Notable Quotables - 02/28/1994

 

Loading Up for Limbaugh

"There is very little in the press accounts to suggest that he is, above all, a sophisticated propagandist, an avatar of the politics of meanness and envy....Limbaugh is defending the successful against the impudent demands of the poor; by making all that funny, he gives the comfortable a way to think that greed and a cold-hearted wit comprise a cohesive ideology....his style is pure demagoguery. Just as Reagan talked of welfare queens in Cadillacs, Limbaugh seizes on the absurd detail, gives it an absurdist twist of his own, and sends it out into the world under the guise of analysis and principle...."

"It is not enough for him to oppose liberalism. He must, like all demagogues, scare his listeners, get them to believe in conspiracy, rumor....Like Reagan, Limbaugh is neither curious nor brave; he would rather tell his audiences fairy tales than have them face the world; he would rather sneer at the weak than trouble the strong."
- Former Washington Post reporter David Remnick in the Post's "Outlook" section, February 20.

 

Vietnam: Oppressed by America

"Embittered and divided as a people and trapped in denial - the first stage of post-traumatic stress disorder - the American government simply shifted to war by other means, walling off the 71 million Vietnamese people with a punitive trade embargo that for years stunted their country's growth and interfered with attempts to repair the war ravages that visited every corner of a beautiful land. The American people stubbornly refused to make peace with the Vietnamese, even as they mourned the fact that somehow the war wouldn't go away and leave them alone, not understanding that peace is made, not found."
- U.S. News & World Report Senior Writer Joseph L. Galloway, February 14.

 

Bank-Robbing Radicals Shot Him, But It's Not Their Fault

"An overcast Monday morning, September 28, 1970. The Boston Police Department lays to rest one of its own, Officer Walter Schroeder, shot down after nearly 20 years of service. He leaves behind a widow and nine children. Officer Schroeder died in a bank robbery, but in one macabre sense, he was a casualty of the Vietnam War."
- Barbara Walters reporting on radical fugitive Katherine Ann Power, February 11 20/20.

 

To the Left on Health

"Is this the fairness issue being revisited again with Republicans protecting those with money?"
- Bryant Gumbel to Senator Tom Daschle on why Republicans oppose Clinton health takeover, February 11 Today.

Reporter Tom Pettit: "Of all of the states, Hawaii has the most coverage, the closest thing to universal coverage, which the President has made the centerpiece of his health plan. Since 1974, twenty years ago, Hawaii has required employers to insure their workers and the state to cover the unemployed."
Governor John Waihee III: "We cover actually about 97, 98 percent of our population."
Pettit: "That is why Hawaii is a paradise, I guess?" - NBC Nightly News, January 29.

 

Depressed Male Hippies: Reagan's Fault

"The women's better adjustment in midlife might reflect the outcome of their student activism, the researchers speculated... But the men, in their draft resistance, rebelled `against the traditional male role of being a soldier and provider,' a rebellion that failed to produce any organized social movement. The impact of the conservative Reagan years on these liberal- minded men `may have been particularly negative,' the researchers suggested."
- February 8 Wall Street Journal "Lab Notes" column by Jerry Bishop on study in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology on how women student activists in the 1960s are faring better in their 40s than their male counterparts.

 

Those Good Old Death-Camp Days

"More than four years into an economic free fall, Bulgaria has yet to hit the bottom...By every political and economic measure, Bulgaria is in crisis and there is no end in sight to its troubles. Living conditions are so much worse in the reform era that Bulgarians look back fondly on communism's 'good old days,' when the hand of the state crushed personal freedom but ensured that people were housed, employed, and had enough to eat."
- Los Angeles Times reporter Carol J. Williams in February 6 "news analysis."

Boston Globe Bureau Chiefs: Reagan Stinks, Clinton Thinks

"For Ronald Reagan to ride off into the sunset unscathed by the Iran-Contra affair is totally unfair to Richard Nixon. What Reagan, his Cabinet and staff did to the nation was much worse than what cost Nixon his presidency....But in the end, the American public got what it wanted: The government had been ripped off by gun sellers; government was complicit in putting drugs on America's streets in exchange for support by the drug cartels for the Contras; some of the freedom fighters, as Reagan called them, are living off the fat of the land in Florida, with no visible means of support, and a number of lawbreakers have escaped."
- Former Boston Globe Washington Bureau Chief Robert Healy on Walsh report, January 22 column.

"He [Clinton] has four, maybe five, books going at once. He can worry about the National Governors Association, the Arkansas Razorbacks, the Federal Reserve Bank and Japanese trading practices all at once. Sometimes he does. The man who wants a government that looks like America is not like the rest of us. He is more restless. His confinement in the White House has not confined his curiosity. During the late presidential campaign, people...sent him scores of books; he read most of them. Now Clinton, who ranks with Jefferson, Truman, Wilson and Kennedy as the Presidents the hungriest for the written word, is taking on the White House library. The curators can't believe he might read the whole thing. `His mind works longer hours every day than the average person's,' says Skip Rutherford, a Little Rock businessman and sometime White House adviser. 'He can still think when the rest of us are tired.'"
- Current Boston Globe Washington Bureau Chief David Shribman, February 18.

 

Why We Vilified the GOP

"I think the Republicans need to do now is understand that what happened in Houston - the last convention - where we were all vilifying them for this terrible convention is not that people were turning away from values. They just thought the Republicans seemed a little small-minded, which they did appear to be at that convention...They should have learned that the public cares about values, but you've got to establish a kind of middle ground on it, and be more inclusive than the Republicans were at their convention."
- U.S. News & World Report Senior Writer Gloria Borger on CNN's Late Edition, January 30.

 

Two Sentences We Never Thought We'd See in The Boston Globe

"The American economy surprised even the optimists and wrapped up last year with a burst of growth unrivaled since the days of Ronald Reagan's presidency, government figures released yesterday showed."
- Boston Globe reporter Peter G. Gosselin beginning a January 29 front-page story.

Wealthy get stuck with tax hike, but the pain may be shared by all
- front-page headline on Clinton tax hike, February 10

 

Connie Interested in More Than Just Tonya

"For one year, whenever Maury and I make love, I promise to say `Dave! Oh Dave!'"
- From Connie Chung's video letter to David Letterman to convince him to switch to CBS. From The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno & the Network Battle for the Night, a book by New York Times television reporter Bill Carter.

 

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