Notable Quotables - 01/31/1994

 

Maureen Dowd Admits the Obvious

"In a celebrated Rolling Stone interview, the President lost it and ranted about how he had 'not gotten one damn bit of credit from the knee-jerk liberal press, and I am sick and tired of it, and you can put that in the damn article.' (Yes, that's the same knee-jerk liberal press that helped get him elected.)"
- New York Times reporter Maureen Dowd in The New York Times Magazine, January 23.

 

Downplaying Whitewater

"The beauty of the special counsel is that he or she has to prove criminal wrongdoing, and not only criminal wrongdoing, but criminal intent, and I think, you know, everyone is certain that doesn't exist with the Clintons."
- Newsweek reporter Eleanor Clift on The McLaughlin Group, January 15.

"The reason the guy's still in the Senate is that he always goes too far. The fact is what we have here is a modern Salem witch trial with no accusations, no evidence: trial by ordeal. That's going to be ugly enough without putting Congress in the middle of it...if I could be bipartisan, a small group of us liberals objected to what was done to John Tower, who was not permitted to face his accusers. In this case we have somebody who as yet has not been permitted to face his accusers."
- Boston Globe columnist and former reporter Tom Oliphant, January 15 Inside Washington.

 

Impeachable Offense of Innocence?

Iran-Contra Report Castigates Reagan Impeachment 'Should Have Been Considered,' Prosecutor Says
- Washington Post, January 19

Iran-Contra inquiry clears Reagan, Bush Walsh alleges cover-up by top aides
- Boston Globe, same day

 

Defending Clinton From the Left

"Do you give Bill Clinton credit for addressing serious issues that went untouched for 12 years - deficit reduction, gun control, world trade, health care. He has certainly taken on tough questions, and made them not a question of if, but how much."
- Today's Bryant Gumbel to Mother Jones Editor Jeffrey Klein, January 7.

 

Conservatives for Gas Taxes?

"I know you can find conservatives as well as liberals who would argue that in the interests of not only deficit reduction, but energy policy, that a higher gas tax could be stomached in this country. And I'm not going to put a price on it, but higher than 4.3 cents, certainly."
- Wall Street Journal Washington reporter Jackie Calmes on C-SPAN's Journalists' Roundtable, January 14.

 

Who's More Authoritarian?

"Boris Yeltsin had unconstitutionally dissolved the parliament and he used a tank assault to enforce his decree....what Yeltsin has been doing is quickly moving his own people into the White House as a way of consolidating his now much more authoritarian power."
- Dan Rather, January 13 CBS Evening News.

"In five years, Mikhail Gorbachev has transformed the Soviet Union from a rigid police state to what he describes as a freewheeling infant democracy."
- Rather's introduction to a story on making criticism of Gorbachev illegal, May 15, 1990 Evening News.

 

PBS Pro-Democrat? Ridiculous

"As for public TV being a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party, I think anybody who watches Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser and Washington Week in Review and The McLaughlin Group and all these shows underwritten by huge corporate interests that are basically conservative or center-right opinion shows, I don't know what planet they're living on if they're talking about a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party. It's a mystery to me."
- NPR Talk of the Nation host Ray Suarez on C-SPAN's Journalists Roundtable, Jan. 7.

 

Sobbing for the Soviet Union

"For more than 70 years, Russia dreamed the Soviet dream: the dream of a classless society, the dream of a workers' paradise. The classless state is now a state with a growing population of haves and an exploding population of have-nots. For many, the workers' paradise has become a homeless hell."
- ABC's Morton Dean, January 14 Good Morning America.

"I don't know whether you want to call the economic policies of the Yeltsin government since 1992 'shock therapy' or just dumb. But what they did to these people savaged this society: took their life savings, destroyed their standard of living, and people are selling off their household possessions."
- CBS News consultant Stephen Cohen on the CBS Evening News, January 14.

 

Receiving Clinton

President Finds Muscovites Warm but a Bit Preoccupied
- New York Times, January 14

On the streets of Moscow, a chilly reception for Clinton
- USA Today, same day

No Pro-Lifers at the Post

"If you have a staff as totally unrepresentative of the national debate over abortion as ours is, you'd have a rule about not marching in a pro-abortion protest because the whole staff could conceivably be there...If we had real diversity, it wouldn't be an issue. But we don't."
- Washington Post New York correspondent Malcolm Gladwell quoted in Editor & Publisher, December 11.

 

GOP Needs to Bury Abortion Issue

"Although I think that the Republicans are off to a good start, at least burying abortion to the extent that they can right now. I mean, Ralph Reed, the head of the Christian Coalition, you just heard him. He sounded like a pro-choice believer. But I think that's the very first thing they have to do, and it's a requirement."
- NPR reporter Mara Liasson on CNN's Late Edition, January 2.

 

Paranoia Trio: Perot, Inman, Clift

"People who want to give Ronald Reagan the entire credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union ignore the fact that the Soviet economy was collapsing and the Reagan Administration covered it up...The CIA concealed what was happening over there so they could keep the defense budget over here high."
- Eleanor Clift on The McLaughlin Group, January 15.

 

Lorena: Society Made Her Do It

"Psychologists and other observers believe that ultimately the Bobbitt case is simply a reflection of society, a society that tolerates, encourages, and even glamorizes violence, no matter what the cost."
- ABC reporter Karen Burnes concluding a January 22 World News Saturday story.

 

Publisher: L. Brent Bozell III
Editors: Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham
Media Analysts: Andrew Gabron, Mark Honig,
Kristin Johnson, Steve Kaminski, Mark Rogers
Circulation Manager: Kathleen Ruff
Interns: David Muska, Clay Waters

Correction: In the last issue we identified Lars-Erik Nelson as Newsday's Washington Bureau Chief. While he held that title until last year with the New York Daily News, he is now a columnist for Newsday.