Notable Quotables - 05/22/1995

A Healing Media Avoid Fearmongering

"The House Republican budget bloodletting will infuriate lots of people. Besides the Medicare cuts, Medicaid, the government health plan for the poor, loses $184 billion."
- CNN reporter Bob Franken on Inside Politics, May 9.

"Senate Budget Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., unveiled a seven- year budget blueprint that would....Make huge cuts in Medicare and Medicaid."
- USA Today reporter William M. Welch, May 10.

"Senate Republicans yesterday offered a politically daring and far-reaching plan to balance the budget by 2002 by substantially reducing Medicare and Medicaid...."
- Washington Post's Eric Pianin, May 10.

'Fiscal blueprint' targets Medicare, Medicaid for cuts
- Chicago Tribune, May 10

Steep cut seen for Medicare; space station would be saved
- Houston Chronicle, same day

"Senate Republicans on a key committee geared up to approve one version of a plan to balance the budget. House Republicans voted their version out of committee earlier today. Both call for deep cuts in Medicare and other programs."
- Connie Chung, May 11 CBS Evening News.

George Will: "It's a cut against projected increases."
Sam Donaldson: "That's right, but that is a cut. May I just, without getting ad hominem here, not too long ago, the Will family had a welcome addition, a child. So your budget perhaps had to increase to take care of the welcome addition. Yet if it could not increase enough to care for the welcome addition sufficiently, that's a cut."
- Exchange on ABC's This Week with David Brinkley, May 14.

"Many members of Congress from both parties - as well as some independent analysts - acknowledge that the deep Medicare cuts sought by the GOP would increase costs in the private sector while reducing insurance coverage."
- Los Angeles Times reporters Edwin Chen and Doyle McManus, May 15.

Reality Check:
"Under current law, Medicare would grow about 10 percent a year. Under the assumptions of Mr. Domenici's budget, it would grow 7 percent a year, from $178 billion this year to $283 billion in 2002....and the growth in Medicaid spending would be halved, to five percent a year over the next seven years."
- New York Times reporter Robert Pear, May 10.

"Seven percent under the Senate plan, Senator Daschle, five percent under the House plan. How can you Democrats continue to run around and scream that the Republicans are going to cut the smithereens out of Medicare and throw old people out on the streets?"
- CNN Late Edition host Frank Sesno, May 14.

 

Right Track, Wrong Track

Poll Finds Disapproval Of GOP's Budget Plans
- Washington Post, May 16

Poll: GOP on right budget track
- USA Today, same day

 

Henry Foster, My Hero

"He's done more to prevent abortion than Operation Rescue."
- Time columnist Margaret Carlson on CNN's Capital Gang, May 6.

 

Reaganomics: Plante Says Give It A Facelift

Charles Osgood: "How is it possible to do all these things that everybody wants to do - balance the budget, not hurt people, provide social services, and at the same time provide a tax cut? How is it possible to do all those things?"
Bill Plante: "Well, the short answer is, Charles, it's not possible. It simply can't be done. We've talked about this before. People have very short memories. I mean, we were going to do all that during the Reagan years....The truth of the matter is it's probably not possible at all to balance the budget without degrading the social services unless taxes are also raised."
- Exchange on CBS Sunday Morning, May 14.

 

Conservatives Are Dangerous to Your Health

"This all comes at a time when the Jesse Helmses of the world are anxious to cut back or cut off funding to groups like the World Health Organization. Would such cuts lay the foundation for further problems down the road?"
- Bryant Gumbel to reporter Laurie Garrett about the spread of the Ebola virus, May 11 Today.

 

The Profession Known As "Journalism," A Network Calling Itself CBS

"Adding petrol to the partisan fires on Capitol Hill this week, the political agenda of the movement known as the religious right. The group calling itself the Christian Coalition is aligned with hard-right stands on issues ranging from gay rights to school prayer, and it's demanding its due for its help in getting Republicans elected."
- Dan Rather, May 15 CBS Evening News.

 

Like Comparing Auschwitz to the Autobahn

"The good news for Russians? They no longer have to worry about being shipped to Siberia for defying the old communist state. The bad news? They may have to come to Moscow, where the chances of dying in a car crash are greater than expiring in Siberia. This city is one large wreck 'em derby....Isn't capitalism grand?"
- Tom Brokaw, May 8 NBC Nightly News.

 

Peter's Right: You Were Two-Year-Olds

"There was a temper tantrum that did take place in the American electorate last November. No doubt about it. They were mad at the Democrats, they were mad at the President. They were frustrated because, there's all kinds of reasons to be frustrated, and talk radio - in my estimation, I think the President is right about that - focuses on that."
- 60 Minutes reporter Mike Wallace agreeing with the Peter Jennings radio commentary blaming the November election result on "a temper tantrum....a nation full of uncontrolled two-year-old rage." Interview with Arianna Huffington, CNBC's Talk Live, May 6.

 

Communism Would Have Vanished By Itself?

"The long march down Ho Chi Minh Trail has ended in the shopping mall. Saigon has moved from socialism to Sony, from VC to VCR. Everything we fought for, everything we lost 58,000 men for, is being given to us now. Perhaps we have trouble accepting that because it's one final confirmation that the war never had to be fought at all."
- CBS reporter Bob Simon reporting from Vietnam, April 28 Evening News.

 

Million Dollar Connie: A Victim?

"Most notoriously, Chung was attacked for the January interview in which Kathleen Gingrich volunteered that her son, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, had said of Hillary Rodham Clinton: `She's a bitch.' Chung had teased the revelation out of Mrs. Gingrich by asking her to share it `just between you and me.' But the fact is, the cameras were rolling when Chung made her now-infamous come-on, and Chung spoke in a stage whisper that the two had jokingly used earlier. To anyone who bothered to watch the whole interview, it was clear that Mrs. Gingrich was nobody's fool. So why does it all stick to Connie Chung? Sexism?"
- Boston Globe TV critic Frederic M. Biddle, May 10.

 

- 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