May 23, 2025

I hate careless flattery, the kind that exhausts you in your effort to believe it.

Wilson Mizner (1876–1933), American playwright and raconteur, The Portable Curmudgeon, Jon Winokur, ed. (New York: 1987), p.100

How often do we succumb to it? Is the phenomenon—your succumbing—trending up or down?

The best proof against this bane of all politicians is to gain office, lose it, and then regain it. The dramatic loss of “friends” after electoral defeat is only out-matched by their “rediscovery” of you once back in office, so they can once again laugh at all your jokes.