The Best of Notable Quotables; December 16, 1996

Vol. Nine; No. 26


Damn Those Conservatives Award



"By being so nice to Pat Buchanan and treating him as a good guy with bad policies, are we not all guilty of legitimizing his views and putting a smiling face on a hateful voice?"

-- Today's Bryant Gumbel on what he asked the show's political roundtable off-air, quoted by Peter Johnson, Feb. 22 USA Today. [57]


Runners-up


"Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the Russian ultra-nationalist, embarrassed
Pat Buchanan today by embracing him as an ideological soulmate.
`Today,' said Zhirinovsky, `there is a presidential candidate in
America who is not afraid to speak the truth, that truly the
Congress of the United States is an occupied territory of Israel.
Your press,' Zhirinovsky went on, `is occupied, and all of your
finances. Americans don't manage those. Israel does, through
American Jews or Negroes.' The Buchanan campaign immediately
issued a message of rejection to Zhirinovsky. It's not that
Buchanan hasn't expressed some of the views that Zhirinovsky
echoed, but perhaps he'd never realized how ugly they sounded
until he heard them in the mouth of a genuine bigot."

-- Ted Koppel concluding a February 23 Nightline profile of Pat
Buchanan. [56]

"Under pressure he [Gingrich] reverted to the pompous thug of
late-night cable, the backbencher lobbing grenades on C-SPAN
about sick Democrats who were enemies of normal Americans... [Voters have] learned how far he is willing to go to achieve his larger goals: shut the government down to make a point with the President; invite lobbyists not just to lobby, but to draft the laws themselves; and give a huge tax break to his party's allies at the expense of services for the poor, with the explanation that this is what it takes to keep his Republican coalition together."

-- Time Senior Editor Nancy Gibbs and Washington reporter Karen Tumulty, December 25/January 1 Man of the Year cover story on House Speaker Newt Gingrich. [51]