Jacob Weisberg

Not all negativity is bad. In politics, it's a necessary clarifying tool.

— Jacob Weisberg

Most people prefer living in a healthier town.

— Jacob Weisberg

If there's one epithet the Right never tires of, it's 'elitism.'

— Jacob Weisberg

Sexual signals can be received without being consciously sent.

— Jacob Weisberg

Online, you can't be scooped. If you are scooped, it's no one's fault but your own.

— Jacob Weisberg

Political assumptions can remain constant for long periods and then change very quickly.

— Jacob Weisberg

Book collecting is a largely solitary, mostly male, and completely absorbing activity.

— Jacob Weisberg

Political analysts tend to overinterpret the results of isolated elections.

— Jacob Weisberg

Israel never meant to take over the West Bank and Gaza - it got stuck with them after the 1967 war.

— Jacob Weisberg

In authoritarian societies, cultural institutions tend to become ideological proxies - think of the National Ballet in Cuba or the East German…

— Jacob Weisberg

If Obama succeeds in turning health insurance and funding for college into universal entitlements, he will have expanded Washington's obligations on the…

— Jacob Weisberg

By 2003, if you didn't understand that the United States was inflicting torture on those deemed enemy combatants, you weren't paying much attention.

— Jacob Weisberg

Whether couched in terms of envy, admiration, or derision, celebrity fascination begins as an exercise in imagining what it would be like…

— Jacob Weisberg

The party where humorless thought police work to enforce a rigid ideological discipline isn't made up of Democrats. It comprises Republicans.

— Jacob Weisberg

Like academic Marxists, who are their sisters under the skin, libertarians are far more interested in an ideal world than in the…

— Jacob Weisberg

The conservative position that all spending is evil obliterates any distinction between investment and consumption, between the long-term and the short-term.

— Jacob Weisberg

Southern Republicans are guided by the Bible. Western Republicans read the Constitution. Seen in historical terms, it's the difference between a movement…

— Jacob Weisberg

Vietnam was a terrible mistake for the United States. But like Iraq, Vietnam was a badly chosen battlefield in a larger conflict…

— Jacob Weisberg

Unlike the Japanese internment, water-boarding was ordered and served up in secret. But it, too, was America's policy, not just Dick Cheney's.…

— Jacob Weisberg

American liberals are an external part of Israel's conscience, and when it disdains them, it becomes a harder and more isolated place.…

— Jacob Weisberg

Blacks as a group have voted Democratic since the 1930s. The GOP has not courted them in any real way since the…

— Jacob Weisberg

Despite all the Internet has done to make prices transparent and bibliographic information universal, you can still find - at book sales…

— Jacob Weisberg

Book collectors are thrill-seekers. It is a vegetarian hunt to be sure, without much exertion or risk, but the endorphin rush of…

— Jacob Weisberg

The worst thing you can say about libertarians is that they are intellectually immature, frozen in the worldview many of them absorbed…

— Jacob Weisberg

“As an editor, you develop a B.S. meter—an internal warning system that signals caution about journalism that doesn't feel trustworthy. Sometimes it's…

— Jacob Weisberg

In trying to explain our political paralysis, analysts cite President Obama's tactical missteps, the obstinacy of congressional Republicans, rising partisanship in Washington,…

— Jacob Weisberg

Joe Lieberman can be cloying and sanctimonious.

— Jacob Weisberg

As a political party, the Libertarians have always been more party than political.

— Jacob Weisberg

Politicians try to make friends, build constituencies, and avoid gaffes. Trump does the opposite, seeking out land mines in order to detonate…

— Jacob Weisberg

Paradoxically, I think working at an Internet magazine intensifies the attraction of beautiful printed objects.

— Jacob Weisberg

Raised in a house filled with old books, I'm drawn to them: the dust jackets that call out a historical moment, the…

— Jacob Weisberg

Writing that's native to the web is different in ways that are crucial but subtle enough that you can miss them if…

— Jacob Weisberg

I think part of the reason anyone goes into journalism is to get a response to what they write.

— Jacob Weisberg

To count as transformative, a president needs to synthesize the moment and mood of the country.

— Jacob Weisberg

Where Reagan channeled disenchantment with overweening government, Obama symbolized America's transformation into a multiracial country.

— Jacob Weisberg

It's tempting to dismiss the debate about the National Security Agency spying on Americans as a technical conflict about procedural rights.

— Jacob Weisberg

Professional politicians often claim they are not professional politicians. Trump genuinely isn't one.

— Jacob Weisberg

The invasion of Iraq was, in ways that have since become hard to dispute, a terrible mistake.

— Jacob Weisberg

The leader who loves books that tell him he is great and right may be worse than the leader who does not…

— Jacob Weisberg

Though there are some debatable exceptions, sanctions rarely play a significant role in dislodging or constraining the behavior of despicable regimes.

— Jacob Weisberg