Notable Quotables - 10/17/1988
Campaign '88: VP Debate
"We're supposed to
be dispassionate, reporters. And of course, we aren't. We try to report
objectively, and so I'm a little reluctant to say it: I find it very difficult
to believe that eventually, conceivably, Dan Quayle would sit down and
negotiate with Mikhail Gorbachev. It doesn't seem to make sense...And yet, you
take a look at polls today, and apparently he did very well with those who
believe that he is a decent possibility as Vice President."
- 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace on Late Night with David
Letterman, October 6.
"Perhaps there's
some advantage to Senator Bentsen's longer tenure on Capitol Hill, some
greater facility with the facts, an instinct for which ones to use and when
and how. For on the facts, he clearly had a much better night last night than
Senator Quayle."
- ABC's Jim Wooten, October 6 World News Tonight.
SDI
"Size, Scope of
'Star Wars' Cut: Fewer Weapons and Smaller Budget Sought"
- Washington Post, October 7.
"SDI plans
bolstered by technical advance"
- Washington Times, same day.
Supreme Court
"Bush broke a tie
vote in the Senate to confirm Appeals Court Judge Daniel Manion, an obscure
conservative opposed by the Deans of 44 major law schools. Dukakis, as
Governor of Massachusetts, used a non-partisan advisory commission in naming
judges, and says he would do the same as President."
- NBC's Carl Stern on how the presidential candidates will select Supreme
Court justices, October 10.
"Although the court
today is roughly balanced, three of the four liberal justices, William
Brennan, Thurgood Marshall and Harry Blackmun..."
- Stern on NBC Nightly News, October 10.
"On the other hand,
ultra-conservative Antonin Scalia..."
- Stern, two days later.
Campaign '88
NBC announcer:
"He's a handsome and charismatic Senator. He's campaigning for a place in
the White House."
Clip of a scene:
"Do you think a man should be Vice President because he looks good on
television?"
Announcer: "But
something in his past could cost him the election." [Shot of a woman in
lingerie]
Clip of a scene:
"What an interesting hero we have here."
Announcer: "From
out of today's headlines comes the most provocative mini-series of the year.
Beginning October 30: Favorite Son."
- NBC promo aired after October 13 debate.
"A joke circulating
in Washington says George Bush reminds every woman of her first husband. Maybe
so, but Dukakis reminds every husband of his first wife's lawyer."
- Joe Sobran in a September 22 column.
"It's this kind of
rhetoric [Bush on the pledge of allegiance] that leads some to recall Samuel
Johnson's observation that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
- Reporter Lisa Myers on NBC Nightly News, September 20.
"Not only is the
campaign getting stale, it's getting a little gruesome, and Dukakis may be
sending the wrong message. He may be convincing voters the issue is: 'Do you
vote for Bush and hope he lives, or Dukakis and hope he doesn't?'"
- CNN political analyst Frederick Allen, October 11.
NBC News reporter Ken
Bode: "Jimmy Carter offers the often wooden Dukakis this advice on
style:"
Carter: "Just be
himself and let his natural warmth come through."
- October 13.
Economy
"Reagan came to
power largely because he promised to revive the American Dream, which he said
was being strangled by high taxation...The double whammy of higher prices and
higher taxes cut into the purchasing power of the middle class more than into
that of the rich. Reagan's tax cuts only worsened the skew... Growing
inequality could even threaten those who now benefit from it by putting an end
to the economic expansion. An extreme concentration of wealth and income
during the 1920s was a leading cause of the Great Depression...Today there are
disturbing parallels....What to do?...Making the income tax system more
progressive would seem an obvious step....When the time comes to increase
taxes to balance the budget - and come it will, however much politicians
shrink in horror from the "T" word-consideration must be given to
making the wealthy pay a larger share."
- From an article titled "Are You Better Off?" in the October 10 Time.
"George Bush and
Michael Dukakis have talked up various ways of knocking back that huge
deficit, everything except a tax increase. CBS News business correspondent Ray
Brady tonight looks beyond the campaign avoidances of discussion of new taxes,
to the economic realities."
- Dan Rather, October 11 CBS Evening News.
Environment: Version One
"Victims of Love
Canal in New York, stamped forever on our memories and on our environment.
Forgotten old buried waste, toxic fumes, chromosome damage in 30 percent of
citizens tested....And from Times Beach, Missouri, dioxin-tainted oil used to
coat the dusty roads. It spreads in a flood: a chance of cancer in a
community."
- Reporter Greg Dobbs in an ABC News Special, Burning Questions: The
Poisoning of America, September 8.
Environment: Version Two
"Now the EPA says
dioxin may be 16 times less dangerous than they thought during the Times Beach
scare....And then there's the most famous case, Love Canal in upstate New
York....Everyone was certain that toxic wastes there had already caused birth
defects and cancer....But several years later, the Center for Disease Control
did a more scientific assessment of the dangers and said the cancer rates of
Love Canal residents were no higher than average."
- ABC reporter John Stossel on 20/20, last March 18.
- L. Brent
Bozell III; Publisher
- Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
- Jim Heiser, Richard Marois, Patrick Swan, Dorothy Warner; Media Analysts
- Cynthia Bulman; Administrative Assistant
