The Best of Notable Quotables; December 19, 1994

Vol. Seven; No. 26


Honey, I Shrunk the Democratic Party Award (for Hillary Rodham Worshipping)



“Hillary Clinton, like Eleanor Roosevelt, had already done a great service. Unlike Barbara Bush, she got involved. She has taken stands. She has been a leader. It’s too bad, of course, that there is not health care legislation this year, but that is Congress’ failure, not Hillary Clinton’s. Her role has been a success. She awakened the nation. She educated the nation. She enlightened the nation....For when a nation gets two leaders for the price of one – a Franklin and Eleanor, a Bill and Hillary – it can tackle twice as many problems, find twice as many solutions, make twice as much progress.”

– Former NBC News President Michael Gartner in his USA Today column, September 27.

Runners-up:


“Bill Clinton evoked sympathy and understanding by acknowledging marital problems on the famous 60 Minutes interview. His wife is too dignified for confessionals, but she could benefit from admitting that she, too, has occasionally yielded to temptation and made the wrong choices. The public might even be tickled to discover that the prim and preachy First Lady has a gambler’s streak. Hillary’s brief fling in commodities was possibly reckless, but it shows a glimmering of a more credible, if more flawed, human being.”

– Eleanor Clift and Mark Miller, April 11 Newsweek story.

“There is a lot of gleeful sexist reaction to her difficulties, a lot of piling on, a lot of men who never stood up for a woman’s right to do anything who would be completely content to have her whispering sweet nothings to him in bed and manipulating him that way, and are simply terrorized by the thought that she may have real, formal, out-front power.”

– NPR’s Nina Totenberg on Inside Washington, March 12.

“As much as we try to think otherwise, when you’re covering someone like yourself, and your position in life is insecure, she’s your mascot. Something in you roots for her. You're rooting for your team. I try to get that bias out, but for many of us it’s there.”

Time’s Margaret Carlson quoted in March 7 Washington Post.