Notable Quotables - 07/17/1995

 

Lost in Space

"Its story line could be a Republican parable about 1995 America: A marvelous vessel loses its power and speeds toward extinction, until it's saved by a team of heroic white men. I can imagine the political commercials in which Hanks morphs into Phil Gramm. Although the movie's publicity trumpets its historical accuracy, the movie itself celebrates the paradisiacal America invoked by Ronald Reagan and Pat Buchanan - an America where men were men, women were subservient, and people of color kept out of the damn way."
- John Powers writing about Apollo 13 in The Washington Post Arts section, July 9.

"As we speak, up there somewhere, an American space shuttle has docked at a Russian space station and they're swapping crews. Hard to believe we jumped into space in the first place to beat those Russians to the moon; that 100 million frogs died in high school science labs between 1958 and 1970 because Sputnik made us look bad."
- CBS Sunday Morning critic John Leonard on Apollo 13, July 2.

 

Stand Down, Margaret

Reporter Jamie Gangel: "When pressed, Thatcher does say the only way she would go back to Downing Street was if there was some sort of national emergency, which she says she hopes will never happen."
Bryant Gumbel: "I'm sure there are millions of others who hope that will never happen, too."
- Exchange from Today, June 30.

 

Consider Yourself Warned

"Next week on ABC's World News Tonight, a series of reports about our environment which will tell you precisely what the new Congress has in mind: the most frontal assault on the environment in 25 years. Is this what the country wants?"
- Peter Jennings in an ABC promo aired during the July 9 This Week with David Brinkley.

 

It's Not A Shift to the Right, Just Toward White Intolerance

"But is this truly conclusive evidence the country is moving to the right? Or is it just the latest reflection of white majority impatience with and indifference to individual rights and the plight of the less fortunate? Public opinion polls don't show a drastic shift to the right."
- ABC reporter John Martin on America in the wake of 1994 Republican victories and conservative Supreme Court decisions, June 29 Nightline.

 

Democracy Through Marxism

"It seems the flat tax sort of runs counter to what I thought was sort of implicit in the code, which was sort of general progressivity, you call it. The more you earn, the more you pay. And in a democracy, I thought there was sort of a general notion that, you know, a little flattening out of the income."
- Chicago Tribune Washington Bureau Chief James Warren on CNN's Capital Gang Sunday, July 9.

 

So Popular She Lost

"Despite her soaring popularity and role as queen of the Democratic Party, she was ousted from office in the nation's sweep to the right. Today more than half a year since her surprising defeat, she remains as popular as ever....Six months after her defeat, the light of this Lone Star legend doesn't seem to have dimmed one bit."
- NBC weekend Today co-host Giselle Fernandez in a June 18 profile of former Texas Governor Ann Richards.

 

Guess He Voted Libertarian

"I spent four years abroad in the mid-1980s, and though I voted against Ronald Reagan twice, I often found myself leaping to his defense, sometimes because I thought he was right on some foreign policy issue, other times just because he was `our' President. In certain contexts, attacks on Reagan had nothing to do with who he was or even what policies he was pursuing, and everything to do with what country he led. So you didn't sit silently while he was assailed, even if you would have voted against him a third time, given the chance."
- Former Washington Post and New York Times reporter E.J. Dionne, July 4 Post column.

 

Yes

"Whatever the motive, the charges of a liberal press aren't persuasive. First, if the press is all-powerful and so liberal, why has the country moved steadily more conservative over the past quarter century? Would anyone argue seriously that Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton received better news treatment than Ronald Reagan?"
- Wall Street Journal Executive Washington Editor Al Hunt in his June 22 column.

 

When You Make a Few Million, What's Two Billion?

"What should be cut that will save money? Or is this really a joke? I mean, after you cut it all, you're saving, you know, two billion dollars, which is nothing these days, is it?"
- Good Morning America substitute host Barbara Walters on congressional perks, June 20.

 

That Kooky, Discredited Tenth Amendment

"The Constitution is still in effect, naturally. But in the May decision striking down term limits a forceful minority on the Supreme Court seemed intent on radically reinterpreting it as a compact among sovereign states rather than the people - an inherently separatist view that has been out of favor at least since the Union won the Civil War."
- Newsweek Senior Editor Jerry Adler, July 10 issue.

 

Franklin the Great

"He's one of the top three Presidents, and perhaps the greatest President....I think he was a great President. He left a great legacy. And I would like to think that the things that he stood for, that Americans deep in their hearts still feel the same way."
- CBS anchor/reporter Bob Schieffer on CNBC's Tim Russert, June 12.

 

Not Foster's Fault?

"I don't think this is anything that anybody has a right to be very proud of. I think you have a very good and decent man who's going back to Nashville now. He can be comforted by the fact that all of this had nothing much to do with him. It was just politics and a case of White House bungling."
- Bob Schieffer on CBS This Morning, June 22.

 

A Little Jealous?

"All of this might be amusing - look at that wild and crazy Speaker of ours - if Gingrich weren't the second most powerful person in the country. Attention-deficit disorder and franchising your name while it's hot are troubling characteristics in someone who is speed-cutting $200 billion from such programs as Medicaid, Head Start, Amtrak, public television, water quality, and air traffic control. Many citizens don't think these cuts make sense at all, but all citizens should wonder whether it isn't reckless to make them while making a personal fortune at the same time. Being Speaker used to be a full-time job."
- Time columnist Margaret Carlson, July 3 issue.

 

- L. Brent Bozell III, Publisher;
-Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
- James Forbes, Andrew Gabron, Mark Honig, Steve Kaminski, Gesele Rey, Clay Waters; Media Analysts
- Kathleen Ruff, Circulation Manager;
-Eugene Eliason, Melissa Gordon; Interns