Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.

Groucho Marx (1890-1977) American comedian [b. Julius Henry Marx]

(Misattributed)

Variant 1: "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies."

Variant 2: "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it wrongly, and applying unsuitable remedies."

While popularly attributed to Groucho, there is no clear evidence he used it. The earliest reference I could find attributing the main quote to him (without citation) is in Victor Braude, Braude's Second Encyclopedia of Stories, Quotations, and Anecdotes (1957).

While Bennett Cerf include a similar reference in his syndicated "Try and Stop Me" column in November 1964, it does not show up in his earlier anecdote books such as Try and Stop Me (1944), nor in his meta-collection of anecdotes, Bennett Cerf's Bumper Crop (1958).

Variant 2 above is attributed (without citation) to Sir Ernest Benn in Henry Powell Spring, What Is Truth? (1944). Wikiquote indicates reference to this can be found in a July 1930 newspaper, though without an actual confirming link.

It seems most likely (though not yet fully confirmed) that Benn used his version of the line first, then, with some slight tweaking of the words to fit American sensibilities ("wrongly" to "incorrectly," "unsuitable" to "wrong"), it was applied to a known wit of the period.