. Frankly, if that invites discomfort, I welcome it. I don't think there's enough discomfort in journalism, especially in Washington.

Rail attendants dismiss excited train hobbyists as "foamers" (foaming at the mouth as they board their choo-choos).

I don't know if it's because my father's from Argentina, that I'm the son of an immigrant, I don't know if its because I'm Jewish, but I have always been mindful that the best insights occur when you have some kind of an outsider perspective.

a mantra she attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt: women in politics, she said, "need to develop skin as tough as a rhinoceros hide.

If you look at issues like immigration, gay marriage, gun regulation - these are all things that probably wouldn't be a source of much discussion at all in D.C., if they weren't sources of self-perpetuation.

The life cycle of public disgrace has been condensed to where the actual offense gets washed away, leaving just a neutral sheen of notoriety.

Media has changed dramatically, as you and I know. We're in a world now where you're rewarded for being outrageous. Punditry has replaced reporting as the gold standard of journalism.

In the next picture, Reagan is saying, "Haley, have I ever told you the one about the two Episcopal preachers?" "No, sir, Mr. President." "One of the preachers said to the other, 'Times have really changed, haven't they? I never had sex with my wife before we were married, did you?' "And the other Episcopal priest said, 'I don't know, what is your wife's maiden name?

Everyone marveled--between courses at The Palm--at how out of touch Mittens was.

God could not be reached for comment. But let us at least agree that He is quite obviously attuned to the doings of politics and media. That is why so many would-be leaders say they are being "called upon" to run for president, and why eulogists lean so heavily on the trope that God runs an HR department that recruits people like Sunday hosts and yachtsmen into heaven.