Opinion: There’s humor to be had in suffering

The presidential campaign already is making me want to throw up. But there is still humor to be had, especially from these people from the past:

Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong. ~Richard Armour

A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman thinks of the next generation. ~James Freeman Clarke

We live in a world in which politics has replaced philosophy. ~Martin L. Gross, A Call for Revolution, 1993

In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant. ~Charles de Gaulle

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber. ~Plato?

Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river. ~Nikita Khrushchev

George Washington is the only president who didn’t blame the previous administration for his troubles. ~Author Unknown

Democrats think the glass is half full. Republicans think the glass is theirs. ~Author unknown

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy. ~Ernest Benn

Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel. ~John Quinton

A conservative is a man who believes that nothing should be done for the first time. ~Alfred E. Wiggam

Don’t vote, it only encourages them. ~Billy Connolly, An Audience with Billy Connolly, 1985 (Thanks, Gordon!)

I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them. ~Adlai Stevenson, campaign speech, 1952

Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country — and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians. ~Charles Krauthammer

Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks. ~Doug Larson

Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so. ~Gore Vidal

The reason there are so few female politicians is that it is too much trouble to put makeup on two faces. ~Maureen Murphy

I am working for the time when unqualified blacks, browns, and women join the unqualified men in running our government. ~Frances Farenthold

There are always too many Democratic congressmen, too many Republican congressmen, and never enough U.S. congressmen. ~Author Unknown

Mankind will never see an end of trouble until... lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power... become lovers of wisdom. ~Plato?

The problem with political jokes is they get elected. ~Henry Cate, VII

The best thing about this group of candidates is that only one of them can win. ~Will Rogers

If God wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates. ~Jay Leno

The Democrats seem to be basically nicer people, but they have demonstrated time and again that they have the management skills of celery. They’re the kind of people who’d stop to help you change a flat, but would somehow manage to set your car on fire. I would be reluctant to entrust them with a Cuisinart, let alone the economy. The Republicans, on the other hand, would know how to fix your tire, but they wouldn’t bother to stop because they’d want to be on time for Ugly Pants Night at the country club. ~Dave Barry

Politics, n: [Poly “many” + tics “blood-sucking parasites”] ~Larry Hardiman

If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal. ~Emma Goldman

How come we choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America? ~Author unknown

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. ~Aesop?

American youth attributes much more importance to arriving at driver’s-license age than at voting age. ~Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, 1964

If a politician murders his mother, the first response of the press or of his opponents will likely be not that it was a terrible thing to do, but rather that in a statement made six years before he had gone on record as being opposed to matricide. ~Meg Greenfield

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators. ~P.J. O’Rourke

Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote. ~George Jean Nathan

Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least. ~Robert Byrne