Gavin Esler Quotes

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Gavin Esler

Profession : Journalist

Birth : February 27, 1953

In Britain, politicians who openly discuss their spirituality are about as welcome as Jehovah' s Witnesses on the doorstep, and the British associate the mixture of politics and religion as a heady cocktail best reserved for the mass irrationality of Northern Ireland, Iran, Kashmir, and the Middle East.

Gavin Esler

The very idea of a Party of God, Hizbollah, puts the fear of God into British hearts.

Gavin Esler

American elections have usually turned on the issues of war, peace and the economy.

Gavin Esler

Ronald Reagan offered us an international vision divided between the free world and the evil empire. Even if this was a cartoonish view, it helped us make sense of everything from Star Wars to industrial policy.

Gavin Esler

Mini-skirts, Prada and Agnes B are for New York and L.A. Washington is more America's equivalent of Marks & Spencer.

Gavin Esler

Public displays of puritanical religiosity mask the private perversions of the real Washington behind closed doors.

Gavin Esler

With Bill Clinton, his lawyers always wanted him to say nothing about the Lewinsky scandal. Defendant Clinton had the right to remain silent. But President Clinton had a completely different need - political survival. That meant, in the end, that he needed to trumpet his supposed innocence and talk publicly to the American people.

Gavin Esler

In the Stephen Sondheim song, when something bad happens in the circus, they send in the clowns. In America's political circus, they send in the lawyers.

Gavin Esler

Once upon a time, America was a self-reliant John Wayne society where a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Now, America has become an over-lawyered society where nobody takes responsibility for mistakes because it is more profitable to claim victimhood and reach for a lawyer.

Gavin Esler

Doctors, dentists and nurses commonly take out malpractice insurance to pay for lawsuits. The trend has expanded to include hairdressers, accountants, vets, sports umpires and members of the clergy, all fearful of being sued for wrongful action or advice.

Gavin Esler

The U.S. Constitution has absorbed the end of slavery, the Civil War, Civil Rights and Watergate.

Gavin Esler

My idea of heaven is being in Arizona, stuck up a mountain - somewhere where there are no phones.

Gavin Esler

Grits really are food for the soul.

Gavin Esler

I'm not anti-American. But I am very strongly anti American bacon - the worst bacon in the world.

Gavin Esler

Presidents at the end of their second term - Reagan with the Iran-contra affair, Clinton with Monica Lewinsky - often find they are bedevilled by hostile Congressional investigations.

Gavin Esler

Whether anyone has ever changed their mind as a result of a celebrity endorsement of a candidate is a bit of a mystery.

Gavin Esler

In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, celebrity endorsements possibly damaged Hillary Clinton, since they allowed Donald Trump to emphasise that she was part of an out-of-touch elite. That is ironic, given that Mr Trump owed his election victory to his own celebrity status on a TV reality show.

Gavin Esler

A celebrity can gain attention in our otherwise busy lives. And celebrity sells.

Gavin Esler

Let me say it up front: I don't like bad hair or capes. I'm not into witches, warlocks or elves. I would never try to claim prog rock is cool. But I love it. And I know I'm not the only one.

Gavin Esler

It's perhaps easier to say what prog rock isn't than what it is: it's not three-minute pop songs, it's not straightforward rock, metal, blues or jazz, but can have elements of all them and more. It's a form that is on the boundaries of many different forms, that is open to all sorts of influences.

Gavin Esler