Notable Quotables - 07/08/1991
"Most People" Worried About Clarence Thomas
"The thing that has
most people worried, though, is the statement he once made about what are
called the unenumerated rights, the things like abortion that are not
specifically mentioned in the Constitution. And he once talked about how
judges should not be roaming unfettered through the Constitution and to some
people that means they should not expand those rights, should not expand
abortion. I think that's what's behind all this concern."
- CBS legal reporter Rita Braver, July 1 CBS Evening News.
Conservative Court: Against Individual Rights
"The new court is
very different from the old Warren Court and its philosophy is likely to rule
for the next 25 years. The Warren Court stressed concern for individuals and
individuals' rights...The Rehnquist Court is much more concerned with the
rights of government, the state, authority. Government can tell the difference
between good and evil in this philosophy and should encourage the one and
forbid the other."
- CBS reporter Bruce Morton's commentary on the June 29 CBS Evening News.
"In practical
terms, the Supreme Court's conservative bloc has already consolidated its
majority in most major areas of the law - often with 6 votes to 3 in divisive
cases. Its effort to roll back some of the great expansions of individual
rights under the Warren Court in the 1960s is well under way."
- Christian Science Monitor staff writer Marshall Ingwerson, July 1.
"Yesterday's
surprise resignation of Justice Thurgood Marshall, the fabled torch-bearer for
civil rights and individual liberties, eliminated virtually all potential for
a 5-4 liberal majority on any decision."
- Wall Street Journal
reporter Stephen Wermiel, June 28.
"Justice Marshall,
the sturdy old champion of individual rights, has grown increasingly lonely as
a member of the dwindling liberal minority, issuing thundering dissents in
case after case."
- CBS Evening News anchor Charles Kuralt,
June 27.
"Justice Marshall's
retirement leaves only Justices Harry A. Blackmun and John Paul Stevens to
carry the torch for individual rights."
- Washington Times reporter Dawn Ceol, June 28.
Rabid Eleanor Clift
"Edith Jones is
rabidly anti-choice and I think that would be a problem in the Senate as
well...She's hard-line on everything. She wouldn't be my first choice."
- Newsweek Washington reporter Eleanor Clift on The McLaughlin
Group, June 30.
Remembering John Chancellor
"He didn't want
women around. He's a pompous man, given to moralizing, fourth-rate commentary.
He's so impressed with himself, and he kind of lets the audience know that
every time he does a piece. He's from the Aren't-I-Smart School of
Journalism."
- Former network news reporter Liz Trotta quoted by Don Kowet in the June 24 Insight.
Yugoslavia: Product of Communist Charisma
"Yugoslavia was
patched together after World War I out of Balkan states with a history of
independence. President Tito, Yugoslavia's war hero, held the country together
through his personal charisma."
- NBC State Department Correspondent John Dancy, June 25 Nightly News.
A Liberal's Kind of Conservative
Reporter Jim
Miklaszewski: "Above all, Bush is advised to avoid the abortion question.
Even conservatives warn that politically, it's just too hot to touch."
Senator Arlen Specter:
"Well, I think that the President has a good bit to lose if we start to
marshal a lot of people to look at this kind of issue when 1992, when the
presidential election comes up."
- June 30 NBC Nightly News. Specter has a lifetime American
Conservative Union rating of 34 percent.
Losing Communist Freedom
"Like many other
women in what used to be the German Democratic Republic, she worries that
political liberation has cost her social and economic freedom...The
kindergartens that cared for their children are becoming too expensive, ad
West Germany's more restrictive abortion laws threaten to deny many Eastern
women a popular method of birth control....East Germany's child-care system
helped the state indoctrinate its young, but also assured women in the East
the freedom to pursue a career while raising a family."
- U.S. News & World Report special correspondent John Marks,
July 1.
Peter's Poverty Pot Shot
"When you get close
to the poor, you recognize right away that very often the level of assistance
which they get from government doesn't lift them up to the legal poverty line,
let alone above it, which seems to say your Congressmen and your state
legislators have failed to recognize that children and families in poverty are
a national disaster. In your name, they often argue about other priorities and
welfare cheats. Twelve million American children who cheat."
- Peter Jennings on the June 20 World News Tonight.
More Money, More Money, More Money
"If you're going to
raise a child who escapes this cycle [of poverty], you're going to have to
start a little earlier. And that requires money - M-O-N-E-Y. Read my lips.
And it's something this nation still isn't ready to commit to...without the
hard billions of dollars, lots of money which must come from you dear
taxpayers, we're not going to do this."
- Sam Donaldson on This Week with David Brinkley, June 23.
Time Masquerades
"Time
calls itself a weekly news magazine. But it really isn't. It's a magazine of
interpretation and opinion, as Founder Henry Luce intended. That's not
necessarily bad. Except for the mislabeling and masquerading."
- Former Gannett chief Al Neuharth in his June 21 USA Today column.
Conventional Foolishness
"I'd long assumed
that once the epidemic of secessionism had run its course, the Ukrainians
would remain citizens of a huge country with its capital in Moscow. Such is
the conventional wisdom almost everywhere, certainly in my hometown of
Washington."
- Time Editor-at-Large Strobe Talbott, July 1.
Your Tax Dollars at Work (discretion advised)
"The squabble
between the two black men continues until the next stop, the narrator says.
Then suddenly, a strident hysterical voice comes from the back: 'I'm a
45-year-old black, gay man who enjoys taking a dick in his rectum. I
am not your bitch. Your bitch is at home with your kids!' The narrator snaps
out of character. 'We are now entering the fifth dimension of our sexual
consciousness. The ride is rough. There is no jelly for this.' For
this documentary, Tongues Untied, there is no precedent, either.
Starkly personal and erotic, Marlon Riggs' award-winning film, airing July 16
on PBS's P.O.V. series, is a collage of images, dramatic narrative,
and music - which compose a complete portrait of the black, gay man."
- July/August Mother Jones review of upcoming NEA-funded PBS
documentary (Emphasis theirs).
- L. Brent Bozell III;
Publisher
- Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
- Nicholas Damask, Sally Hood, Marian Kelley, Tim Lamer; Media Analysts
- Jennifer Hardebeck; Circulation Manager
