Notable Quotables - 10/24/1994

 

Even Reporters Can't Think of a Clinton Accomplishment

"The Democrats are being blamed more than Republicans because they ran in 1992 saying, `If you elect us we will get all of these things done. We'll have a Democratic White House, we'll have a Democratic Congress, and all of the gridlock you saw in the past will fade away.' Instead, they look like the gang that couldn't shoot straight, they can't get anything through. Now that's not exactly true, because in fact they've gotten a lot of things through, important things like, uh, uh, I can't think of any right now."
- NBC News and former New York Times reporter Gwen Ifill on Meet the Press, October 2.

 

Letting Gumbel Be Gumbel

"Washington set a bad example in the Reagan '80s of living beyond our means. Is that how we got into this credit card mess?"
- Today co-host Bryant Gumbel to financial adviser Ray Martin, October 14.

 

Please Name A Spending Cut

"At the same time, social programs the poor once fell back on - welfare, unemployment insurance, health and family benefits - have been cut. So more people are falling through the safety net and ending up on the streets."
- Los Angeles Times staff writer Robin Wright on the homeless, October 4.

Republicans On A Roll: You Stupid Voters

You Think Congress Is Out-of-Touch? Look in the Mirror, Voters; The Trouble Starts With You
- Washington Post, October 16

Who? Us? Washington Really Is in Touch. We're the Problem.
- New York Times, same day

 

Contract with America: Shoddy Reaganomics

"The President who all the pundits said would have to let Democrats distance themselves from his record because of his own unpopularity is putting his economic programs, promises, and accomplishments up against Ronald Reagan's and is telling the nation to re-elect Democrats...Have the President and his advisers gone mad? No. They've got solid political and economic arguments to back their argument...Reagan's recipe of tax cuts and heavy defense spending helped quadruple the national debt and contributed to the 1990-91 recession and the weak recovery that followed."
- USA Today reporter Mark Memmott in an October 10 commentary.

"There were 300 of you on the Capitol steps a couple of days ago, got together to sign this pledge which kind of harkened up a lot of memories of Ronald Reagan...Among the things you talk about wanting to do - raise defense spending, cut taxes, balance the budget - but did you all neglect to figure out how to pay for all of that?...But the real deal here if we're talking about Reaganomics, which this seems to be harkening back to, tax cuts for the rich and everything else...You're talking back to the days when budget deficits ran out of control."
- CBS This Morning co-host Harry Smith to Newt Gingrich, September 30.

"Now Bill Clinton can really do what he did a year ago, when he complained about being an Eisenhower Democrat, when he was working on his budget, as we learned from Bob Woodward's book The Agenda. He really can go out there in the next month and be an Eisenhower Democrat, and say 'The Republicans are making promises that are going to bust the budget. I, a responsible, middle-of-the-road, conservative type, can tell you it's not going to work."
- ABC reporter John Cochran on This Week with David Brinkley, October 2.

 

Ollie's Un-American

"`Bill Clinton is not my commander-in-chief.' What an awful outburst. But that's what former Marine Oliver North said the other day. What an awful man....But Oliver North is still an American, and his conduct is unbecoming an American, especially an American who is campaigning to serve in the U.S. Senate. How can a man who has no respect for democracy, who has thumbed his nose at all three branches of our government, who has determined that the Constitution does not apply to him, expect us to send him to the U.S. Senate?"
- Former NBC News President Michael Gartner in his USA Today column, October 18.

 

Clinton the Moderate Faces Raw Hate

"Around the country, President Clinton is routinely trashed by conservative talk-show hosts and Republican candidates for being the most liberal President in modern times...But based on the measures that Mr. Clinton succeeded in getting through Congress in his first two years, he looks like Mainstream Bill....The Clinton record is surprisingly pro-business and centrist."
- Wall Street Journal reporter Jeffrey Birnbaum, October 7.

"The tone of these attacks is like nothing Americans have seen in years. Opponents sometimes said George Bush, a World War II hero, was a wimp, or an aristocrat who went to grade school in a limousine. People laughed at Ronald Reagan's sleepy habits and his reluctance to grapple very often with legislative or political substance. But this is raw hate being directed at Mr. Clinton."
- Wall Street Journal reporters Jeffrey Birnbaum and James M. Perry, October 17.

 

No One Here But Us Moderates

"President Clinton's two appointees - Ruth Bader Ginsburg and [Stephen] Breyer - are likely supporters of affirmative action, but are cautious moderates...The fourth new justice, David Souter, who replaced liberal William Brennan, Jr., may hold the key - as he appears to on an increasing number of issues. The Bush appointee is emerging as a major force on the court for a common sense, moderate view of the law."
- USA Today reporter Tony Mauro, October 3.

Please Vote for Democrats, the Party of Reform

"Killing a bill that cracked down on lobbyists was simple, spiteful, self-interested obstruction. It was too arrogant by half, and come November the voters - well-informed by TV on this particular issue - might haul the GOP in on a hypocrisy rap, which could help deprive the party of the majority it so covets...The voters can vent their own sour feelings by indiscriminately throwing people out, or by looking more closely at who talks reform, and who really means it."
- Newsweek Senior Editor Jonathan Alter, October 18.

 

Forgetting About John Sununu, or Richard Allen...

"[Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy's resignation] left many wondering how someone once regarded as so politically astute could seemingly have been so indifferent to the appearance, if not the reality, of abusing his office for personal gain....Clearly, another factor contributing to Espy's fall was that the allegations occurred in a political climate far less forgiving to even the appearance of impropriety than that which existed even a few years ago."
- Los Angeles Times reporters Elizabeth Shogren and Alan C. Miller, Oct. 4.

 

Our Racist Foreign Policy

"I think that if Haiti had been a nation as close as they are to our shores and had been a nation of white people oppressed the way these people are oppressed, with a democratically elected leader overthrown by a coup, we would have gone in there, and a lot earlier than we wound up going in there."
- Los Angeles Times Washington Bureau Chief Jack Nelson on C-SPAN's Journalists' Roundtable, October 7.

 

Publisher: L. Brent Bozell III
Editors: Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham
Media Analysts: James Forbes, Andrew Gabron,
Mark Honig, Steve Kaminski, Gesele Rey, Clay Waters
Circulation Manager: Kathleen Ruff
Interns: Melissa Gordon, Jim Renne