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… is from page 256 of the original edition of Todd Buchholz’s 1989 volume, New Ideas from Dead Economists [2] (link added):
According to [James] Buchanan [3], politicians’ rhetoric collides with their voting records. They sound like statesmen yet vote like weasels.
It’s even worse than Buchholz’s capsule summary of my late colleague’s realistic understanding of politics suggests. Especially for those of us who have managed to grasp at least a modicum of economic understanding, politicians too often sound less like statesmen than like shysters: speakers who aim to convince their listeners of these speakers’ high-minded purposes and pursuits, as well as of their unique genius, but whose underlying goal clearly is nothing more noble than to greedily weasel out of their audiences power and booty.