“If the presidency is the head of the American body politic, Congress is its gastrointestinal tract.”

—  Jon Stewart , book America

America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction (2004)
Context: If the presidency is the head of the American body politic, Congress is its gastrointestinal tract. Its vast and convoluted inner workings may be mysterious and unpleasant, but in the end they excrete a great deal of material whose successful passage is crucial to our nation's survival.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If the presidency is the head of the American body politic, Congress is its gastrointestinal tract." by Jon Stewart?
Jon Stewart photo
Jon Stewart 121
American political satirist, writer, television host, actor… 1962

Related quotes

Glenn Beck photo

“Can you let your son's body become the same temperature as your son's head before you turn this into a political campaign against the president? Could you do that?”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2004-05-14
Comment on Michael Berg, the father of murdered American businessman Nicholas Berg
2000s

“The Public Administration neither comprises nor heads any branch of government but is subordinate to all three of them. Like Congress, president, and courts, the Public Administration makes its distinctive contribution in a manner consistent with its peculiar place, which is one of subordination.”

John Rohr (1934–2011) American political scientist

John Rohr (1990) "The constitutional case for public administration." In G. L. Wamsley et al. (eds.), Refounding public administration, Sage. p. 80

Pliny the Younger photo

“It is in the body politic, as in the natural, those disorders are most dangerous that flow from the head.”
Utque in corporibus sic in imperio gravissimus est morbus, qui a capite diffunditur.

Pliny the Younger (61–113) Roman writer

Letter 22, 7.
Letters, Book IV

Shankar Dayal Sharma photo

“A longtime member of the Congress Party, he was its president for a time. He had a doctorate in law from Cambridge. He was elected, with support from Congress and leftist groups, as ninth president of India, that role is largely ceremonial, though its powers include discretion in choosing a prime minister if no party has a parliamentary majority.”

Shankar Dayal Sharma (1918–1999) Indian politician

Shankar Dayal Sharma, 81, Former President of India

Dorothy Thompson photo

“The American Communist Party is not an autonomous body. Its members, who claim their rights under the American Constitution have already relinquished every personal right to an international, actually Russian, body. Their claim to participate in the political life of America is as preposterous as would be the claim of the Jugoslav Communist Party to participate, because the American, Russian, Jugoslav, Bulgarian, etc., parties are all the same organization.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Source: "Let the Record Speak" 1939, “The Truth about Communism” https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015051180423&view=1up&seq=5 (1948), p. 2

Jimmy Carter photo

“It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to governors, and U. S. Senators and congress members. So, now we’ve just seen a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over. … At the present time the incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody that is already in Congress has a great deal more to sell, to an avid contributor.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Statement on the Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court, in an interview with Thom Hartmann (28 July 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDsPWmioSHg; also quoted in Jimmy Carter: U.S. Is an 'Oligarchy With Unlimited Political Bribery'" in Rolling Stone (31 July 2015) http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/videos/jimmy-carter-u-s-is-an-oligarchy-with-unlimited-political-bribery-20150731, and in "Jimmy Carter Is Correct That the U.S. Is No Longer a Democracy" by Eric Zuesse, in Huffington Post (3 August 2015) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/jimmy-carter-is-correct-t_b_7922788.html.
Post-Presidency

Richard Nixon photo

“To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President I must put the interests of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad.”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

Resignation Speech (8 August 1974)
1970s

Fidel Castro photo

“Let me tell you a story: Once there was a republic. It had its constitution, its laws, its freedoms, a president, a congress and courts of law. Everyone could assemble, associate, speak and write with complete freedom.”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

ibid., p. 89-901
History Will Absolve Me (October 16th, 1953)

Deng Xiaoping photo

“The United States brags about its political system, but the [American] President says one thing during the election, something else when he takes office, something else at midterm and something else when he leaves.”

Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997) Chinese politician, Paramount leader of China

When asked about China's political stability by a group of American professors in 1983, as quoted in The Pacific Rim and the Western World: Strategic, Economic, and Cultural Perspectives (1987), p. 105

“Believing that presidents have taxing and spending powers leaves Congress less politically accountable for our deepening economic quagmire. Of course, if you’re a congressman, not being held accountable is what you want.”

Walter E. Williams (1936) American economist, commentator, and academic

2010s, American Contempt for Liberty (2015)

Related topics