Notable Quotables - 06/11/2001
An online exclusive: Notable Quotables-worthy quotes we werent able to squeeze into the hard copy printed edition.
Cherishing Jefford's Independence
Tom Brokaw: "You know, those flinty New Englanders, they treasure their independence, and they like someone who stands up for their state and for principle, and on a number of key issues, on abortion, on the environment, on energy, on defense, even, Senator Jeffords simply didn't agree with both the policies, and I think, as well, the tactics of the Bush administration."
David Letterman: "Right, did not really conform. But what about the people? Are people up there now saying, 'Well, hell, I voted for a Republican and now he's a' - I mean, is that, is that a legitimate, do they have a legitimate point or not?"
Brokaw: "No, I think what, I think he campaigned on the very issues that he said he's leaving the Republican Party for. One of the other Congressmen from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, who is an independent/socialist, said that by the end of the weekend, he thinks that Senator Jeffords will be running 20 points ahead of George Bush in the state of Vermont because they so cherish the idea that he left the party on principle and declared his independence from conventional party lines."
-Exchange on CBS's Late Show, May 24.
"Well anybody who can make sure Trent Lott is less on television deserves to be commended, so I classify him as a profile in courage."
-Times Jack E. White, Inside Washington, May 26.
John Roberts, Environmentalist's Mouthpiece
"Even with his promise to protect the worlds largest tree and other national treasures, environmental groups are giving the President a D for his treatment of national parks. For every proposal he has made to preserve the great forests and wildnerness areas, they say, he has made another that could threaten them....Environmentalists point to the President's plan to drill for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and open more federal lands to logging and mining. And they say his pledge to clear up the haze stands in stark contradiction to proposals in his energy plan to ease restrictions on coal fired power plants....President Bush is determined to press on, planning next week to announce new protections for Florida's Everglades, hoping to shed the image that his administration favors big business over the big outdoors."
-White House correspondent John Roberts on the May 30 CBS Evening
News.
Taking a Hardline Against an Unworkable Policy
"The Chairman right now is a guy named Curt Hebert. He is a big, close ally of Trent Lott the Senate, I guess its Minority Leader. President Bush just put on that commission a new member named Pat Wood who had been the energy commissioner of the great state of Texas. Curt Hebert, the current Chairman, is a real hard-liner on price caps. Never saw a price cap he liked. Pat Wood, once in a while in Texas would play around with price caps when needed."
-Los Angeles Times reporter Doyle McManus on PBS's Washington Week in
Review, June 1.
"I covered wage and price controls a long, long time ago, when a lot of people here weren't born, and they don't work over the long run, but this is a short run problem and I think over the short run you can make a case, a short run case."
-Wall Street Journal Executive Editor Al Hunt, CNN's Capital
Gang, June 2.
Bush to California: Drop Dead!
"It was a politically-charged meeting in California today between Republican President Bush and Democratic Governor Gray Davis. But there was no meeting of the minds about Bush help for energy-short California, especially the President's refusal to consider any price controls."
-Dan Rather on the May 29 CBS Evening News.
"The rejection of price caps sparked howls of protest from one woman in the audience and threats of legal action from Davis."
-John Roberts in the subsequent story.
So Which One Is the Moderate?
"The massive tax cut had sliced through the Congress with such speed and ease that in today's final debate liberal and moderate Democrats were largely left complaining on the sidelines."
-CBS's Eric Engberg's assertion just before quoting complaints from two liberal Democrats, Rep. Charles Rangell and Sen. Chris Dodd, May 26
CBS Evening News.
Not Enough Conservation and Too Many SUVs for Brokaw
David Letterman: "What about solar power, what about wind power, was there any of that in this [Bush's energy plan]?"
NBCs Tom Brokaw: "Not very much."
Letterman: "But shouldn't there be?"
Brokaw: "Yes, I think that."
Letterman: "I mean, haven't we reached that point now?"
Brokaw: "Well I believe that there should be. I'm, you know I can't claim that I'm an absolute expert on it...Iv'e spent a lot of time covering it over the years...and I do think that all of us have a role in this. You know, we stand back and say, 'oh my God, gasoline prices are too high and what are we going to do about rolling blackouts?' and then we go out and buy the world's largest SUV."
-CBS's Late Show, May 24.
Tax Cut Will Make Government Disappear
Margaret Carlson: "What we don't know yet is which parts of government will suffer most. The only parts that Bob Novak, or perhaps you Jack, would care about is like air traffic control or beach erosion, but if air traffic control doesn't grow over the next ten years-"
Jack Kemp: "What's that have to do with tax cuts?"
Carlson: "But there's no money, there's going to be no money."
Kemp: "There's a $6 trillion surplus!"
Carlson: "In ten years, when the bill comes due, there's not going to be money to pay for basic services. We don't know where it's going to come from."
-Exchange on CNN's Capital Gang, May 26.
That Subtle Alter Touch
"He woke up screaming in the middle of the night, yelling to his wife: 'Watch out! The machine guns are firing!' Jim Jeffords's nightmare then was about impeachment. As a friend of Bill Clinton's, he was tormented by his duty to sit in judgment of the president, voting first with his GOP colleagues to move ahead with the trial, then with Democrats against Clinton's conviction and removal from office.
Two years later the senators sleepless nights were back. In anguish, he informed a group of longtime Republican colleagues last week that his differences with his party on fundamentals were so great that he was leaning toward leaving the GOP. 'It was the most moving meeting I've ever had with anyone,' Jeffords told Newsweek. There were tears from me and tears from them because we'd worked so hard on so many things together. And to know they had dreamed of chairmanships and now they wouldn't keep them... Here his already-soft, docile and unsenatorial voice trails off further...."
-Opening paragraphs of Jonathan Alter's cover story in Newsweek on Jeffords defection from the GOP, June 4 issue.
Ridiculing Scalia's Silly Prediction
"It is a complicated issue over which reasonable people can disagree. The court ruled 7-to-2 in Casey Martin's favor. What bothered me was the way Justice Scalia disagreed. He let go a sarcastic dissent that deserves attention not so much for its logic as for its callousness. Now that Martin can use a cart, he wrote, One can envision the parents of a Little League player with attention deficit disorder trying to convince a judge that their sons disability makes it at least 25 percent more difficult to hit a pitched ball. No, I cannot not envision that, because I fail to see the parallel. This ruling was about getting to the tee, not playing the game. But then I'm not a lawyer. But I am a father. What I can envision is how the parents of children with learning disabilities must feel when they are held up to ridicule by a justice of the Supreme Court."
-Bob Schieffer's commentary at the conclusion of CBS's Face the
Nation, June 3.
Al Hunt: "I thought that Justice Scalia was positively silly in saying someday an attention deficit disorder kid will come in and demand four strikes. I've been to thousands of baseball games from little league through major leagues, I've never seen four strikes. That changes the fundamental nature of a game and would be unacceptable. This does not. That is a very important distinction. And as for the court jumping in and telling the PGA, if the PGA said a black can't play you would of course expect the court to jump in, wouldn't you, Bob? This is a civil-"
Bob Novak: "That's not comparable."
Hunt: "No, I'm sorry, the ADA is a civil right."
-Exchange on CNN's Capital Gang, June 2.
