Quotes About Strategy

I read all these stories that I don't know anything about politics. But I must know something. I've had some good victories in Congress, and I've survived this town for four years.

It's generally not wise to pick a fight with law enforcement in politics, especially when you're in the middle of a pretty significant scandal already.

A politician weakly and amiably in the right, is no match for a politician tenaciously and pugnaciously in the wrong.

Symbols mean a lot in politics. They indicate a will and create new realities.

The fact is, presidential politics has become a game of inches.

A statesman makes the occasion, but the occasion makes the politician.

When I campaigned, I'd let them throw a punch, but by gosh, I'd throw two back. I always said, the first rule in politics is never defend, always attack. I still believe that.

People like to do politics with me, and they like to do business.

As I have said, the best Bush strategy is to put Congress on TV as often as possible.

Bush is quite vulnerable if the Democrats pick the right issues. So far, though, they've shown their usual tendency to go for the capillary.

Diplomacy has more to do with (credible) threats than with sweet reason. And threats from America are a lot more credible, nowadays.

Military missions cannot be a normal tool of politics, but instead must remain the great exception.

Good policy makes good politics and what I've done has been good politics.

To be a statesman, you must first get elected.

In politics, when you're explaining, you're losing.

Politics, in a sense, has always been a con game.

The golden rule has no place in a political campaign.

Foreign policy is conducted for the convenience and enjoyment of people in Washington.

This has always been the way of presidential politics. The president rises above the fray while his surrogates go on the attack. They throw the spears and fling the mud; he sits upon the throne.

I understand the process of politics and the game of television.

Politics are very much like war. We may even have to use poison gas at times.

Politics is war without bloodshed and war is politics with blood.

In politics a straight line is the shortest distance to disaster.

As I learnt very early in my life in Whitehall the acid test of any political question is: What is the alternative?