Notable Quotables - 09/20/1999
Liberals Concede Pro-Hillary Bias
Liberal columnist Jack Germond: "She's going to start to get a little static from the
Republicans on the Terry McAuliffe putting up the $1.3 million for their
house. No other Senate candidate could do that and get away with it. If that
were a Republican we'd all be screaming at the press. If one of Charlie's
[Krauthammer] yahoo [conservative] friends were getting that kind of money,
we'd all be saying that's illegal."
NPR's Nina Totenberg: "Well, that's not illegal.
We'd all be saying it smells."
- Exchange on the September 11 Inside
Washington.
Tough Query on the New House
"Do you expect them to
participate in, oh, let's say, stoop sales and bake sales?"
- Last question from CBS's This
Morning co-host Thalia Assuras to Clinton Smith, manager of the town which
includes the Chappaqua area, September 7.
Hillary, the FALN Pardon Victim
"Whether or not the First Lady
is running, Republicans have pounced on a new issue to use against her. It
involves a decision made by her husband."
- CBS Evening News anchor
John Roberts introducing an August 30 story, a week before Hillary said she
opposed the clemency deal.
"The prisoners have yet to answer the White House offer, leaving the
President on the defensive, critics in Congress calling for an investigation,
and the First Lady burned by a decision she says was not her doing."
- NBC reporter Fred Francis
concluding a story run on the August 31 editions of Today and MSNBC's
The News with Brian Williams.
Peacemakers Release Terrorists?
"Most people of Puerto Rican
descent [points to self] agree with peacemakers ranging from Jimmy Carter to
Nelson Mandela to Cardinal O'Connor that the President was right in trying
to close this violent chapter in American history.... These radicals now
command virtually zero, no political popular support among the Puerto Rican
people and they never will again unless opportunistic politicians, whether
they are married to the President or otherwise, while trying to show how tough
they are on crime, remain deaf to the Presidents compassionate and common
sense proposal."
- Geraldo Rivera on CNBC's Upfront
Tonight, September 7.
They Cant Buy Hillary's Line....
"You have to give the Clintons
credit. They will try anything. First of all, you have this clemency deal,
which all law enforcement agencies oppose and has this terrible aroma about
it, but particularly with Mrs. Clinton seeking a Senate seat, or likely to,
and they try it anyway in hopes, it seems to me fairly clearly, of courting
favor with some group there. The thing backfires, at which point you have
this: Mrs. Clinton comes forward and says, I didn't know, my husband never
told me, I didn't know. And so, and now she gets to, and she's going to
back out of the deal, expecting that A, we'll believe it was a clean thing
the first time and second, we'll believe that she didn't know anything
about it. I can't imagine people being gullible enough to buy any of
it."
- Fox News Washington Managing
Editor Brit Hume, September 5 Fox News Sunday.
....Oh, Yes They Can, and Did
"The President and First Lady
aren't exactly seeing eye to eye this Sunday. The issue: clemency for a
group of Puerto Rican activists."
- ABC World News
Tonight/Sunday anchor Carole Simpson introducing a September 5 story.
"The White House announced today that a dozen Puerto Rican nationalists,
imprisoned for conspiracy and weapons charges, have agreed to renounce
violence in return for clemency offered by President Clinton. Mrs. Clinton,
who's a very likely New York Senate candidate, has declared publicly against
clemency."
- World News Tonight
anchor Peter Jennings, September 7.
"This all leaves the First Lady caught in political quicksand. Her Senate
campaign spokesman said Mrs. Clinton had no idea the Puerto Ricans had
actually accepted the clemency condition two days before she declared the
offer ought to be withdrawn. She is still in hot water in New York with
Democratic elected officials. For Hillary Clinton, the political damage has
already been done."
- ABC's Ann Compton, September
8 Good Morning America.
"At prisons around the country today the Puerto Rican nationalists
granted clemency by President Clinton were set free. Their release has been
quite controversial, pitting Mrs. Clinton, who is running for the Senate,
against her husband. All but two of the nationalists are expected to return to
Puerto Rico."
- Peter Jennings, September 10 World
News Tonight.
Honest Janet Needs to Party
"Now Janet Reno's thing is
that she doesn't know many people in this town. I don't think shes done
much to socialize, to befriend people, to build a constituency, even with the
Clintons. You know, I heard Donna Shalala say the other day she [Reno] now has
Abe Lincoln status. People just assume she's honest, honest Janet
Reno."
- Washington Post writer
Juan Williams on Fox News Sunday, September 5.
Jimmy Stewart in Satin Shorts?
"He may soon have as much cash
on hand as the Vice President does. More important, he's offering a gauzy
but uplifting call to nobility in politics, pledging to lead fellow baby
boomers in a quest for racial harmony in a more civil society. Bradley is no
saint, but he's an old-fashioned kind, straight out of Boy's Life:
clean-living, level-headed, perfectly credentialed."
- Newsweek reporter
Howard Fineman, September 13.
"Bradley was that rare athlete who achieved a kind of larger mythology.
He was Jimmy Stewart in satin shorts: the small-town son of a banker,
self-effacing and studious, clean-cut and Christian, dazzling on the court but
so gifted away from it that he put off the pros for Oxford....The clean image
was no act: even in his dorm, while other kids tuned in to Dylan or the Beach
Boys, Bradley listened to My Fair Lady."
- Newsweek reporter Matt
Bai, same issue.
ABC's Platform for Clinton Toady
"You've said that one of the
things that really distinguishes you from Vice President Gore is your life
experience. Let me play devil's advocate. In your adult lives, you've both
served the better part of two decades in the Senate, both had reputations as
cerebral and centrist, willing to tackle complex issues, and the real
difference in your adult lives is you spent ten years in the NBA. He spent
eight years, or will be eight years, as Vice President."
- ABC's George Stephanopoulos
to Bill Bradley in a September 8 Good Morning America interview, which
he conducted alone for the show without any other regular host.
"The issue of privacy most recently in this campaign has been raised with the whole issue of George W. Bush and cocaine. Today Reverend Jesse Jackson said that George W. Bush should answer all these questions because of the double standard, he says because young black men are put in jail for the same offense. Do you agree with that?"
"But I guess that's Reverend
Jackson's point. He's saying that this is a criminal act and other people
are thrown in jail for it."
- Subsequent questions, same
interview.
Could You Be A Bigger Liberal?
"On health care, what you say is
important to you, the Vice President has come out. He's talked about
coverage for every child in this country by 2005. He's talked about doing
something about Medicare, prescription drug benefits. Can you really do much
better than that?"
- CNN's Judy Woodruff to Bill
Bradley, Sept. 10 Inside Politics.
Moderate with Liberal Appeal?
"Bradley tried to separate
himself from the Vice President of an administration plagued by scandal. What
he is: a moderate Democrat appealing to the left wing, stressing racial
equality, campaign finance reform and gun control."
- NBC reporter Anne Thompson on
MSNBC's The News with Brian Williams, September 8.
"Whopping" 0.4 Percent Tax Cut
"There was no barbecue for
President Clinton today. Instead he spent his Labor Day attacking the GOP's
tax cut plan.... Republicans want a whopping $792 billion tax cut over ten
years. Sounds good, except Democrats fear that a big cut will affect some
social programs. And today the President said it would mean a shortfall for
the nation's public schools."
- Len Cannon, Sept. 6 MSNBC's News
with Brian Williams.
Reality Check:
"In 2000, Americans' taxes would be cut by 0.4 percent, in 2001 by 0.9
percent, in 2002 by 1.8 percent. The tax cuts are not scheduled to start
providing real relief until the next two presidential elections have passed.
That is a modest tax sliver, not a gigantic tax cut."
- Cato Institute's Stephen
Moore, Sept. 12 Washington Times.
No Tolerance Test for Democrats
"How about [Gov. Christie]
Whitman for Vice President on the GOP ticket? Texas and New Jersey,
conservative and moderate, man and woman. Got to love it. Except for one
little thing. She supports abortion rights big time. She even vetoed a bill
banning late-term abortions. Putting Whitman on the ticket would make a
powerful statement. But what kind of statement would it be? To moderate
voters, particularly women, it would be a signal that the Republicans are
flexible and tolerant on the abortion issue."
- CNN analyst William Schneider,
September 12 Late Edition.
Nice Wording
"When we come back, is William
Clinton a lame duck or a fighting cock?"
- John McLaughlin plugging an
upcoming segment, September 11 McLaughlin Group.
Publisher: L.
Brent Bozell
Editors: Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham
Media Analysts: Jessica Anderson, Brian Boyd,
Geoffrey Dickens, Mark Drake, Paul Smith, Brad Wilmouth
Research Associate: Kristina Sewell
Interns: Ken Shepherd
