Notable Quotables - 09/02/2002
Peter's Anti-Bush Emphasis
"On World News Tonight this Friday, a federal court tells the
Bush administration it is abusing its power in the campaign against
terrorism....We are going to begin tonight with the first ever published
opinion from a secret court. The court, which operates inside the Justice
Department, says the Bush administration is not adequately protecting the
privacy of American citizens and permanent residents."
-Peter Jennings on ABC's World News Tonight, Aug. 23.
Reality Check:
"In its opinion made public today, the court, which is based in
Washington, documented the 'alarming number of instances' during the
Clinton administration in which the F.B.I. might have acted improperly."
-New York Times Washington bureau reporter Philip Shenon in an
August 23 story subheadlined, "Clinton-Era Problems Cited in Sharing
Intelligence with Criminal Investigators."
"Under the Bush administration those errors were corrected and new
procedures for requesting wiretaps adopted. And one judge on the court said,
quote, 'We consistently find the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] (FISA)
applications 'well-scrubbed' by the Attorney General and his staff before
they are presented to us. The process is working. It is working in part
because the Attorney General is conscientiously doing his job, as is his
staff.'"
-FNC's Carl Cameron on the August 23 Special Report with Brit Hume.
The Times vs. the Facts (I)
"Reinstating United Nations weapons inspectors - not the removal of
Saddam Hussein - is the centerpiece of Britain's policy toward Iraq,
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said today. The statement, made on the BBC radio
program Today, underscored the differences between the United States,
which has made the removal of Mr. Hussein a priority, and Britain, its closest
ally in fighting terrorism."
-First two paragraphs of an August 23 New York Times story by
Suzanne Kapner, headlined "British Aide Says Toppling Hussein Is Not a
Goal for London."
vs.
"An article on Friday about remarks by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on
the British governments Iraq policy misattributed a statement about that
policy. The assessment that removing Saddam Hussein is not an object of
British foreign policy was made by the BBC interviewer, not by Mr.
Straw."
-New York Times correction published August 27.
Drat! We've Lost Canada!
Peter Jennings: "Some people
are asking today whether or not the White House is losing control of the
debate about war with Iraq."
Terry Moran: "Well, Peter, White House officials are concerned
that events are moving too fast and not in their direction. In the past couple
of weeks, you've had top Republican leaders defecting from the pro-war camp,
key allies opposing any action against Saddam Hussein....Mr. Bush's drive to
topple Saddam Hussein received another sharp rebuke today from a close ally:
Canada."
-World News Tonight, August 20.
The Times vs. the Facts (II)
"President Bush said today that he was listening carefully to a group
of Republicans who were warning him against going to war with Iraq, but that
he would still make up his own mind based on information that is very tightly
held within his administration. It was the first time Mr. Bush had so directly
addressed the growing chorus of concern from Republicans, which now includes
former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger...."
-Front-page New York Times story by Elisabeth Bumiller, August
17.
vs.
"The administration should be prepared to undertake a national debate
because the case for removing Iraq's capacity of mass destruction is
extremely strong....The imminence of proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction, the huge dangers it involves, the rejection of a viable
inspection system, the demonstrated hostility of Saddam combine to produce an
imperative for preemptive action."
-Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in a Washington Post
op-ed published August 12.
Post Reporter's Arch-Snideness
"The President disclosed that he has been reading Supreme Command,
a new book by Eliot A. Cohen, a neoconservative hardliner on Iraq....
"In his reading choice, Bush seems to be following the advice of Bill
Kristol, the arch-neoconservative who has been using his Weekly Standard
magazine to chide Bush for being too soft on Saddam Hussein....Kristol,
suspected of playing puppeteer to a number of hawkish officials in the Bush
Pentagon and National Security Council, appears to have added the
marionette-in-chief to his act."
-Washington Post White House reporter Dana Milbank in his
"White House Notebook" column, August 20.
Why Can't W. Be More Like Bill?
"In politics, sometimes the best thing is to do the unexpected. And
just imagine if President Bush had done this [economic summit] and had
unemployed Enron workers there, and maybe some retirees who have lost their
401(k) accounts and have to go back to work, and really did, you know, as Bill
Clinton would say, 'felt their pain.' That could have been
surprising."
-Washington Post reporter Ceci Connolly on FNC's Special
Report with Brit Hume, August 13.
The Times vs. the Facts (III)
"The Vice President's speech, billed as a talk on the economy and
national security, sounded at times like an address a chief executive might
give to shareholders....He credited the administration's tax cuts with
helping the country to climb out of the recession and to weather the
terrible financial effects of Sept. 11, although the recession has not
abated and the stock market today continued its decline."
-New York Times article by Evelyn Nieves and Elisabeth Bumiller,
August 8.
vs.
"An article on Aug. 8 about speeches by President Bush and Vice
President Cheney defending the administration's stewardship of the economy
referred incorrectly to the 2001 recession and to the direction of the stock
market on Aug. 7. Economists agree that the recession has ended, not
continued. The Dow Jones industrial average rose the day of the speeches, by
182 points; it did not decline."
-New York Times correction published on August 15.
Bushs "Costly" Tax Cuts Might Imperil "Emergency" Spending
"Take a look at the cost of some of those [tax cut] proposals. I have
a package here: Doubling the loss deduction costs about a billion dollars a
year; increasing IRA limits, about $1.5 billion a year; and ending the double
taxation of dividends, according to a 1992 Treasury study, at least $13
billion a year some people think it would be far more. Now compare that to
the cost of the emergency spending proposal, which the President rejected this
week. It was $5 billion. It included firefighting grants, nuclear plant
security, cargo inspection and the emergency funds for New York City. Is the
President saying, if he proposes a new tax plan, that these tax proposals are
more important, are a higher priority for the United States than those
spending proposals?"
-George Stephanopoulos to White House Communications Director Dan
Bartlett on ABC's This Week, August 18. The items Stephanopoulos
cited totaled $523 million, or just one-tenth of the total spending package.
Greedy Until Proven Innocent
"How difficult has it been, Mr. Lindsey, to convince the public that
the President as a CEO President is not aligned with the corporate greed that
we've been seeing?"
-Jane Clayson's question to Bush economic advisor Larry Lindsey on CBS's
Early Show, August 13.
President Pulling Plug on Planet
"Next week, over 100 heads of state will meet in Johannesburg, South
Africa. Their goal is to search for ways to save the Earth's life support
system our water, air and soil. Ten years ago they gathered in Rio de
Janeiro for the same purpose, but United Nations studies reveal the Earth's
environment is still in decline. So the leaders of every major industrial
country will be in Johannesburg next week, except for George W. Bush. That
makes his core constituents quite happy: representatives of the religious
right, conservative activists and big companies like ExxonMobil wrote the
President this week praising him for not going to the summit. They also asked
him to make sure American officials...keep the issue of global warming off the
table. It's all part of a pattern. The Bush administration is carrying on
what the Los Angeles Times this week called the most concerted
exploitation of the public's land, air and water since fundamental
protection laws went into effect three decades ago."
-PBS's Bill Moyers on Now, August 23.
Only Bothered by Pro-Israel Cash
"Democrat Cynthia McKinney was a vocal critic of President Bush's
Middle East policy. She was beaten by another Democrat who got large donations
from out-of-state supporters of Israel."
-ABC anchor Peter Jennings's entire item about McKinney's primary
defeat on World News Tonight, August 21.
vs.
"The reelection campaign of Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) has received
campaign contributions from at least 18 donors who are either officers of
Muslim foundations under investigation by the FBI, have voiced support for
Palestinian and Lebanese terrorist organizations or have made inflammatory
statements about Jews."
-The Washington Post's Thomas Edsall, August 13.
Campbell's Concocted Criticism
"The fact that he's [President Bush] giving his first major magazine
interview of the year to Runners World, do you think that opens him
up to criticism that perhaps he should be paying a little more attention to
some of the other issues?"
-NBC's Campbell Brown challenging Runner's World Deputy
Editor Bob Wischnia on Today, August 22.
