Notable Quotables - 01/07/1991

 

Marxist, Communist...Let's Call the Whole Thing Off


"A television review on Nov. 27 about High Crimes and Misdemeanors, a Frontline report on Channels 13 and 49 about the Iran-Contra affair, described the Sandinista government of Nicaragua incorrectly. While Marxist, it was not Communist."
- New York Times Corrections box, December 7.

 

The Year Gone By


"But don't you think the pro-lifers now, Tom [Brokaw] and Jane [Pauley], don't you think that they are, if anything now, a little reticent to make it an issue because experience has shown that when they make it an issue they lose?"
- Bryant Gumbel on NBC's 1990: Living on the Edge, December 30.

"The heroes of the '80s - Ronald Reagan, Michael Milken, Donald Trump - came under attack for having wedded the country to a fantasy world. Quieter, less charismatic leaders took charge."
- Reporters Kevin Anderson and John Hillkirk in a December 31 USA Today story.

 

Deciding By Race


"Wrong Message, Wrong Time"
- December 24 Time headline on initial Education Dept. decision on racially restricted scholarships.

"It was hard to find anyone last week in the education world who did not express dismay at a Washington bureaucrat's decision to bar federal aid to colleges and universities that offer scholarships restricted to minority students."
- from the Time news story by Associate Editor Susan Tifft.

"It wouldn't surprise me if George Bush appointed David Duke, the former white sheet-wearing KKK wizard, as Republican National Committee chairman to implement the administration's white race-driven social policies."
- USA Today "Inquiry" Editor Barbara Reynolds, December 21 column.

"Throughout his political career Bush has courted blacks and donated personally to minority scholarships. Despite that, he vetoed the civil rights bill and refused to condemn the racial tactics in the Jesse Helms campaign."
- NBC reporter Jim Miklaszewki, December 17 NBC Nightly News.


Communist Safety Net


"Falling through the cracks: With demise of communism, Budapest's poor lose their safety net"
- Boston Globe, December 31

 

Please Oppress Us


"But there may be even more significant backers for a crackdown: the general public....convinced that the country is falling into the hands of the black-market mafia and fearful the dissolution of the union will bring deeper chaos and poverty, they are ready to sacrifice - or at least postpone - the pursuit of lofty democratic goals so that order can be restored."
- Time Senior Writer Bruce Nelan on the Soviet Union, December 31.

"As Plakwicz ['a feminist in Warsaw'] suggests, part of the reason many women feel let down by their revolutions is the emergence of conservative forces, including the Catholic Church, following the toppling of communist regimes."
- Boston Globe reporter Jonathan Kaufman, December 27 news story.

 

Reagan's Economic Legacy


Reporter Carole Simpson: "Here we are at 1991 worrying about war, worrying about a recession, four-fifths of the American people think we're on the wrong track. I think this recession comes at the worst time..."
Sam Donaldson: "Well, now does everyone agree with me this is a result of Reaganomics?"
Simpson: "I do."
- Exchange on This Week with David Brinkley, December 30.

"There's a new analysis that says that the American family is worse off today than it was in 1973. After ten years of Reaganite, supply-side economics that you so passionately advocate, and that old question that Reagan used to ask about Carter, 'Are we better off?' apparently families are worse off. Do you really think the American people buy supply-side anymore? Don't they just think it was debt accumulation?"
- Lesley Stahl to Jack Kemp on Face the Nation, December 16.

 

Homeless Help?


"Homeless Face a Cold Shoulder Across US"
- Christian Science Monitor, December 10

"After a decade of despair, Americans are finding ways to help the homeless by providing treatment, counseling and training"
- Time, December 17

 

Judge and Jury


"Though Iran-Contra ranked as the most insidious scam of the mud-spattered '80s, not one of the eight convicted offenders has spent a night in jail."
- Time Deputy Washington Bureau Chief Laurence Barrett reporting on Oliver North's convictions being reversed, December 10.

 

Justify My Sleaze


"Sleek, fairly harmless stuff, as it turns out....The Justify My Love video is a long way from shocking...[it] spices the proceedings with suggestions of bondage, voyeurism and multiple couplings among various partners and genders."
- Time music critic Jay Cocks, December 17.

 

Correcting for Being Right


"[Georgia Senator Sam] Nunn's opposition to Bush's Gulf policies is part of a deliberate self-renovation from outright conservative to more politically correct moderate ready to run in 1992."
- U.S. News & World Report Senior Editor Donald Baer, December 17.

 

Don't Kill Bugs


"Give a bug a break! Return it to its outdoor home if you can. Swat it if you must. Don't spray it."
- "Save the Air Tips" from a recently released Corporation for Public Broadcasting manual.

"Jeremiah Johnson, 10, from Brentwood, N.Y...intervenes whenever his younger brother is about to commit an environmental outrage, like pulling the legs off defenseless (and ecologically valuable) spider."
- Reporter Janice Horowitz in story on "The Ecokid Corps," December 24 Time.

 

What?


"The earth is home, and all its refugees, its homeless, sometimes seem a sort of advance guard of apocalypse. They represent a principle of disintegration - the fate of homelessness generalized to planetary scale....The flesh is home: African nomads without houses decorate their faces and bodies instead. The skull is home. We fly in and out of it on mental errands. The highly developed spirit becomes a citizen of its own mobility, for home has been internalized and travels with the homeowner. Home, thus transformed: is freedom. Everywhere you hang your hat is home. Home is the bright light under the hat."
- Time "Essay" by Senior Writer Lance Morrow, December 24.

 

- L. Brent Bozell III; Publisher
- Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
- Nicholas Damask, Sally Hood, Marian Kelley, Tim Lamer; Media Analysts
- Jennifer Hardebeck; Circulation Manager