Notable Quotables - 05/31/1999
Spinning Away the Cox Report
"Where have you gone, Joe
McCarthy, oh, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you....Yes folks, Republican
efforts to warn Americans of the danger of fuzzy liberals in charge of the
nation's political system and its nuclear secrets are about to go
into overdrive."
- May 24 Time Daily
online story by Tony Karon.
"If security was compromised, both parties are guilty of inattention.
Bureaucratic inertia is the enemy here and the attempt to make this partisan
and distract from what was a terrific week for this administration gun
control, Al Gore casting the deciding vote, an election in Israel that is very
positive for Israel and this country. Why didn't we talk about that?"
- Newsweek's Eleanor
Clift, May 22 McLaughlin Group.
"With twenty years worth of blame for both Republicans and Democrats to
go around, some in Congress are now singling out Attorney General Janet Reno
for what they see as her failure to investigate the long-leaked nuclear
secrets."
- Dan Rather, May 24 CBS
Evening News.
"I heard someone ask rhetorically today that, 'Look, this is only gonna
matter if, God forbid, there is one dark day that sees the use, the all-out
use of thermonuclear weapons on this planet, and so why worry?'"
- MSNBC host Brian Williams to
House Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Porter Goss (R.-Fla.) on The
News with Brian Williams, May 25.
Repeal the Bill of Rights Now!
"I don't understand why
we're piddling around. We should talk about getting rid of guns in this
country."
- The Washington Post's
Juan Williams on Fox News Sunday, May 23.
"It also says something about Congress itself, I mean this gradual
infiltration over the years of wing nuts. Of people you know are, you lose the
John Chafees, and you get people who used to be in the House and now are in
the Senate and who are extremists and there's so many cases like this it
becomes the norm."
- Newsweek's Evan
Thomas, May 15 Inside Washington.
"Four weeks after the Columbine High School shootings, a month of public
outrage, and yet the Senate still remains tangled up in finger pointing over
gun control."
- NBC's Gwen Ifill opening a
May 18 NBC Nightly News story.
Kooky Mr. Cokie
Reporter Steve Roberts:
"Most Americans think gun control, child safety locks on guns, waiting
periods, issues of these kind that they make sense. Are they preventive? No.
Do they guarantee? No. But if the Republican Party allows its obligations to
the NRA to pull them out of the mainstream and appear to be against common
sense provisions as we were talking last week, I think they are going to pay a
price for it."
Tucker Carlson, The Weekly Standard: "But if they
don't work, why are they common sense?"
Roberts: "They do work. They don't, there are no
guarantees, they don't prevent anything. They increase the odds of having a
civilized and sane debate about this."
- Exchange on CNN's Late
Edition, May 16.
A Little Media Help on Gun Laws
"But your vote means, in effect,
that as we look at this videotape of gun shows, all these people here have put
out a table and aren't part of a gun store, a big dealership. You can just
walk in and, no questions asked, buy a gun and that gun can be used in the
next major national news story we're talking about here."
- MSNBC's Brian Williams to
Sen. John McCain on The News with Brian Williams, May 12.
"Remember, three of the weapons used at Columbine were purchased
originally at gun shows. Well, a majority of the U.S. Senate liked that just
fine. They voted to keep it that way. Then after realizing what they did, with
the help of the news media, the President and constituents, they said they'd
changed their minds. And today they voted on those changes, creating some new
loopholes in the process however."
- Brian Williams on his MSNBC
show, May 14.
The Today Gephardt Playbook
"About the former Speaker of the
House, Newt Gingrich, you wrote quote, 'one of the leading practitioners of
the politics of personal destruction.' How would you label his successor,
Dennis Hastert? What has he done in his short tenure to help heal
Congress?"
- Today co-host Matt
Lauer to Dick Gephardt, May 24.
"You called Gingrich and his ilk, your words, 'trickle-down terrorists
who base their agenda on division, exclusion, and fear.' Do you think
middle-class Americans need protection from that group?"
- Today co-host Bryant
Gumbel to Gephardt, January 4, 1995.
Rubin: Greatest Since Hamilton
"Good evening. The man who
presided over the best economy in a generation is going back to private life.
The Secretary of the Treasury Bob Rubin, who said today that he really was
resigning, has been described in such glowing terms that hed begun to sound
indispensable. All sorts of people today, including the President, have called
him the best Treasury Secretary since Alexander Hamilton, who was the first
Secretary in 1789 and did an enormous amount to put the United States on firm
financial footing."
- Peter Jennings starting
ABC's World News Tonight, May 12.
"Rubin is credited, along with Mr. Clinton's first Treasury Secretary
Lloyd Bentsen, with fashioning the policy of fiscal restraint that led to the
first balanced budget in 12 years. That in turn is given major credit for the
kinds of improvements Americans have felt, including low unemployment and
interest rates, the booming housing market, especially for lower income
families, and the country's record length of economic expansion. Rubin said
the credit belonged to the team."
- ABC White House reporter Sam
Donaldson, same show.
"Robert Rubin's steady hand during global economic crises won him
immense respect abroad. He was adored on Wall Street, which believes his
policies laid the groundwork for the best economy in a generation....Wall
Street thinks Rubin may be the best Treasury Secretary in history."
- ABC's Bob Jamieson, May 13 Good
Morning America.
"This whole year has been marked by superstars going out at the top of
their game. You had Michael Jordan hanging up his Air Jordans after winning
his sixth championship title. Hockey's Wayne Gretzky hung up his skates
after capturing every, I mean every, every record worth holding in hockey. And
now with the strongest stock market in the history of Wall Street, the economy
better than ever, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin is turning in his money
clip."
- Geraldo Rivera on CNBC's Upfront
Tonight, May 12.
"[Rubin] is going back to private life after quietly and very skillfully
positioning the government to help fuel these extraordinarily good
times."
- Tom Brokaw, May 12 NBC
Nightly News.
China Channels Hillary
"The Chinese claim is that they
are not thieves of American nuclear secrets, but the victims of a right-wing
American propaganda machine out to make a relationship already deep in trouble
a whole lot worse."
- CBS's Barry Petersen on the
Cox Report, May 25 Evening News.
The Super Second Banana?
"Larry Summers is said by many
to be even smarter than Rubin, a former Harvard professor and chief economist
at the World Bank, he spent four years at Rubin's side. The
administration's trouble-shooter as the global financial crisis spread,
Summers met privately with Greenspan and Rubin every week forming a troika
that Time called 'The Committee to Save the World.'"
- CBS reporter Anthony Mason on
the nominee to replace Rubin as Treasury Secretary, May 12 CBS Evening News.
vs.
"But his unyielding support of
the International Monetary Fund has drawn sharp criticism from conservatives
and longtime friends....And some of his gaffes are now Washington classics. In
1992, Summers argued for dumping toxic waste in developing countries on
grounds they were under-polluted and in 1997 he attacked congressional efforts
to decrease inheritance taxes as selfishness. The incidents did not do much to
dispel reports he is arrogant and difficult to work with."
- CNN's Kelli Arena, May 12 The
World Today.
Hillary's Dignity, or Dependency?
"A lot of the women that I meet
from traveling overseas are very impressed by you and admire your dignity. A
lot of the people you meet are people who suffered, people you saw today, and
who believe that they identify with you, because they have seen you suffer.
And in a speech in Africa last year, you spoke about living for hope and
reconciliation, living for forgiveness and reconstruction, and living for a
new life have you been able to apply that to your own circumstances? Have
you been able to forgive your husband?"
- CNN's Christine Amanpour to
Hillary Clinton in Macedonia after a tour of refugee camps, May 14.
Columnist Charles Krauthammer: "I think it was Richard
Cohen who pointed this out in a column, I mean she [Nita Lowey] is the
proto-typical feminist. She built her career from the ground up. Her husband
is a guy called Steve. You haven't heard about him and she didn't build
her career on his back."
Nina Totenberg of NPR: "Shame on you!"
Krauthammer: "I'm simply stating a historic
fact."
Totenberg: "Shame on you Charles."
- May 22 Inside Washington
discussion comparing potential New York Senate candidates Nita Lowey and
Hillary Clinton.
Larry King's Disarming Deity
"I can't figure out how
religious leaders can support the National Rifle Association. One would think
that guns and God don't mix."
- CNN host Larry King in his USA
Today column, May 17.
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 Kunzler
Intern Ken Shepherd
