Notable Quotables - 05/23/1994

 

Newsweek's Harassment Hypocrisy

"But [attorney Bob] Bennett says he has 'people coming out of the woodwork' to discredit Jones and her story. He need look no further than Jones' brother-in-law, Mark Brown...'She went with one man and when she got there, she spotted another one. She goes right up to him, puts her leg between the legs of the other man and rubs herself up and down on him...Promiscuity? Good gosh. Her mother is fixing to get the shock of her life when Paula's life comes out...She went out and had herself a good time. I've seen her at the Red Lobster pinch men on the ass.'"
- Newsweek Washington reporter Mark Hosenball, May 16.

"Yes, the case is being fomented by right-wing nuts, and yes, she is not a very credible witness, and it's really not a law case at all...some sleazy woman with big hair coming out of the trailer parks...I think she's a dubious witness, I really do."
- Newsweek Washington Bureau Chief Evan Thomas on Inside Washington, May 7.

"The days of Simpson Chic are over. Now he is more often compared to Red-baiter Joseph McCarthy. The image of Simpson flinging open his jacket and declaring he had lots of `stuff' against Anita Hill - while revealing nothing - was the lowest of many low points in the Clarence Thomas hearings. Any senator with a sense of history should have said, as attorney Joseph Welch eventually did to McCarthy, `Senator, have you no shame?'"
- Newsweek's Eleanor Clift, October 28, 1991 issue.

"Little in Hill's life suggested she would one day discuss sexual matters before an audience of millions. Quiet and intensely private, Hill apparently has always been a straight arrow. Neighbors say the law professor - still known back home by her middle name, Faye, was an unusually bright and determined child.. [Law school colleagues] say it is inconceivable that the never- married professor would fabricate the allegations against Thomas."
- Newsweek Senior Writer Eloise Salholz, October 21, 1991 issue.

 

Margaret Carlson's Plain Old Washington-Variety Harassment

"I think at least the American people are more likely to believe the President than they are to believe, you know, someone without a job, from Arkansas, whose lawyer says she's not in it for money, but clearly she's in it for something - fame, celebrity, money, something. And she's aligned with right-wing groups, which also draws it into question...[Anita Hill] brought her charges to the Senate Judiciary Committee after being asked to, and very quietly. There wasn't, she wasn't going before a left-wing group in a press conference."
- Time columnist Margaret Carlson on CNN's Capital Gang, May 7.

"Senator Alan Simpson, who usually manages to hide his meanness behind an Andy Rooney facade, warned Hill that she would be `injured and destroyed and belittled and hounded and harassed' - real harassment, different from the sexual kind, just plain old Washington-variety harassment."
- Time then-Deputy Washington Bureau Chief Margaret Carlson, October 21, 1991 issue.

 

Bryant Blames the Victim

"We've got an awful lot to talk about this week, including the sexual harassment suit against the President. Of course, in that one, it's a little tough to figure out who's really being harassed."
- Today co-host Bryant Gumbel, May 10.

"The Clinton administration enjoyed a short-lived triumph last week. After eking out a victory against assault weapons, the White House had to endure fallout on Haiti and a politically motivated sex suit out of Arkansas....Charging `intentional affliction of emotional distress,' something she clearly thought out on her own, to your mind, does the suit have any merit or are we just looking at politics of the worst kind here?"
- Gumbel to Democratic consultant Bob Squier, same show.

 

Is Clinton a Sexual Harasser? Irrelevant, or a Plus?

"Why didn't we put it on earlier? It didn't seem, I think to most people, entirely relevant to what was going on at the time. These are the kinds of charges raised about the President before. They had been played out in the Gennifer Flowers episode. The American public had made a kind of decision about his personal conduct and whether it had relevance in his personal life. And it seemed at that time it didn't have the news weight."
- Tom Brokaw on the CNBC show Tim Russert, May 9.

"Are we in an era of government by Geraldo? Have we created an atmosphere where no one with any interesting aspects of their past is going to want to get involved in politics? Are we going to look back on this time 100 years from now the way we look back on Salem?...We're going to wind up with government by goody- goodies, government by people who have done nothing in their life expect walk the straight and narrow, who have no creative thoughts. We're going to look back on this 100 years from now and say we drove some of our best people out of politics. In the 20th century, having an interesting sexual history is a leading indicator of success in the Presidency."
- Newsweek Senior Editor Joe Klein on Face the Nation, May 8.

 

Anita Had No Motives

"I think Anita Hill was more credible because she came out when a decision was being made about someone, she came out reluctantly, and she didn't have a financial motive or even a political motive as part of her motivation."
- Newsweek reporter Eleanor Clift, May 7 McLaughlin Group.

"Hill, who has picked her public spots carefully since achieving headline status, announced a deal with Doubleday late last year to write an autobiography and a study of sexual harassment in historical and contemporary contexts. She'll be paid about a mil."
- Washington Post reporter Lois Romano, May 5.

Clinton Believability

Most back Bill - poll
- New York Daily News, May 8

Most doubt Clinton on lawsuit
- Washington Times, same day on same poll

 

Frightening Conservatives

Host Brian Lamb: "[Clarence] Thomas says he reads only the conservative Washington Times and won't look at The Washington Post or The New York Times, quote, this is from an interview, `They can say absolutely anything they want about me, I will never read them again and see it.'"...
Leslie Phillips, USA Today reporter: "I find it very frightening that a Supreme Court Justice is getting his news from The Washington Times, and I think he also talks about the Rush Limbaugh show. I mean, whether you believe The New York Times or The Washington Post you know, you need to know what the opposition is doing."
- Exchange on C-SPAN's Journalists Roundtable, May 13.

 

Bryant's History Lesson

"Let's not debate his presidency, but his passing. As opposed to a man like Reagan, Nixon is, was highly regarded as a genuine statesman with a first-class mind."
- Today co-host Bryant Gumbel, April 26.

 

In What Cave Does He Reside?

"Well I think obviously there's some discontent with President Clinton from the left. The difference, of course, is they don't have the influential journalists. That's the point I was making, is that the left doesn't set the agenda. I wish they did."
- Frank Mankiewicz, former President of National Public Radio, May 6 Freedom Forum panel carried by C-SPAN.

 

Publisher: L. Brent Bozell III
Editors: Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham
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