The Best of Notable Quotables; December 16, 1996

Vol. Nine; No. 26

Quote of the Year



"In her Wednesday Commentary page column, Linda Bowles stated
that President Clinton and his former campaign adviser Dick
Morris both were `guilty of callous unfaithfulness to their wives
and children.' Neither man has admitted to being or been proven
to have been unfaithful. The Tribune regrets the error." 

-- Chicago Tribune correction, September 5. [88 points]


Runners-up


"The Rapture, and I quote, `is the immediate departure from this
Earth of over four million people in less than a fifth of a
second,' unquote. This happily-volatilized mass of the saved were
born again in Jesus Christ. Everybody left behind will basically
go to Hell, but not before experiencing Armageddon, which is a
really bad end of the world. If you find yourself in this
situation, there isn't much you can do except one, starve
yourself, and two, get your head cut off. This loving Christmas
message coming as it did amid the jingle of the mall Santa and
the twinkling manger at the corner of Canal and the Ramparts made
it clear that the Rapture is indeed necessary. The evaporation of
four million people who believe this crap would leave the world
an instantly better place."

-- New Orleans-based National Public Radio commentator Andrei Codrescu, December 19, 1995 All Things Considered. [79]

"He [Jack Kemp] is a rare combination -- a nice conservative.
These days conservatives are supposed to be mean. They're
supposed to be haters."

-- CNN analyst Bill Schneider, August 9 Inside Politics. [71]

"He [Ted Kaczynski] wasn't a hypocrite. He lived as he wrote. His
manifesto, and there are a lot of things in it that I would agree
with and a lot of other people would, that industrialization and
pollution all are terrible things, but he carried it to an
extreme, and obviously murder is something that is far beyond any
political philosophy, but he had a bike. He didn't have any
plumbing, he didn't have any electricity."

-- Time Washington reporter Elaine Shannon talking about the Unabomber, April 7 C-SPAN Sunday Journal. [67]


Media Research Center staff:
-- L. Brent Bozell III; Publisher
-- Brent Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
-- Geoffrey Dickens, Eugene Eliasen, Jim Forbes, Steve Kaminski,
   Clay Waters; Media Analysts
-- Kathy Ruff, Marketing Director
-- Peter Reichel, Circulation Manager
-- Joe Alfonsi, Intern