Notable Quotables - 08/11/1997
Jesse Helms, Terrorist?
"Just naming [Massachusetts Gov.
William] Weld is a gesture of administration bipartisanship. And the fight
over his nomination may touch off a gratifying round of GOP fratricide in the
Senate just when the civil war between pro- and anti-Gingrich forces is
simmering down in the House. New bickering could show soccer moms just how
small the GOP tent is...[Weld] underestimates Washington's willingness to
negotiate with terrorists who happen to run committees."
- Time
columnist Margaret Carlson, August 4.
Bias: Everybody Does It
"All along the Democrats have
called the loan a sham transaction, but legal or not, one thing the hearings
have made clear is that both parties were so consumed by money, laws were bent
if not broken."
- ABC reporter Linda Douglass concluding July 24 World
News Tonight story on Haley Barbour's testimony.
"Cokie, everyone agrees this is
a horrible system that we have, the campaign finance system. Do you see reform
coming out of these hearings, or are we going to be left with the same system
that everybody agrees doesn't work?"
- Charles Gibson to Cokie Roberts,
July 25 Good Morning America.
Tim Russert: "It was Republican
Fred Thompson who scored the points by saying, 'Will you at least acknowledge,
Mr. Barbour, that you owe some money to a gentleman in Hong Kong, who you
took, borrowed money from, and never repaid the loan?' But overall, the
Democrats got their poster boy. Haley Barbour was not hurt all that
much." News anchor Sara James: "Does it end here, Tim?"
- July
25 Today.
Co-host Matt Lauer: "But there
aren't any major storm clouds on the horizon for Bill Clinton, other than
maybe Medicare reform." Newsweek's Jonathan Alter: "Yeah, but of
course there are these possible scandals, but when the economy is doing well,
the public really doesn't seem to care much about anything else."
-
Exchange on August 1 Today, a show which did not mention the fundraising
hearings.
Liberals for Liberty, Conservatives for Government Power?
"To describe William J. Brennan
as one of the greatest justices of all time is to put things too abstractly.
Before Brennan, the Bill of Rights protected people mostly from the federal
government, but scarcely from states and cities...Brennan was the principal
architect of the nation's system for protecting individual rights."
-
Liberal Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe in an obituary assigned by Time,
August 4.
"His influence came from his
ability to make his expansive view of rights in the Constitution a more
attractive, more appealing alternative for other justices than the pinched
reading of the Constitution advanced by conservative colleagues."
-
Former Wall Street Journal reporter (and authorized Brennan biographer)
Stephen Vermiel in Newsweek, August 4.
"Justice William Brennan led the
Supreme Court on a quiet revolution that expanded individual rights and press
freedoms to an extent found nowhere else in the world...Brennan saw his
influence wane as justices appointed by Presidents Reagan and Bush cut back
the court's role as active protector of individual rights."
- USA Today
reporters Tony Mauro and Mimi Hall, July 25.
"Brennan was recognized across
the political spectrum not only for his legal mastery but as a defender of
individual liberty and a voice of civility."
- Washington Post reporter
Joan Biskupic, July 25.
No "Hard-Left" Group "Calling Itself" the NAACP
"One of the
nation's most respected and oldest civil rights groups is taking a new look at
one of its fundamental goals of modern times....school desegregation."
-
Dan Rather, July 15 CBS Evening News.
vs.
"The head of the Republican political lobbying group that calls itself,
quote, 'The Christian Coalition,' said today he's leaving to start a political
consulting business. Ralph Reed's group took a beating on some of its
hard-right agenda in the last election."
- Rather, April 23 CBS Evening News.
What's the Line on Line Items?
White House Considering
Line-Item Veto of Tax Cuts
- Washington Post, August 2
Clinton seems unlikely to use
line-item veto on new tax bill
- Washington Times, same day
Attacking the Big-Spending Budget Deal - from the Left
"The naysayers say that this is
a Christmas-in-July budget, with tax cuts paid for with money that should be
used to reduce the national debt. The critics also say that with the economy
booming, there's no need to encourage investors to invest more in the stock
market with a big capital gains tax cut. They also point out that the last
time we had a big cap gains tax cut in 1981, the very next year the economy
fell into a deep recession."
- All of the criticisms presented by ABC's
John Cochran, July 29 World News Tonight.
"After the back-slapping, after
the fine print, the bottom line on the tax bill is still this: The richer you
are, the richer you'll be....By slashing capital gains by almost a third, the
new tax bill will shower most of the goodies on the wealthiest 20 percent of
all Americans. That's families earning more, often much more, than $64,000 a
year....The biggest winners from the new tax cut are those...making more than
$200,000 a year, the top one percent of all taxpayers. They'll get an average
of well over $5,000 a year in new tax relief, enough for a couple of weeks
here at The Plaza. Enough to make them feel richer, but not rich. Jonathan
Alter, NBC News, New York."
- Newsweek's Jonathan Alter on MSNBC's The
News with Brian Williams, July 29.
"I have been opposed to the
whole idea all along, especially when it comes to tax cuts. I don't see how
that could have been afforded....Well, thank God for Kiddie Care. I mean, I'm
glad that they have created that one. There should be an entitlement for that
thing, children should be entitled to have good health care."
- Gannett
News Service reporter Deborah Mathis, August 2 Inside Washington.
William Schneider: "Who should
get the credit for passing a balanced budget? Not this President or this
Congress - they didn't do anything heroic. The booming economy made it
easy...The really difficult decisions got made years ago, by politicians who
took deficit reduction seriously and paid for it with their own careers...This
man certainly belongs on the honor roll. Back in 1984, Walter Mondale warned
Americans that the deficit carried a price....when he was faced with a deficit
crisis, President Bush delivered what Mondale had promised, and opened himself
up to ridicule...
"In 1993, congressional
Democrats stuck their necks out to support President Clinton's budget. A year
later, they got their heads chopped off...Martyrs to the cause. Let us pay
homage to those who gave the last full measure of devotion that the budget
could be balanced. They made the tough choices, and we owe them so much,
beginning with this week's political Play of the Week. President Bush, the
Democratic Congress, failed candidates for President - they are the unsung
heroes of this week's budget deal. Martyrs to the deficit, we salute
you."
Bernard Shaw: "Bravo. Thank you.
That's why I love this program."
- CNN's Inside Politics, August 1.
Eleanor Clift, Flushmaster General
"It's loony in the sense that
you can't have every locality decide what the water standards are and I don't
think the people of one state should be allowed to flush three times at whim
while the people of California have to conserve water."
- Newsweek's
Eleanor Clift reacting to proposal to rescind a 1992 federal law forcing all
new toilets to not exceed 1.6 gallons, allowing states to set the standard
instead.
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
