Alan

“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.”
― Mark Leibovich, This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral — plus plenty of valet parking! — in America's Gilded Capital

“The president’s stump speeches could carry the forced air of a Van Halen reunion tour with Sammy Hagar in for David Lee Roth.”
― Mark Leibovich, This Town

“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,”
― Mark Leibovich, This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral — plus plenty of valet parking! — in America's Gilded Capital

“Accept nothing pleasant unless it is beneficial.”
― Democritus