Notable Quotables - 03/22/1999
China: Just Another Witch Hunt
"I'm suspicious of the Republicans here.
I think they're trying to make some political hay. It feels like 'Who lost
China?' and a lot of witch hunts of the past where they see a chance to make
some political capital by us not being tough enough. I don't think that's
true."
- Evan Thomas, Newsweek's Assistant Managing Editor, March 13 Inside
Washington.
"There are some people who say, Look, why shouldn't I believe that
the Democrats and Bill Clinton have whipped the Republicans soundly on
domestic policy so now they've decided they'll just take him on on foreign
policy?"
- Bob Schieffer to Sen. John McCain, March 14 Face the Nation.
"There's a lot of concern now in this China issue, but the fact is
China has 24 long-range nuclear missiles that could hit the United States.
Russia 7,000. Yet the whole arms control process with Russia over START has
collapsed. That was something started by Republicans. I don't hear anything
coming out of Republicans complaining about that, wanting to drive that
agenda. What's happened? When I listen to the Republicans in Congress on
foreign policy, there's such an 'I'm stupid and proud of it'
attitude."
- New York Times columnist and former reporter Tom Friedman to
McCain, March 14 Face the Nation.
Punt Juanita, Attack Star Wars
"Do you expect a breakthrough on Kosovo
and especially in view of the policy seems to be attacking or threatening
Serbia and then retreating, it's constant. And my other question is how can
you justify chipping away at the ABM treaty which helped keep the peace during
the Cold War and pour billions and billions into a Star Wars defense against
the possibility that starving North Korea may fire a missile at us?"
- UPI's Helen Thomas to President Clinton in one of three questions from
U.S. reporters, none of which touched on Juanita Broaddrick, March 5 joint
press conference
First Woman (Raping) President?
"We were talking about - speaking for all
women, if I may, Toni Morrison wrote in The New Yorker that Clinton was
our first 'black President,' and I think, in a way, Clinton may be our
first 'woman President.' And I think that may be one of the reasons why
women identify, because he does have a lot of feminine qualities about him:
the softness, the sensitivity, the vulnerability, that kind of thing."
- The Washington Post's Sally Quinn on Larry King Live,
Mar. 10.
Blackmun Grew In Office Into Liberal Champion of the Poor
"Beyond Roe, Blackmun's career on the
court was marked by a shift from conservative to liberal positions fueled by a
frank sympathy for the poor and disenfranchised."
- ABC's Terry Moran on the passing of retired Supreme Court Justice
Harry Blackmun, March 4 World News Tonight.
Question: "Blackmun was supposed to be a conservative, and he became
one of the most liberal. Why?"
Alain Sanders of Time magazine: "Essentially, he
learned and grew as he went along. He was also befriended by the Court's
master politician, Justice Brennan, who happened to be the court's leading
liberal. Certainly Brennan sounded convincing to Blackmun. But Blackmun always
respected the little guy. And that respect led him to champion the
disadvantaged against the huge power of government."
- March 4 online chat hosted by Yahoo! and CourtTV.
Stephanopoulos: From Hero to "Creepy Linda Tripp Type"
"A lot of people, George, think that this is just kinda creepy, that you've done this. They see you as a turncoat, a Linda Tripp type, if you will, who sort of ingratiated himself with the people inside the White House. They made you who you became and now all of a sudden, you're telling, you're airing all the dirty laundry and some people just think that's sorta gross."
"But aren't some situations off limits?
I mean, you talk very candidly about the President's relationship with Mrs.
Clinton. You had entree to situations that most people wouldn't. I mean you
were sitting there - or standing there - once when the President was in his
boxer shorts and Hillary came in and they kissed and you witnessed
conversations. It seems to me that, I mean, is nothing sacred?"
- Katie Couric's first two questions to George Stephanopoulos, author of
All Too Human, March 12 Today.
"I thought I'd start using George's book as a peg. Remember during
the Ken Starr squabble, the Secret Service said we're going to invoke
something called protective privilege, meaning that if Presidents thought that
these agents were going to be talking after their term of service, they would
never say anything in their presence. Well why doesn't that apply more and
more to White House aides?"
- Brian Williams to liberal Democratic historian Doris Kearns Goodwin on
MSNBC's News with Brian Williams, March 12.
Judas Tripp?
"Total loser. She will go down as some
kind of tabloid-era Judas. And yeah, sure she warned her about the blue dress
and that was helpful, but her idea that somehow she was looking out for
Monica's interests is just a lie. It's clear throughout the history of
this thing that she was out to do Monica harm and for her own interests."
- Newsweek's Jonathan Alter on winners and losers of the week,
March 5 Upfront Tonight on CNBC.
"Utterly Un-American" Starr
"How loyal was she in the end? She went
and talked to Ken Starr. She could have refused that, I suppose, or last
night, she could have just gone full bore against Ken Starr, which I wish
somebody would do. I think the notion that now she can't say everything she
wants to is just utterly un-American."
- Washington Post reporter David Maraniss complaining about Monica
Lewinsky on MSNBC's Hockenberry, March 4.
U.S. News & World Report
Editorial Director Harold Evans: "One thing which surprises me
so far in the reaction: Why isn't there more concern about the fact that
Kenneth Starr did not allow her to speak about what happened. Why is he
holding this woman in terror? Why?"
Lucianne Goldberg: "She's not terrified."
Evans: "She's terrified. She said she was terrified. I
saw it....But she did say she was frightened and it is fact that Kenneth Starr
would not let her talk about what happened. Why not? What is being held back?
Why is he is so frightened? What does he got to hide? Seriously."
- Exchange on MSNBC's Hockenberry, March 3.
Rivera the Hater
"Dumped by the President, betrayed by the
treacherous Tripp, and raped by the sanctimonious Starr and the fellow you saw
in the brief flash there, Jackie 'The Thug' Bennett."
- Geraldo on Monica Lewinsky, March 4 Upfront Tonight.
"[Susan McDougal] has been hounded for 15 years by investigators and for
the last five by the investigative terrorist, Ken Starr."
- Rivera, March 8 Rivera Live.
"Dante in the Inferno, Andrew [Morton], has as you know sinners more and
more evil progressively as you get lower down. In your pantheon who is the
worst? Is it Ken Starr, is it Linda Tripp, is it Lucianne Goldberg? I mean how
do you rate them for relative evil?"
- Rivera to the author of Monica's Story, March 10 Rivera Live.
Larry King's Wacko Patrol
"So it was not the, as has been termed, the wacko element? The far right or those who are conspicuously anti-Clinton who were pressuring her?" CNN's Larry King to Juanita Broaddrick's son after he said she only came forward to correct misleading stories, March 8.
"The term wacko right-winger is redundant.
For example, they're the only people who don't like being called
compassionate. Someone remarked that many now defend the tobacco industry
because its products kill people early, saving us dollars in having to care
for aged people."
- "Larry King's People" item in USA Today, March 8.
The Far Right Hates Compassion
"...a compassionate conservative. The term
has drawn fire from the far right, but Bush is courting the middle of
America."
- Tom Brokaw on George W. Bush, March 2 NBC Nightly News.
Wow: Prisoners Up, Crime Down
"According to a new study by the Justice
Department, the number of U.S. residents behind bars has doubled in just a
dozen years. Last year it increased more than four percent. As of mid-1998,
one in every 150 Americans was incarcerated. All this while crime rates have
fallen. The reason for the seeming contradiction is that prisons are feeling
the effects of get-tough-on-crime policies, like truth-in-sentencing
initiatives designed to make inmates serve more of their terms."
- ABCs Jim Sciutto, March 15 Good Morning America.
Crusading for Hillary for Senate
"She emerged on health care, only to beat
a very bruised retreat. She clearly hated being thought of as just Bill
Clinton's wife. But ironically, it would take his scandals, finally, to free
her. Finally, last November 1998, Hillary Clinton showed the world what she
could do on the campaign trail without him. Political mastery, every bit as
dazzling as his, the thoughtful speech, unapologetically strong, emboldening
Democrats, electing Senators. So her friends say she has really earned this
campaign, this moment, if she chooses, earned it by changing herself,
searching, stumbling, and at the end, by standing, not by her man, but by
herself."
- Co-host Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America, March 12.
Duffy in the Buff
"Some people dream about being naked, and
you dream about being...?"
- One of Time Washington Bureau Chief Michael Duffy's questions
to Monica Lewinsky, March 15 cover story.
