Notable Quotables - 05/03/1999
Protect Parents & Kids from Republicans and Guns
"The
Republicans want to get government off our backs, but into the soul business.
They want government into our souls, which I don't think is the answer. Gary
Bauer, for instance, in announcing his candidacy said that if they'd, if
somebody told them if they had prayer in school or were told God loved
them they would be, this wouldn't have happened. This wouldn't have
happened without the TEC-9 semi-automatic pistol, it wouldn't have been
quite as brutal. I can take care of my daughter's soul. What I can't take
care of is whether her friends have guns or not."
- Time's Margaret
Carlson on CNN's Capital Gang, April 24.
"You know in Japan in 1996, which has very violent media culture, there
were 15 murders with handguns. In America there were 9,200 murders with
handguns so, yes, I do think there are things that can be done. The Brady Bill
can be the three-day waiting period, trigger locks on guns, making parents
more responsible, adults more responsible for the use of firearms by
juveniles. I think there are things that can be done."
- Steve Roberts of U.S. News,
a former New York Times reporter, on CNN's Late Edition, April
25.
"Joe Waldron, executive director of the Citizen's Committee for the
Right to Keep and Bear Arms, are you on the phone? Don't you think that your
movement, what you stand for, even the Second Amendment itself is rightfully
under attack after the carnage in Littleton, Colorado?"
- Geraldo Rivera, April 26 Rivera
Live on CNBC.
Quayle's Wrong. It Should Be An Excuse for Gun Control
"The
excuses are always different [after shootings], but one thing remains
constant: People who had no business with guns somehow found them. The gun
lobby assures us that stricter gun laws would not have prevented them and
maybe they're right. But I know one thing. If the kids who walked into that
high school had been armed with baseball bats or even knives, instead of guns,
most of the children who died last week would still be alive. The bodies had
not yet been removed when presidential candidate Dan Quayle, among others,
told Chris Matthews, 'I hope we won't use this as an excuse to go and take
away guns.' No offense, Mr. Quayle, but this ought to be an excuse, an
excuse to get to the bottom of things like this and see that they never happen
again."
- Face the Nation host
Bob Schieffer at the end of the April 25 show.
Rosie's Representative Public Pulse: Total Ban on Guns
"If
there was a winner in this week's mayhem, its gun control advocates,
says Time Denver bureau chief Richard Woodbury. From Colorado to
Washington, long-dead legislation is back on the table, single-issue pol Rep.
Carolyn McCarthy is back on TV again, and no less a public pulse-taker than
Rosie O'Donnell is calling for a near-total ban on guns, England-style. Will
Littleton be our Dunblane? The logic is clear enough: Guns may not kill
people, but neither do disaffected teens until they get a hold of some
guns. Keep guns away from those teens, and they can't shoot anyone. But they
can still blow plenty of people up with homemade pipe bombs."
- Frank Pellegrini in an April
24 Time Daily Web site story.
God Bless Clinton for Caring
"It was an off-the-cuff, I think politically brilliant speech today as President Clinton evoked his own Arkansas childhood and its gun culture then challenged all of us, all his fellow citizens to change their long-held ways of thinking. Guns are incredibly easy to buy in this country. I've mentioned it and I think it is the most bitter irony of all that in Colorado you can get a gun at 18 and you can't buy a drink until you are 21. I mean what the hell is that about? What? What genius thought up that scheme? I mean it makes me sick to my stomach....
"Conservative
commentators have been so willing and so able to point the finger of
responsibility for the Littleton massacre at violent movies or video games. I
think it is criminally irresponsible not to talk about the need for gun
control. So God bless the President and the First Lady. I'm telling you,
though, if the popularity of these gun shows are any indication, it is easier
said than done to get this thing changed."
- Rivera, April 27 Rivera
Live.
Starr's Murderous Team
"Do you
believe that they had, at least indirectly, something to do with your
ex-husband, Jim McDougal's, ultimate demise?...Did they help speed your
husbands sickness and his ultimate death?"
- Geraldo Rivera referring to
Ken Starr's prosecutors in a question to Susan McDougal, April 14 Upfront
Tonight.
"I think that their persecution of you was way beyond the pale. It was
indefensible, it was reprehensible and I promised you before you went down on
trial this time and I promise you next time if they go after you, they're
going after both of us."
- Rivera to McDougal later in
the same CNBC show.
Talk Radio Reminds an Editor of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy
"I
haven't listened to any talk radio today, but I apologize, I do often, and
I'm often reminded of your wife's comment about the right-wing conspiracy
critics who want to get at you for anything and undermine your presidency and
discredit you personally. But there is a common drumbeat on the airwaves now,
and it is that you, personally, lack the moral authority to be
commander-in-chief. And certainly, I guess, there's a powerful inclination
to ignore those criticisms. But if you had to address it to an Air Force
pilot, how would you who would listen to the same radio shows and perhaps
been persuaded to that point of view how would you address that?"
- Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Managing Editor Ken Bunting to President Clinton at the convention of the
American Society of Newspaper Editors, as shown live on cable networks, April
15.
Ken Starr Not Like a Virgin
"Ken Starr
blaming the statute for his sorry record is, you know, like Madonna assailing
promiscuity."
- Wall Street Journal
Executive Washington Editor Al Hunt on Starr's view that the independent
counsel law is unconstitutional, April 17 Capital Gang.
Koppel's Assessment: Hillary Would Make a "Great" Senator
"'She's
focused, she's smart, and her vision of policy is a clear, perfectly
legitimate one,' the Nightline anchor said during a recent interview
in Washington. 'She'd give a lot of force to propelling that vision
through the legislature in the Senate. Like many others, Koppel initially
thought Clintons Senate' tease 'was so much hokum....The longer [her
interest] goes on, the more seriously I have to take it....I can envision
Hillary Clinton a very smart, tough woman who has devoted much of her
adult life to supporting her husband's career looking at her own life
and saying, Would it be painful? Absolutely. Would it be tough? Absolutely.
Am I entitled to go through some pain and hard times for my own career? Yeah,
maybe its time.'"
- From a story by
Philadelphia Inquirer TV columnist Gail Shister, April 21.
Irrational Lack of Respect for VP
"We did a
survey this week that asked who do you trust as commander-in-chief. Twenty-one
percent said they trust Al Gore as commander-in-chief, 43 percent said they
trust George W. Bush.That is irrational Mark, but it's real."
- Wall Street Journal's
Al Hunt, referring to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, April 24 Capital
Gang.
Milosevic: Winning or Losing?
"As the
war enters its second month NATO troops are already in Macedonia, Albania and
Bosnia. NATO hopes to complete the encirclement of Yugoslavia by basing planes
in Hungary and using Romanian and Bulgarian air space to attack from every
direction. Milosevic would seem to be in a no-win position and while he is
slowly losing his war against NATO, he is rapidly winning his war against the
people of Kosovo."
- David Martin ending an April
20 CBS Evening News story.
vs.
"There's
no sign tonight that Milosevic himself is about to crack. The latest U.S.
intelligence says that Milosevic and his regime, despite NATO bombing, remain
firmly in power."
- Jim Miklaszewski concluding a
story on the NBC Nightly News the same night.
Clift: Contemptible Clinton's Legacy Still Intact
"I'd
like to point out that the Judge said reasonable expenses, and the Paula Jones
attorneys were going to hold this deposition anyway, so I don't think
there's a whole lot of extra cost here. And in terms of the impact on his
legacy, I think the Judge pointed out that she was sympathetic with the
President's frustration at the political motivations behind much of this
case. And I think that this contempt citation will be a footnote to the whole
impeachment saga and that historians will view it in the context that while
the President certainly behaved badly, he was less than truthful and he should
have been punished, that impeachment was an excessive sentence for what he
did, that actually Judge Wright's ruling is the appropriate punishment for
what the President did, and that is to be less than truthful in a civil
case."
- Newsweek's Eleanor
Clift reacting to Judge Wright's contempt ruling, April 14 Fox Report
on the Fox News Channel.
Liberal Columnist: Those Who Pray Are "Fatheads"
"Why do we
do this to ourselves? Why do we say better metal detectors and more
psychiatrists could end the horror of schoolyard shootings? The main reason,
of course, is Congress, which takes campaign contributions from the NRA and
cowers before it. We know just what to do, we think, when international big
shots are in danger [at NATO summit in Washington, DC]. 'Thousands of law
enforcement officers will cover the streets, escorting and protecting the
heads of state....aggressively guarding against potential problems.' But
when it comes to preventing violence in our schoolyards, some fathead is bound
to say that prayer is the solution."
- Syndicated columnist Mary
McGrory in her column featured on page A3 of the Washington Post news
section, April 22.
Publisher
L. Brent Bozell III
Editors Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham
Media Analysts Jessica Anderson, Brian Boyd,
Geoffrey Dickens, Mark Drake, Paul Smith , Brad Wilmouth
Research Associate Kristina Sewell
Circulation Manager Michelle Baetz
Intern Ken Shepherd
