Politics demands a great capacity for self-deception, which rescues the politician from hypocrisy. He can normally manage to believe what he is saying for the time it takes him to say it. This gives him a certain sincerity even when he is saying opposite things to opposite people.
Garry Wills (b. 1934) American author, journalist, historian
Confessions of a Conservative, ch. 15 (1979)
(Source)
Quotations by:
Wills, Garry
Propaganda … becomes at last more credible to its disseminators than to its targets.
Garry Wills (b. 1934) American author, journalist, historian
The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power, ch. 18 (1981)