Notable Quotables - 07/19/2004
Media Will Put Kerry Over the Top
"Let's talk a little media bias here. The media, I think, wants Kerry to win. And I think they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards - I'm talking about the establishment media, not Fox - but they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic and all. There's going to be this glow about them that some, is going to be worth, collectively, the two of them, that's going to be worth maybe 15 points."
-Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas on the July 10 Inside
Washington.
CBS Cheers Liberal "Dream Team"
"The Democrats' dream team of John Kerry and John Edwards hits the campaign trail today..."
-CBS's Hannah Storm on the July 8
Early Show.
"It was a perfect portrait - smiles all around, hugs and hand-holding. A warm family photo of the Kerry/Edwards clans that seemed capable of melting the camera lenses."
-CBS's Thalia Assuras on the July 8
Early Show.
"It was the all important and perfectly choreographed first glimpse of the Democratic Party's new dream team. The Kerry and Edwards families posing for pictures, a nervous first date with the American public....Humor from the boss, humanity from his running mate....Team Kerry touched and tickled their way to Ohio, the first stop in a six-state, five-day swing through battleground states, where the Kerry campaign hopes this rope-line honeymoon will help introduce two men many Americans say they still don't know, but what they do know they seem to like. A CBS News overnight poll shows more than half of all voters are glad Edwards was chosen....Both partners in this political marriage hope it's a winning formula....At the moment, star-struck Democrats are willing to believe."
-CBS's Byron Pitts on the July 7
Evening News.
"Syrupy as Carolina Sweet Tea"
"A passionate speaker and a prolific fund-raiser, the campaign hopes the 51-year-old North Carolinian's 'I'm the son of a mill worker' message will connect with working class voters in battleground states. With a style as syrupy as Carolina sweet tea, Edwards could also help in the South. He's a proven vote-getter in South Carolina, the state where he was born and won the February primary."
-Byron Pitts on the July 6
CBS Evening News.
Grueling Interview
"What were you like as a kid?"
"Was there ever any doubt about you going to college even though neither of your parents did?"
"Tell me about your wife. Where did you meet her?"
"Why did you want to be a lawyer?"
"I gather you were a hell of a lawyer."
"I gather you've never been short of confidence."
-All of the questions Peter Jennings was shown asking John Edwards in an interview played on the July 7
World News Tonight.
Sunny John vs. Dark Dick
"In politics, self-made men seem to fall into two categories: sunny and dark....In the 2004 election, Dick Cheney projects the bleakness of a Wyoming winter, while John Edwards always appears to be strolling in the Carolina sunshine."
-Story by
Newsweek's Evan Thomas, Susannah Meadows and Arian Campo-Flores as part of a July 19 cover package on Kerry and Edwards, "The Sunshine Boys?"
"Edwards's ingratiating incandescence has already brightened Kerry. The two became a buddy-buddy act, hugging and whispering like Starsky and Hutch after consuming the evidence."
-Newsweek's Howard Fineman and Richard Wolffe in another story on Kerry and Edwards in the same issue.
"Cheney: Combative and blunt....Edwards: Stirring and expressive."
-From a July 7
USA Today box, "Comparing the vice presidential candidates," under "campaign styles."
Denying Edwards' Liberalism
Gregg Jarrett: "Edwards is considered to be a moderate, Kerry a liberal. That balances things out, doesn't it?"
U.S. News & World Report columnist John Leo: "Well, I'm not so sure. If you look at his voting record, it isn't that very different from John Kerry. He looks like a conventional liberal displaced into North Carolina."
-Exchange on FNC's
Fox News Live on July 6, shortly after Kerry announced his choice of Edwards.
"It is good old-fashioned ticket balance: a Northeastern Democrat on the liberal side, a Southern Democrat on the moderate side."
-CNN's Candy Crowley on
American Morning, July 6.
Senator, You're Wonderful...
"You seem so pumped up since you chose Senator Edwards as your running mate. Youre looser. Do you think that his energy is rubbing off on you?"
-CBS's Lesley Stahl to Kerry on
60 Minutes, July 11.
...But Isn't Bush Awful?
"Ron Reagan Jr. was very critical of President Bush invoking religion when it comes to policy, particularly in the war in Iraq. He said something like he felt that Bush was justifying the war in Iraq by citing God. And he said that is what Osama bin Laden does, and he said that theres no place for that. What do you think of that?"
-Stahl to Kerry and Edwards on the same program.
Cuffing Bush to "Kenny Boy"
"Now to the corporate tragedy known as Enron....Today the Chairman and CEO, Ken Lay, the man President Bush used to call 'Kenny Boy,' was led away in handcuffs, indicted on a slew of charges, eleven in all including fraud."
-NBC's Brian Williams on the July 8
Nightly News.
By the Way, Kerry's Losing
"Democrat John Kerry has solidified his base, gained some ground in the South and among lower income voters and seen independent Ralph Naders support drop, according to an Associated Press poll."
-First paragraph of a July 9 AP story by Ron Fournier headlined, "AP Poll: Kerry Solidifies Base." AP's poll showed Bush leading Kerry 49 percent to 45 percent.
America's Illegal & Bogus War
"Here is the central question: If we were wrong, as a country and a people, on the WMD reason to go to war, were we not breaking the law ourselves? Were we not doing something bad, literally bad in the world?...In every dictionary, in every, what I should say, every encyclopedia in the world now to be written, itll say the United States went to war for bogus reasons. It'll say that."
-MSNBC's Chris Matthews on
Hardball, July 9.
Conservatives: Offensive, Callous
"You have made so many offensive comments over the years. Do you regret any of them?"
"You seem indifferent to suffering. Have you ever suffered yourself?"
-Two of the questions posed to
National Review founder William F. Buckley by the New York Times Magazine's Deborah Solomon, July 11.
Celebs Launch Crude Attacks...
"Anybody who could wave to Stevie Wonder isn't fully there....Keep bush where it belongs [points at her crotch] and not in the White House."
-From Whoopi Goldberg's monologue at a $7 million fundraiser for the Kerry/Edwards campaign held July 8 at Radio City Music Hall, according to a July 9 AFP story.
"That Texas Bandito, he's made this world unsafe today. Our thoughts are not free from the Texas Bandito, he's just another cheap thug that sacrifices our young."
-Anti-Bush lyrics of song by John Mellencamp performed at the Kerry/Edwards fundraiser, as quoted in the July 9
New York Times.
"Clinton plays the sax, John plays the guitar, and the President's a liar....This guy's [Bush] as bright as an egg timer."
-Comedian Chevy Chase at the same fundraiser, according to an AP dispatch.
"Are we going to continue to follow a self-serving regime of deceit, hypocrisy and belligerence? Or are we, after four disastrous years, going to take a step toward our true responsibility as leader of the free world?"
-Actress Jessica Lange at the same fundraiser, as quoted by the July 9
New York Times.
"I wondered to myself during 'Shock and Awe,' I wondered which of the megaton bombs Jesus, our President's personal savior, would have personally dropped on the sleeping families of Baghdad?"
-Actress Meryl Streep at the same fundraiser, as quoted by the July 9
Boston Globe.
...Which Kerry Claimed to Love...
"Every performer tonight, in their own way, either verbally or through their music or through their lyrics, have conveyed to you the heart and soul of our country."
-John Kerry congratulating the performers after the fundraiser, in a soundbite on
World News Tonight, July 9.
...But Aaron Preferred Silence
"I don't know about this as a front page story, we could argue about whether it's news or not: 'Republicans question Kerry's "heart and soul;" Cite vulgar remarks at concert attended by him.' There was an event in New York yesterday. Got a little crazy. Anyway, I'm not sure its front page. But it's their paper and they get to do what they want."
-CNN anchor Aaron Brown previewing the next days
Washington Times on the July 9 NewsNight, which did not otherwise mention the Democratic fundraiser.
