Notable Quotables - 10/09/1995

 

No, Ito Didn't Underestimate the White Jurors Either

 

"In his written ruling, Ito said, I'm quoting here, `The court finds the probative value of the remaining examples,' those not allowed, `substantially and overwhelmingly outweighed by the danger of undue prejudice.' Do you think Ito has underestimated the intellectual capacity of this jury because it is black-majority?"
- Today co-host Bryant Gumbel to O.J. Simpson lawyer Alan Dershowitz on Judge Ito's ruling that admitted only two of Mark Fuhrman's racial slurs, September 1.

 

Lying More Than Johnnie Cochran

 

"On Close Up this morning, Medicare. Republicans in Congress are beginning to detail how they intend to cut $270 billion from the Medicare budget."
- Bryant Gumbel, September 15 Today.

"The Democrats, the big mistake they've made is they ought to have advertisements about deterioration of quality, they ought to show an elderly person in a hospital bell ringing for a nurse who doesn't show up. That's where the cutbacks are going to be."
- Newsweek's Eleanor Clift, September 16 McLaughlin Group.

"Democrats and Republicans in Congress late today came close to actual physical blows over proposed cuts in Medicare. That's the separate U.S. government health care coverage for 37 million older Americans of all income levels. There's no doubt that Medicare spending will be cut. The question is how much and for how many."
- Dan Rather, September 20 CBS Evening News.

"Congressional Republicans are trying to squeeze $270 billion out of the program during the next seven years. The Democrats say the proposed cuts are too deep." - CNN's Bernard Shaw, Sept. 20 Inside Politics.

"The Republican plan to slash $270 billion from Medicare cleared its first hurdle in a Senate committee vote last night."
- CBS This Morning co-host Paula Zahn, September 28.

"Just after midnight the [Senate Finance] committee voted 11 to 9 along party lines to approve an anti-deficit plan mandating massive cuts and changes in Medicare, Medicaid, and virtually every federal welfare program."
- Washington Post reporters Eric Pianin and Judith Havemann, September 30.

"Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle said today Democrats have a plan to save Medicare without raising premiums or deductibles. He said the Democratic plan would cut $89 billion over seven years, a third of what the Republicans have proposed to slash."
- PBS anchor Robert MacNeil on The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour, October 2.

 

Cronkite Tries Spin Control

 

Caller: "You've been quoted as saying that you felt that most journalists were liberal, in fact that a good journalist was by nature a liberal."
Walter Cronkite: "I define liberal as a person who is not doctrinaire. That is a dictionary definition of liberal. That's opposed to `liberal' as part of the political spectrum....open to change, constantly, not committed to any particular creed or doctrine, or whatnot, and in that respect I think that news people should be liberal."
- Exchange on CNN's Larry King Live, September 11.

Reality Check:
"I know liberalism isn't dead in this country. It simply has, temporarily we hope, lost its voice....We know that Star Wars means uncontrollable escalation of the arms race. We know that the real threat to democracy is the half of the nation in poverty....We know that no one should tell a woman she has to bear an unwanted child....Gawd Almighty, we've got to shout these truths in which we believe from the housetops. Like that scene in the movie Network, we've got to throw open our windows and shout these truths to the streets and the heavens."
- Cronkite addressing a November 17, 1988 People for the American Way dinner as quoted in the December 5, 1988 Newsweek.

 

No, Colin, Not the Genocidal Republicans!

 

"For urban dwellers, and especially the poor, the Republican Party as currently constituted is the enemy - the source of endless destructive, mean-spirited and racist initiatives....The unspoken question on Kelly Street [in the Bronx] was how, in good conscience, General Powell could serve as the standard-bearer of a party that is waging all-out war against the poor and racial and ethnic minorities (and which is hostile to the interests of the middle class as well)....For years, the insidious and blatantly racist strategy of the Republican Party has been to pit the middle classes against the lower classes, while sucking money from both groups up the economic pyramid to the smiling faces at the top."
- Former NBC reporter Bob Herbert in his New York Times column, September 22.

The Pope's a Crank

"There are 60 million Catholics in America, and for many of them he also speaks with the voice of a conservative crank when he stonewalls on abortion, birth control, married priests, women priests and so on."
- Washington Post reporter Henry Allen in an October 2 Style section story.

 

Nothing Dangerous About Abortion

 

"The picture, fed by conservative critics, of a festival of radical feminism where ideas germinated in the West were spread aggressively among wide-eyed disciples from the rest of the world, didn't match the conference that I covered....to those who argue there was a dangerous political agenda at work, that is true only if you believe there is something dangerous about helping 70 percent of the world's poor, who happen to be women."
- CNN anchor Judy Woodruff in a Washington Post op-ed, October 1.

 

Sounds Like Mario Cuomo

 

"Our viewers remember from '80, from 1980 to 1988, Ronald Reagan said he could cut taxes, increase defense, and still balance the budget. The deficit under Ronald Reagan doubled. The debt tripled, and home mortgage rates were 12 percent. It didn't work then. Why would it work now?"
- Meet the Press host Tim Russert to GOP presidential candidate Steve Forbes, September 24.

 

For Once We Agree

 

"The Standard is part of the process, whereas George is part of the problem. Why should politics need more packaging when The New Yorker has gone Hollywood, Vanity Fair psycho-babbles, and we've already got too many television yak shows where Ross Perot flies in one of Larry King's ears and out the other like a maddened fruit bat."
- CBS Sunday Morning television critic John Leonard, September 24.

 

- L. Brent Bozell III; Publisher
- Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
- Geoffrey Dickens, James Forbes, Steve Kaminski, Gesele Rey, Clay Waters; Media Analysts
- Kathleen Ruff; Circulation Manager
- Gene Eliasen; Intern