Notable Quotables - 04/24/1995

 

Contract: Null & Void

Reporter Jackie Judd: "The day after the election - an election in which just over a third of the electorate voted and only half of them voted Republican - Newt Gingrich made a sweeping declaration."
Gingrich: "We have a mandate for the Contract. The American people have spoken on this issue."
Judd: "But the American people are not nearly so certain of that mandate, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post survey....One of the most personally troubling aspects of the survey for Speaker Gingrich may be the large number of people who said he doesn't understand their problems. Gingrich views himself as a man of the people. The survey result raises the question - what people?"
- ABC's World News Tonight, April 6.

"Gingrich's strength comes from the fact that, whether you like what he says or not, he does have this long term idea of where he thinks the country should move. Now I don't agree with very much of it, but I can see there is that idea there."
- Former Washington Post and New York Times reporter E.J. Dionne at an April 12 American University forum on coverage of the first 100 days shown on C-SPAN.

 

Rigid Far Right Ultra Conservative Extremists

"Congressman Bob Dornan is the latest to seek the Republican presidential nomination. He claims he's the right man for the job, as in far right. Linda Douglass looks at Bob Dornan and the GOP's heavy thunder on the right."
- CBS Evening News anchor Connie Chung, April 13.

"Dornan's views are considered extreme, but in today's increasingly conservative Republican Party, he's not as far out as he used to be."
- Linda Douglass, same story.

"Unlike the rigid rightists of his party, Dole believes in government, believes in its utility at solving problems."
- Associated Press story by Washington reporter Mike Feinsilber, April 11 Richmond Times-Dispatch.

"California Congressman Robert Dornan makes his official announcement in Washington this morning. He is ultra-conservative on social issues."
- Today co-host Katie Couric, April 13.

It seems to me this is ideal for Dole because you have Bill Clinton, who looks like a tired President, who no longer has a real agenda for what he wants to do for the country, and you have Gingrich, who looks like kind of a wild man out there on the extremes of the right wing. Bob Dole becomes in that dynamic an agent of change, but an agent of safer change than Gingrich."
- Newsday Washington reporter Susan Page in an April 12 American University forum shown on C-SPAN.

 

Foolish Tax Cut

"This `crown jewel' is fool's gold. What they have done is make it harder on themselves to balance the budget....how responsible is this? Repealing the alternative corporate income tax is not very responsible."
- Newsweek's Eleanor Clift, April 8 McLaughlin Group.

"Big winners won this round - corporations, investors, people with high incomes, including yours truly. ....But every good deal carries trade-offs and here are some to this tax bill. One, it invites the return of mischievous tax shelters that distort the economy. Two, you can't be sure of its results. The 1981 tax cuts were followed by the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression. Three, by encouraging consumption over savings the tax bill risks inflation. Four, it stirs sleeping cynics. How come so many tax breaks are proposed for wealthy individuals and corporations who've been pouring money into party coffers at the rate of $123,000 a day?"
- Bill Moyers' "Perspective," April 6 NBC Nightly News.

 

Frightening Right

"Pat, a lot of African-Americans in this country don't support your campaign. Should they be afraid of you?"
- Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Frisby to presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, March 26 Face the Nation.

"Even on the radio on the way in this morning, I was listening to a roundtable of older Americans, and they're - it's worse than not thrilled - they're downright afraid of you. Do they have anything to fear from you?"
- CBS This Morning co-host Harry Smith to Newt Gingrich, April 4.

 

It's Not a Cut, But It Is

"The Democrats are right to complain that what the Republicans are doing is cutting back on school lunches. The Republicans say that's nonsense, we're increasing the budget, which they are. But they're not increasing it enough to take care of the projected need under the program."
- Sam Donaldson on This Week with David Brinkley, April 2.

 

Gumbel vs. Gibson

"The tone of your speech yesterday suggested that Republican motives for many of the actions they are taking are quite suspect. Do you sense a mean spirit on Capitol Hill under Speaker Gingrich?"
- Today co-host Bryant Gumbel to Vice President Gore, April 4.

"What I hear, and have heard for these 90 days now from the Hill, is number one, you ought to be scared of what the Republicans are doing with the Contract. Number two, they're the party of the rich. That sounds like a bit of a message of fear, and a bit of a message of class warfare?"
- Good Morning America's Charles Gibson to Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, same day.

 

Sounds a Bit Mean-Spirited Bryant

"We'll assume you won't be talking with Senator D'Amato, right?...It would have to be a monosyllabic conversation, so he could understand, maybe?"
- Bryant Gumbel to Katie Couric after D'Amato's Lance Ito impression made news, April 6 Today.

 

Bring Back Pre-Reagan Moderation

"Dole is now trying to adapt himself to the changing center of gravity in his party. That he should have to make the effort at all tells you how far rightward the GOP has tilted. Until now, no one has challenged Dole's conservatism. However, evidence of Dole's compassion - his support for school lunches, food stamps, and AIDS research, for example - is cited by his opponents as proof that he is a closet moderate, which for many hard-core conservatives is akin to saying he's a socialist. If Dole were truly the leader he claims to be, he would be seeking to bring the GOP back to his brand of pragmatism, the kind of Republicanism that flourished before Ronald Reagan. Instead, Dole is slavishly striving to join the rightward lurch."
- Time Senior Political Correspondent Michael Kramer, April 24 issue.

 

Time's Martian Satanists

"Banning leaded gas is a regulation, and REGULATION, as conservatives know, is what the Devil has printed on his T-shirt. So lawmakers clamor for a risk-assessment bill that could be used (among other mischief) to end the phase-out of ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons....A distinctly raunchy odor arises from the cynical proposed gutting of the 1972 Clean Water Act - gutting decreed on order, to precise stipulations of industry lobbyists - by Republicans who run the House Subcommittee on Water and the Environment. Really? Here a thoughtful Martian might wonder, `These must be the children. Where are the adults?'"
- Time contributor John Skow, April 24 "Essay."

 

- L. Brent Bozell III, Publisher;
-Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
- James Forbes, Andrew Gabron, Mark Honig, Steve Kaminski, Gesele Rey, Clay Waters; Media Analysts
- Kathleen Ruff, Circulation Manager;
-Melissa Gordon, Anna Johnson; Interns