Notable Quotables - 10/26/1992
Clinton's We Decade?
"From Bush it is
more of the same, a laissez-faire embrace of the free markets, a scarcely
subtle survival-of-the-fittest signal. The Republicans, it is clear, see
nothing wrong with extending the Me decade indefinitely; no matter that
Reagan's trickle-down nostrums, which were supposed to lift all boats, lifted
only yachts....But the core of Clinton's economic vision is distinguishable
from the President's and is perhaps best described as a call for a We decade;
not the old I-am-my- brother's-keeper brand of traditional Democratic
liberalism, but an acknowledgment that the interconnectedness of global
economics requires that many prosper, or no one will."
- Time Special Correspondent Michael Kramer, October 19.
Scintillating Stockdale
"Look out for
Stockdale. I think he's going to be very engaging."
- NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell, October 12 Today.
"The low point [of
the first debate] was Bush claiming the stock market drop was caused by
Clinton doing well in the polls, where it really was because of the economy
and bad economic news....I think it's going to be especially difficult for
Quayle, because he's got two really smart people he's debating against....He's
got another unknown in Stockdale, who's really going to be hard for him to
hold a candle to intellectually."
- Newsweek reporter (and former Dukakis campaign worker) Clara
Bingham on the Fox Morning News, October 12.
Gore Groupies and Quayle Cutters
"Dan Quayle did far
better in last night's vice-presidential debate than he did in the famous 1988
clash. In fact, he performed much better than the President did in Sunday
night's debate. The problem for Quayle was that Al Gore was better
still."
- Boston Globe reporter Scot Lehigh, October 14 "news
analysis."
"I think Al Gore
wins by default, because he didn't set the tone. I think Dan Quayle came
across like a Ken doll on steroids...No matter how flimsy your facts are,
deliver them with great force and fire."
- Newsweek reporter Eleanor Clift on The McLaughlin Group,
October 19.
"I think a lot of
people were wondering if Dan Quayle would fumble the ball. He didn't, but at
times he sounded almost shrill and nasty. I think in the battle of who looked
coolest under pressure, Gore won that."
- CBS News reporter Bill Lagattuta after the October 13 debate.
"[Gore] obviously
knows what he is talking about most of the time. He's very competent, he
thinks clearly, and so forth. On the other hand, if your fear of the federal
government is so enormous, and you don't want government to play an active
role, and you think the market can take care of it, or local government can
take care of it, then Dan Quayle's, I don't know if I'd call it passion, or
temper is more like it, I suppose, would serve you well as kind of an
anti-government, anti-competency impulse."
- Los Angeles Times reporter Robert Scheer on CNN's post-debate
analysis, October 13.
"Quayle was
passionate, well-informed? No, I think at times he appeared to be raging
almost out of control."
- Detroit Free Press Deputy City Editor Ron Dzwonkowski, also on
CNN.
"Al Gore won it for
taking the high road with his cool command of the facts, and Jim Stockdale
gets the runner-up trophy for the best one-liners. Dan Quayle lost for the
hate-mongering that turned off much of the nation at his party's convention in
Houston. It wasn't that he made any gaffes. He looked poised and spoke with
great energy. But he played dirty while the other two candidates played
clean."
- Boston Globe columnist and former Washington bureau reporter Susan
Trausch, October 14.
More on Nasty Bush
"What are your
expectations? How nasty do you expect George Bush to try to be?"
- Bryant Gumbel to John Chancellor on NBC's Today, October 9.
"Fred, you've said
time and again that character is an important issue in the campaign. Clearly,
that red-baiting junk didn't work for the President last night. What's he
going to try next?"
- CBS This Morning co-host Harry Smith, October 12.
AIDS in the Eighties
"Throughout the
'80s, we heard it over and over - the government doesn't give a damn about
people with AIDS. They'd just as soon let them die as lift a finger to help
them. Well, that's changing."
- CBS reporter Ed Bradley on 60 Minutes, October 4.
Fond Memories of Columbus
"[Columbus] sailed
just as Jews and Muslims were being expelled from Spain, the persecution of
those peoples and the riches robbed from them paying for his small armada of
ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, to set sail for new plunder.
For Native Americans, the people who hardly felt discovered, Columbus' landing
commenced a Holocaust. There's really no other word for the death delivered by
settlers, as they scattered, enslaved, and obliterated Indian nations on their
own sacred lands."
- NBC weekend Today co-host Scott Simon, October 11.
"The old man who
saw them first must have been more astonished than afraid. There were so few
of them. What harm could they do? Well, we know now what harm they could do.
So much that some people today say they wish Columbus had never come."
- CBS Sunday Morning host Charles Kuralt, same day.
Loading Up for Limbaugh
"Limbaugh's
ultimate message is that America will be a just, safe, and harmonious nation
if only everybody will stop saying otherwise. He offers his many followers not
a blueprint for the way things ought to be, but a cruel illusion for those who
want to believe they can go back to the way things were."
- Former CBS Morning News Executive Producer Jon Katz on Rush
Limbaugh's new book The Way Things Ought to Be, October 11 Washington
Post Book World.
Dirty Little Secrets
"It is the national
press corps' dirty little secret that many reporters are out-of-synch with
much of America, talking to pollsters and spokesmen more than people,
sympathetic to Democratic causes and issues, clinging to the ridiculous and
transparently false premise that they are objective and without agendas of
their own."
- Katz, same review.
Denial
"I don't think
there is [a bias] at all. I think anyone who accuses the press of bias is
acting in desperation, I think. I think the press has been much more
aggressive and fair, in being, in going after both sides, and looking, than
ever before."
- New York Times reporter Richard Berke on CNN's Larry King Live,
October 16.
Insight of the Night
"One does not have
to believe that this was as boring as watching Grandmother crochet to
recognize that this was not the last half of the ninth inning of the Braves
versus the Pirates in the seventh game."
- Dan Rather in post-presidential debate special, October 15.
- 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
