"Politics is show business for ugly people" (1991)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

There's been some discussion on the FishbowlDC and Wonkette blogs about
the saying, "Politics is show business for ugly people" (and its later
variant, "Washington is Hollywood for ugly people"). The bloggers dated
the saying back to 1999, then 1995, then 1992:

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlDC/books/hollywood_for_the_ugly_24004.asp
http://www.wonkette.com/politics/blank-for-blank-people-114667.php
http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlDC/books/hollywood_for_ugly_people_part_deux_24030.asp

The '92 attribution is to Paul Begala (in the Washington Post). I found a
slightly earlier cite on Factiva, in a 1991 article in the Dallas Morning
News:

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"Politicians sometimes say the funniest things" by Sam Attlesey
The Dallas Morning News, 13 October 1991, p. 44A

There was political consultant Bill Miller's definition: "Politics is show
business for ugly people."
-----

Miller also gets the credit in _Government and Politics in the Lone Star
State: Theory and Practice_ by Clay Robison and L. Tucker Gibson Jr.,
according to a 1992 Houston Chronicle article.


--Ben Zimmer