Notable Quotables - 10/11/1993
What We've Been Saying All Along
"I think we are
aware, as everybody who works in the media is, that the old stereotype of the
liberal bent happens to be true, and we're making a concerted effort to really
look for more from the other, without being ponderous or lecturing or trying
to convert people to another way of thinking."
- ABC World News Tonight Executive Producer Emily Rooney, September
27 Electronic Media.
I Found My Thrill on Hillary's Hill
"She came, she saw,
she wowed them. It was standing room only, and when the photographers saw her,
it was like the Fourth of July....Seldom referring to notes, she argued that
much of the system is broken and must be fixed. There seemed to be no detail
she did not know, no criticism she had not considered....All sides agreed it
was a boffo performance. Republicans were impressed. Democrats just loved
it."
- CBS reporter Bob Schieffer, September 28 Evening News.
"I was terribly
impressed that she was able to marry some of the traditional images of a First
Lady with the policy technocrat she really is. Just a little touch the first
day...There was a teapot on the table when she testified, and she had tea,
particularly in the afternoon, while she was testifying."
- Boston Globe reporter Peter Gosselin on C-SPAN's Journalists'
Roundtable, October 1.
"I say the Clintons
are almost heroes in my mind for finally facing up to the terrible problems we
have with our current health care system and bringing it to the attention of
the public....Most people, I think, will be better off."
- ABC Medical Editor Dr. Tim Johnson, September 24 20/20.
Carlson for the Clinton Plan
"When I did a cover
story on Hillary Clinton back in February, I have never heard...[such]
scurrilous attacks on any public figure without any basis whatsoever. The
darkest fears men have about women were expressed when I was doing
this....What she had done was to take a really dirty job and do it well.
There's not a lot of glory in it. There's not a lot of headlines in it. And
she did it, day by plodding day, and now there's a plan out there."
- Time White House reporter Margaret Carlson on CNN's Capital
Gang, September 25.
"The only thing
government is better than are insurance companies and doctors having their own
way with the health care system."
- Carlson on CNN's Capital Gang, October 2.
CBS Forgets Soviet Mass Murder
"Many here long for
the days of Brezhnev. At least then, they say, they had their dignity."
- CBS reporter Tom Fenton, September 24 Evening News.
"Boris Yeltsin
ordered a military attack on his country's Parliament building. Russians
killing Russians in the worst violence in this city since the Russian
Revolution."
- CBS Moscow reporter Cinny Kennard, October 4 Evening News.
Free Abortions, Please
"For the poor,
though, and those without health insurance, choice is meaningless without the
means to choose. Only 13 states voluntarily fund abortions for those who can't
afford them; the poor elsewhere are looking to Clinton to save them from the
back alley."
- Time Political Correspondent Michael Kramer, September 27.
No Bias in the Clinton Era
"[Rush Limbaugh]
has always described himself as the conservative antidote to what he charged
was the liberal bias of the rest of the mainstream media. That bias was at
least arguable when George Bush was President, but if there was ever a
justification for a half-hour conservative monolith, it disappeared when Bill
Clinton was elected President, given the pounding the new chief executive has
taken from the media."
- Los Angeles Times television writer Howard Rosenberg, September 3.
Simple Confiscatory Solutions
"Can the government
ever persuade Americans to want smaller, more fuel-efficient cars? Analysts
say there is a way: simply slap on a really stiff gasoline tax, they say, and
consumers will flock to the little cars."
- CBS economics correspondent Ray Brady, concluding September 29 Evening
News.
Still Slagging the Supply Side
"A decade ago, in
the delirium of the early Reagan era, `supply side' theorists held that
lowered taxes would create incentives - and that the resulting economic boom
would produce enough revenue to make up what was lost in taxes. The flaws in
that theory became apparent all too soon. The idea that it was possible to
really cut taxes and still run a nation like the United States turned out to
be goofy."
- Washington Post Deputy "Outlook" Editor Jeffrey A.
Frank, September 26.
"By the end of the
Reagan presidency, supply-side theory had been widely discredited. Even some
authors of the Reagan plan, including the former budget director, David A.
Stockman, had disavowed it."
- New York Times reporter Jerry Gray, October 3 "Week in
Review" story.
The '80s, When Movie Scripts Were Reality
"But while the
Paramount battle, in particular, may seem an unsettling throwback to the
1980s, Wall Street executives say it is an aberration....Still, there is no
sign that Wall Street is moving to beef up its merger departments to anything
like the levels of the '80s, when `greed is good' was the motto and Drexel's
Michael Milken an untarnished hero."
- Los Angeles Times reporter Scot Paltrow, September 22 front page
story.
Puerile Moralists
"Ever since New
York Republican Alfonse D'Amato began the whole brouhaha in 1989 by ripping up
a catalog on the Senate floor to protest an indirect NEA grant to photographer
Andres Serrano, no one has been able to move the debate away from puerile
arguments about `obscenity' and `filth' toward an adult discussion of public
policy."
- Boston Globe reporter Patti Hartigan, September 21
news story.
Larry's Next Wife?
"I saw a Hillary
Clinton that I'd never seen before. She was funny, charming, sexy - yes,
gang, sexy. We are both Scorpios, which tells you a lot. She's informal -
called me `Larry' and told me to call her by her first name...Meanwhile, she's
earned the respect of everyone (except the wackos) with her handling of the
health care issue. Indeed, she has gotten everyone (except the wackos) to
agree that we need health care for everyone. This is a very formidable idea,
ladies and gentlemen."
- CNN/Mutual Broadcasting talk show host Larry King on his October 2
interview with the First Lady. October 4 USA Today column.
Speaking of Wives...
"I guess happiness
is having a happy wife. I have a wonderful wife right now. Even though she's
my fourth wife, I'm very happy with her."
- Retiring ABC reporter Pierre Salinger in the October Washingtonian.
- L. Brent Bozell III;
Publisher
- Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
- Andrew Gabron, Mark Honig, Kristin Johnson, Steve Kaminski, Mark Rogers;
Media Analysts
- Kathleen Ruff; Circulation Manager
- David Muska, Clay Waters; Interns
