John Stossel writes:

When you knowingly pay someone to lie to you, we call the deceiver an illusionist or a magician. When you unwittingly pay someone to do the same thing, I call him a politician.

Not quite.

We don't unwittingly pay politicians, we KNOW we pay them. We also know they as a group they lie, or least evade telling us hard truths and make tough decisions.

As for magicians, in the 80s a comedian used to do a bit about how he didn't like magicians because their job is to make fools out of us.

As in: "Here's a quarter. Now, it's gone. You're a jerk!"

Magicians have more in common with politicians than they should.