Notable Quotables - 09/28/1992
Clinton Never Lied?
"There is no
evidence that Bill Clinton has lied. He's done nothing illegal. He has what I
would call the politician's disease. He has tailored the truth to adapt to the
reality of running in a conservative southern state."
- Newsweek Washington reporter Eleanor Clift on The McLaughlin
Group, September 12.
Recurring Willie Horton Nightmares
George Bush:
"Governor Clinton still has not brought a civil rights bill to the people
of Arkansas."
CBS reporter Eric
Engberg: "It is true that Arkansas and Alabama are the only two states
without a civil rights law. But, time out. George Bush's civil rights record
is less than pristine. He vetoed the civil rights bill of 1990 and when he ran
for the Senate in '64 he campaigned against the Civil Rights Act. He built his
'88 campaign around the Willie Horton issue."
- September 23 CBS Evening News "Campaign '92 Reality
Check."
Small Town Politics: Smart or Not?
"There's a huge
pool of economic anger in these small towns, and Clinton is trying to exploit
it...In the heart of America, Clinton is finding the hurt of America."
- John Dancy, August 29 NBC Nightly News.
Reporter Tom Pettit:
"Quayle also likes working obscure small towns in the South...The Quayle
campaign stop begins to resemble Disney World's Main Street - the crowds
predominantly white, but Quayle officials say he has been in many ghetto
areas, but says he hasn't been there recently because there aren't many
Republican votes there....No urban decay, no problem...Why is Quayle avoiding
big cities?"
Michael Beschloss:
"The strategy is keep him away from places he can do harm."
Pettit: "Right now,
he is presenting his vision to the America of the past - small town
America."
- Same newscast, next story.
Another Day on the Campaign Trail
The Democrats
Gore Runs With Quips And
Pranks On the Trail
- New York Times, September 14
The Republicans
Bush Is Harsh, His
Backers Harsher
- Same paper, next page
Poverty Blame Game
"According to the
Census Bureau, 35.7 million people are living in poverty, two million more
than before....But aiming blame at politicians may actually steer blame away
from ourselves. Over the last generation, after all, we elected politicians
who gave voice to our grievances and reduced what government could regulate
and guarantee...The financial wealth of the United States has doubled, but the
number of poor people has stayed the same. Instead of trickling down,
apparently that wealth mostly stayed in the tight fists of those who became
richer."
- Weekend Today co-host Scott Simon, September 5.
"According to
guidelines established by the federal government, a family of four can be
classified as living in poverty if its cash income is $13,924 a year or less.
$13,924 a year for the four of you comes to $9.54 per person per day. Can
anybody live on that?....One nation under God is what we say in the Pledge of
Allegiance to the flag, but the Pledge was written long ago, and has never
been adjusted for inflation. With 36 million Americans in poverty now, perhaps
the Pledge ought to be brought up to date to read: two nations under
God."
- CBS Sunday Morning host Charles Kuralt, September 6.
Cutting Quayle
"About these
spectacles - the Sister Souljah nonsense a few months ago, the Vice President
of the U.S. wagging his finger at hallucinations of the popular culture,
denouncing Murphy Brown or telling the MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour, `I
will continue to speak out against Ice-T,' as if he were preparing for the
Lincoln- Douglas debates - there is something both confused and vaguely
degrading. Something unworthy and a little stupid."
- Time Senior Writer Lance Morrow, September 21.
Running Against Liberalism Can't Work
"While Bill Clinton
motors through the heartland with a cheerful middle-of-the-road message, Bush
is conspicuously stroking the party's conservative wing, echoing the cutting
rhetoric of yore: anti-tax, anti-crime, anti-abortion. And he's using
time-tested slime-and-distance tactics....the question is whether this kind of
campaign is too late, too openly to the right, too raw - or just too familiar
- to work one more time."
- Newsweek reporters Howard Fineman and Ann McDaniel, August 17.
"It's just possible
that a traditional slash-the-liberals campaign - with nothing else to soften
it or give a sense of optimism and energy - will seem too jagged, too
desperate, and too obviously beside the point to work in 1992."
- Fineman and McDaniel, two weeks later.
Still Sad About the Soviets
"An independent
Belarus doesn't hold much appeal to Mikhail Zhirovsky. He spent 19 years of
his life putting tractors together and today he can buy less for himself and
his family than he could ten years ago...Workers and managers alike say they
long for the simpler days when there was a system to count on and things were
affordable....Independence was more or less thrust upon the unsuspecting
Belarussians."
- CNN reporter Claire Shipman, September 10 World News.
Another Code Word
"You're using the
word `people' - new eyes, new directions - is that a code word for
women?"
- CNN anchor Catherine Crier to Washington Senate candidate Patty Murray,
September 16 Inside Politics.
Exhilarated by Democratic Women
"The day after two
women, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, won their California primaries for
the U.S. Senate, there was a rush, an exultation, that surpassed any political
moment I have ever known - better even than Geraldine Ferraro's
vice-presidential candidacy."
- Time Deputy Washington Bureau Chief Margaret Carlson in the
September Redbook.
Oriental-Minority Ruled Government?
"In South Korea
today, there was another massacre. This time at a place called Ciskei, one of
the so-called black homelands that South Africa's white government set up
years ago to keep blacks separate from whites."
- ABC World News Tonight anchor Forrest Sawyer, September 7.
Rush Favors Cross-Dressers?
"After watching the
first week of his new syndicated series, one must logically conclude that
Limbaugh is the lead component of an insidious left-wing conspiracy to make
conservatives look like clowns....Rushie tried to disguise his true liberal
feelings by constantly referring to Bill Clinton as `Slick Willie.' Funny,
wouldn't you say, that Mr. Conservative neglected to mention that `Willie' was
also the nickname of William Shakespeare, whose plays were performed in the
Globe Theatre by men who played the female roles. Thus, it's obvious that
despite being a right-winger, Limbaugh endorses TRANSVESTITES!"
- Los Angeles Times TV critic Howard Rosenberg, September 21.
- L. Brent Bozell III;
Publisher
- Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
- Brant Clifton, Nicholas Damask, Steve Kaminski, Marian Kelley, Tim Lamer;
Media Analysts
- Jennifer Hardebeck; Circulation Manager
