Notable Quotables - 06/30/1997
Clinton's Negative Press from the Left
"Is this welfare bill your great
vulnerability on this subject? Your supporters, your critics, they all say
that, perhaps, you are abandoning minorities and the poor."
- NBC's Gwen Ifill interviewing President Clinton about his race-relations speech, June 16
Today.
"Is there risk involved in that, though,
sir, if you have people speaking frankly?Do you really want people to say what
they think about others? We have something of that kind that goes on talk
radio all the time and people say what they think, but it's not always very
constructive....Do you think that today the United States is a racist country
and is it mainly white racism?"
- CBS Sunday Morning host Charles Osgood to
President Clinton, June 15.
"When you ask them what the President's
really done on race they talk about the Memphis speech, they talk about the
church burning speech, they talk about the 'mend it but don't end it' and what
have you. But really, if you look at the welfare bill he signed and you look
at the budget deal right now which gives you very little opportunity for much
money for jobs in the inner cities and things like that, or job training and
what have you, it reminds me of an old Texas saying that 'it's all hat and no
cattle.' You know, that there really isn't much possible that's going to be
done by the government, it's all Clinton."
- Ken Bode, Washington Week in
Review host and former aide to Morris Udall, June 13 edition of the PBS show.
Deep Cuts? On Which Planet?
"Not all of the leaders here are going to
be anxious to follow the American economic model. The Europeans in particular
say that their publics expect much more in the way of social service spending
and the American economy had to make deep government spending cuts."
- Bill
Plante from the economic summit in Denver, June 20 CBS This Morning. In the
balanced budget plan, annual "spending will rise from $1.6 to $1.9
trillion" by 2002, Jim Glassman pointed out in the May 20 Washington
Post.
Winning the Public to the Liberal Side
Peter Jennings: "On Capitol Hill
tonight, a Senate panel is putting the finishing touches on an $85 billion
bill. It includes tax cuts for families, for investors, and for education. But
it also leaves out millions of Americans, and passage of the bill very much
depends on winning over the public. Here's ABC's John Cochran."
John Cochran: "....And Old Democrats, the liberals, fear Gingrich
is right, that the President ultimately will sign a tax bill that provides
relief for the wealthy and the middle class, but does nothing for the
rest."
- Introduction and conclusion to ABC's June 19 World News Tonight
story.
Enjoying the Disaster Relief Battle
"If they had stood and fought for it
longer, we would enjoy this debacle for many more weeks. Oh, that they would
have!...The rift that it exposes, I mean, Newt Gingrich emerges as the good
guy. He was warning against carrying this too far. Dick Armey is the evil
strategist here."
- Newsweek's Eleanor Clift on The McLaughlin Group, June
14.
"I notice that the Republicans tried to
shut down the government. In fact, they did it in 1995 twice. And the American
people rose up and smoked them. And now they tried to do it with disaster
relief, the flood bill. The American people was rising up to smite them. Now I
understand they are going to try to do it with the tax bill. Three strikes and
you're out!"
- Sam Donaldson on CNN's Larry King Live, June 16.
Raging Capitalism Makes it Difficult to Oppress
"In a way, the business boom here fueled
today's protest. A thin layer of the top of Chinese society has made tons of
money, but the masses have been left behind and increasingly lack of housing
and unemployment makes those at the bottom very restless. That's why some 200
people boldly demonstrated for about three hours today in a symbolic park in
the heart of Beijing....This protest today is a reminder to the Chinese
leadership, and all who watch, that this is a complicated country, which even
for the Chinese, is hard to understand and difficult to rule. Dan Rather, CBS
News, Beijing."
- June 20 CBS Evening News.
In Mao's China, They Only Killed People and Ate Them
"When the Khmer Rouge ruled the country,
they took Maoist theory to an extreme, driving the population from the cities,
abolishing education, destroying factories, and killing intellectuals, civil
servants, monks, and artists."
- New York Times reporter Seth Mydans, June
16.
If Only McGovern Had Been Allowed to End Our War on Communism
"What if Watergate had elected
McGovern?....The Cold War would have ended in the '70s rather than in the
'90s. McGovern, in his campaign, debunked the threat and invincibility of the
so-called evil Soviet empire. Republican and Democratic Presidents preached
that myth for four decades, until the USSR self-destructed.....George
McGovern. A man before his time. Prescient. Decisive, but decent. The USA and
the world would have been far better off if we'd been heedful of his early
Watergate warnings and had put McGovern in the White House in 1972."
- USA
Today founder Al Neuharth in his June 20 column.
Today's Lineup: A Conservative and Two Non-Liberals
"Joining us now the Rev. Jesse Jackson,
founder of the Rainbow-PUSH Coalition, long-time civil rights activist, former
presidential candidate and host of CNN's Both Sides; William Bennett of
Empower America, leading conservative activist and former Secretary of
Education; and Linda Chavez-Thompson, Executive Vice President of the AFL-CIO,
just named to the President's advisory board on race."
- CNN Late Edition
host Frank Sesno, June 15.
Republicans Disturbed by Minorities
"What liberals can't understand is why
can't Republicans be honest about their discomfort with the advancement of
women and minorities...The ideological pulse of the party, the Conservative
Action Team, is backing its own candidate for the Republican Conference's vice
chair. And nary a woman was ever in the running. The message from the crowd is
clear: only anti-abortion, right-wing males need apply."
PBS To the
Contrary host and Westwood One reporter Bonnie Erbe, June 7 column in The
Washington Times.
Scandal Obsessed?
"But are members of the media, do you
think, Bob, too scandal-obsessed, looking for something at every corner?"
- Katie Couric to Bob Woodward, June 17 Today.
Washington Post ombudsman Geneva Overholser:
"In the end, despite all the ink and air time, Donorgate probably won't
go down in history as President Clinton's Watergate. After all, so far there's
no smoking gun. Selling the White House made a great story, but with all the
fuss over who slept over in the Lincoln Bedroom, reporters may have
shortchanged the bigger story: that our nation's whole system of campaign
finance is badly broken, and will the press finally focus on that scandal?
Maybe, but only if there are no beds making headlines." Former New York
Times reporter Alex Jones: "A legitimate story, like the coverage of the
Lincoln Bedroom can be overplayed, making the public suspicious of reporters'
intentions. Too much coverage can be as bad as too little...But in this
particular story, it's not difficult to see why a lot of people thought the
line was crossed."
- From a story on the PBS series Media Matters about
overcoverage of Clinton scandals, June 13.
L. Brent Bozell III,
Publisher
Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
Geoffrey Dickens, Gene Eliasen, James Forbes, Steve Kaminski, Clay Waters;
Media Analysts
Kristina Sewell, Research Associate
Carey Evans, Circulation Director
Ian Alexander, Jessica Anderson; Interns
