Notable Quotables - 07/04/1994

 

Nicole Simpson: Another Anita Hill

"There's one thing that may come out of this, and it may be premature to say, but I feel a little as if it's the analogue to the Anita Hill thing. As that brought sexual harassment and really the women-in-power issue, because there were no women on the Judiciary Committee, into the forefront. That's the one good thing that can come out of this."
- MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour essayist Anne Taylor Fleming, June 20.

 

Paula Jones: Not Anita Hill

"Sam, 'not trying to hurt the President'? Did she say that with a straight face?...Why does anyone care what this woman has to say? ...Bottom line, Sam. Is she not trying to capitalize on this, in effect to profit from impugning the President?"
- Questions from Good Morning America co-host Charles Gibson to Sam Donaldson about his Paula Jones interview, June 16.

 

Where Was Bill?

Clinton rejects pared-down plan Calls full health coverage non-negotiable
- Boston Globe, June 21

Clinton Hints He May Bend on Health Reform
- Los Angeles Times, same day

 

And Some Call Him "Adolf Kessler"

"This week we have chosen a man who has appeared on our radar many times, for many reasons, a man who makes an enormous difference because he takes his public service so seriously...It is always the children for David Kessler. Dr. Kessler was trained as a pediatrician...All of this has made David Kessler something of a folk hero. Sometimes in Washington they call him `Eliot Nessler,' after Eliot Ness, who fought the mob during the 30s...He conducts himself as the people's guardian in matters of food and drugs with the utmost conviction."
- Peter Jennings naming the Food and Drug Administration chief Person of the Week, June 24 World News Tonight.

 

Washington Post Villains

"The two justices have staked out the far right of the ideological spectrum on the Supreme Court, challenging the majority's most fundamental views of the law...[Antonin] Scalia and [Clarence] Thomas take a literal approach to the Constitution. They refuse to read into it unexpressed protections or notions of fundamental fairness."
- Washington Post reporter Joan Biskupic, June 24.

"It isn't often that Office of Management and Budget chief Leon E. Panetta, the Freddy Krueger of social programs, has a chance to talk about spending money for anything."
- Washington Post reporter Al Kamen, June 27. (Panetta's OMB projects a $75 billion annual budget increase, before health care.)

 

Religious Right Will Be Rejected

"Preachers often mix religion and politics. In recent years, this temptation has arisen most prominently on the right, you know - Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and those guys with celestial phones to God's ear. Back in 1992, after the hard-shell Republican convention in Houston, and humiliating defeat of President Bush, it looked like the religious right's influence might be waning. Not so...These righteous rightists are sure to be a major force in the fall election...Voters are blessed with common sense and free will. They customarily reject extremes of either the left, or the right."
- Former ABC Washington Bureau Chief George Watson in a commentary on World News Now, June 23.

 

Anti-Socialist Demagogues

"The American Medical Association used the specter of `socialized medicine' to defeat Harry S. Truman's plan for national health insurance in 1945. The same demagoguery still works, but that does not change the agreed facts...while Americans who can afford it get the best care in the world, the current system makes little sense in terms of economic competitiveness or social equity."
- New York Times editorial page editor and former Washington bureau chief and White House reporter Howell Raines, June 12.

 

Three Cheers for the Insincere

"I'm rooting for a return to the Italian Popes, because in Italy they absolutely flaunt the Vatican and they may act as an effort to bring the church into alignment with modern life. The church is virtually alone in its position on abortion as we approach this population conference."
- Newsweek reporter Eleanor Clift, June 11 McLaughlin Group.

 

Cable Regulation Slowed?

Justices Back Cable Regulation
- New York Times, June 28

Court makes it harder to regulate cable TV
- USA Today, same day

 

Newsweek's Anti-Religious Left

"In an essay on turning 60, Steinem writes: `I'm looking forward to trading moderation for excess' - which is good news. And there's a precedent. In 1895 [Elizabeth Cady] Stanton finally published a book she had been planning for many years: a roaring attack on the Bible for its misogyny. The book was a best seller, the horrified suffrage association voted to censure her and to Stanton's pleasure, 'the clergy jumped around...like parched peas on a hot shovel.' She was 80. Now that's a feminist."
- Newsweek General Editor Laura Shapiro reviewing Gloria Steinem's Moving Beyond Words, June 20.

"Over the course of American history since World War II, the terms of the national debate have subtly, insidiously shifted. What used to be called liberal is now called radical, what used to be called radical is now called insane. What used to be called reactionary is now called moderate, and what used to be called insane is now called solid conservative thinking."
- Gay playwright Tony Kushner's essay on the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, June 27 Newsweek.

 

Now That's A Stretch

"The main parade route seemed to stress the moderate and somewhat conservative makeup of the majority of the marchers."
- CBS reporter David Culhane on the Stonewall 25 gay rights march, June 26 CBS Evening News.

 

Peter's Decade of Greed

"I don't think we are as generous with one another in the nation today as I seem to remember it 20 years ago. Now maybe the impact of the '80s has something to do with it and the idea of `I'm alright, Jack, I'll get my pile,' hasn't quite dissipated. But I'm looking to your generation - quite hopefully - to see if you are going to be a little more collective than I think students have been in the last decade."
- Peter Jennings in an interview with Patrick Pitman, December 1993 Vanderbilt University student magazine Versus.

 

Very Reassuring

"My own view, for what it's worth, is that there is not enough ideology in most reporters to fill a teaspoon or a thimble."
- Washington Post reporter and columnist David Broder on CNBC's Tim Russert, June 13.

 

Publisher: L. Brent Bozell III
Editors: Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham
Media Analysts: James Forbes, Andrew Gabron,
Mark Honig, Steve Kaminski, Mark Rogers, Clay Waters
Circulation Manager: Kathleen Ruff
Interns: Deanna Ducher, Patrick Pitman, Stephanie Swafford