Notable Quotables - 05/05/1998

 

Jennings: I Want to See Poverty

"I was thinking about what Jane Fonda said the other night about North Georgia and how she thought North Georgia was not unlike parts of the developing world and some politicians in Georgia jumped all over her....And the truth of the matter is there are parts of America which are just as bad as some of the worst parts in the rest of the world and that's desperately sad."
- ABC News anchor Peter Jennings on Jane Fonda's charge that children are "starving to death" in Georgia, April 23 CBS Late Late Show with Tom Snyder.

"What you really don't see, when I first started volunteering for the Coalition [for the Homeless] - by the way there are a lot of people who volunteer a lot more diligently and more seriously than I do - in the feeding program we used to feed under the Brooklyn Bridge, under the Manhattan Bridge. And this is only seven or eight years ago there were communities of homeless there, of men primarily who did not want to be in the shelter system. There are none of those little shanty towns anymore, they've all been pushed away. Some people may think that's a good thing but I always thought it was sad that we hide the homeless because, because it's a fact of life and I also think it's incumbent upon the rest of us to recognize the homeless and see the homeless and look the homeless in the eye because there's no lower status in life than to be without a place to live."
- Jennings, same show.

Pour More Into Rotten Schools

Cokie Roberts: "In the Catholic schools in the District of Columbia the majority of the students aren't Catholic because these are poor families that are trying to get their kids out of rotten public schools."

Sam Donaldson: "Well, we should maintain the rotten public schools better then. We should pour money into those rotten schools and make them better."
- Exchange between co-hosts on ABC's This Week, April 26.

 

CBS: No NOW Hypocrisy

"Paula Jones's lawsuit was rejected by a federal court judge. And today the National Organization for Women said it will not support Jones's appeal. The organization says it's not a good test case and its members don't want to work with quote, 'disreputable right-wing organizations and individuals,' unquote."
- Entirety of news item read by Dan Rather on the April 22 CBS Evening News.

Solution to Mean-Spirited Politics: Campaign Finance Regulation

"They get elected in very partisan campaigns, very nasty, burn-and-destroy campaigns. And they're bringing the same habits now to Washington. That used to not happen. But it's happening now. And until something I think is done to reform the whole campaign finance system and how we get people to Washington, I think you'll see a continuing partisan atmosphere here."
- Bob Schieffer to Charles Osgood, April 26 Sunday Morning.

 

Millionaire or Billionaire, But Always a Conspiratorial Hater

"Starr attempted to leave for Pepperdine in Malibu, California last year, but was so ridiculed he agreed to see the investigation through to the finish. Still, critics continued linking Starr to Richard Mellon Scaife, the conservative millionaire and Clinton basher who helped finance the Pepperdine post."
- Jackie Judd, April 16 World News Tonight.

vs.

"In cutting ties to Pepperdine Starr also bowed to critics who claimed the job was a serious conflict of interest because the school is funded, in part, by billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, financial godfather of the alleged right-wing conspiracy against the President. Starr insists he has absolutely no ties to Scaife, who is alleged to have given indirect financial aid to a key Whitewater witness against the President."
- Lisa Myers, April 16 NBC Nightly News.

 

Scaife's Rabid Bribing Campaign

"If there is a 'vast right-wing conspiracy' at work in America, the man at its center likely is Richard Mellon Scaife, the 65-year-old reclusive Pittsburgh billionaire whose money has funded both mainstream conservative think tanks and underground attack campaigns against President Clinton.... Scaife's money also has poured into the rabidly anti-Clinton American Spectator magazine. Editor R. Emmett Tyrell [sic] Jr. relentlessly derided the new President in 1993, a vilification campaign that won Scaife's support."
- Los Angeles Times reporter David Savage, April 17.

"Subsidizing probes, underwriting witnesses, chipping in for a deanship at a Malibu school, the omnipresent megamillionaire Richard Mellon Scaife owns the cashbox of the anti-Clinton crusade."
- Caption for April 27 Time caricature of Scaife.

 

Who Offended Who First?

"Tonight, if we ever get out of here, the White House correspondents hold their annual dinner where the press hosts the President, journalists invite sources and the occasional celebrity like Robert DeNiro. This year, Insight magazine, whose parent is the Moonie paper, The Washington Times, decided on an in-your-face guest, Paula Jones, in order to insult the guest of honor. That demeans not just the President but the presidency. Too bad the President didn't insult the press corps by staying home."
- Time columnist Margaret Carlson, April 25 CNN Capital Gang.

"But a lot of people say that it was inappropriate for her to be there with the President and the First Lady."
- Wolf Blitzer to Tony Blankley on CNN's Late Edition, April 26.

Reality Check:
"She is the aggrieved party. I don't understand the argument that here's a person who may have been wronged and she can't appear in public, but the person who may have done the wronging is free to stride the streets in pride. I don't think so. I think she had every right to be there."
- Former Gingrich press secretary and CNN panelist Tony Blankley, April 26 Late Edition.

 

He'd See Her If She Was Homeless

"I certainly won't go out of my way to say hi to her."
- Peter Jennings on avoiding Paula Jones at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, April 27 Washington Post story by Michael Colton.

Ken Starr, Overcharging Nazi

"Clearly worried that it might look as if he were taking a payoff from the right wing, he announced last week that once he finishes his investigation he won't, repeat won't be taking that cushy job at Pepperdine University after all. Well, of course he won't. By the time he finishes his investigation he'll be too old."
- CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer, April 19.

"The long-running, wide-ranging and multi-million dollar Ken Starr investigation of the Clintons is far from over, possibly running now beyond 1998. That's on top of the nearly four years and $30 to $40 million it's already taken."
- Dan Rather opening the CBS Evening News, April 22.

"Starr is regarded as an occupying army in Little Rock. It's sort of like....like the French talk about the Germans."
- Newsweek's Evan Thomas on Inside Washington, April 25.

 

Killer Sport Utility Vehicles

"Tonight we begin at the crossroads of physics and safety and government responsibility. In Washington today government is grappling with what to do about the threat that sport utility vehicles represent to lesser vehicles in accidents. It's an obvious concern now. Sport utility vehicles have become the latest driver's passion and because they are bigger and heavier they have the potential to do unusual damage."
- Peter Jennings opening the April 21 World News Tonight.

"There were high-level talks today about knocking a very different giant down to size: the sport utility vehicle. SUVs. Extremely popular with some but considered a killer on the road to others..."
- Dan Rather introducing a story after a report on Microsoft, April 21 CBS Evening News.

 

Trashing an "Age of Deregulation"

"We begin tonight with something to think about later this evening. You're at home or in the office or the car, and you go to make a phone call. What do you think the chances are that when you do, you're going to be ripped off by the phone company? There are millions of complaints in this age of deregulation, millions. And it's a big enough problem for Congress to take up tomorrow."
- ABC anchor Peter Jennings opening World News Tonight, April 22.

 

Adultery: A Benefit of Feminism

"The women's movement brought change and power to millions of American females. Virginal brides surrendered to the sexual revolution. Modern fashions exposed body parts previously reserved for the bedroom. Entering the work force meant the old ways that women met men were ancient history [video clip of a milkman]. And a new breed of superwoman said 'I can have it all'...The search for pleasure leads some women to shop [video of sex toys] and some to stray...And experts say many husbands and wives can become stronger individuals, and on rare occasions, might even find that cheating recharges their marriage."
- CBS This Morning co-host Jane Robelot, April 23.

 

Strategically Sucking Up

CNBC host Chris Matthews: "Puff interview with the President! Walter Isaacson, your Managing Editor, just out of nowhere gets this great interview with the President after Newsweek has been hosing this guy for two months."

Karen Tumulty, Time: "We were strategically positioning."
- CNBC's Hardball, April 6

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L. Brent Bozell III, Publisher
Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
Eric Darbe, Geoffrey Dickens, Gene Eliasen,
Steve Kaminski, Clay Waters; Media Analysts
Kristina Sewell, Research Associate
Michelle Baetz, Circulation Manager
Rebecca Hinnershitz, Karen Sanjines, Interns