Notable Quotables - 11/06/1995

 

Will the Lies Ever Stop?

 

"And on a busy Saturday this morning, Jack, we're going to get to the very latest on Republicans' plan to slash the Medicare budget."
- Today co-host Giselle Fernandez to co-host Jack Ford, October 14.

"Republicans are predicting victory today when their plan to overhaul Medicare is put to a vote in the House. Last night, Democrats were still attacking the bill, which slashes $270 billion in Medicare spending."
- CBS This Morning news anchor Jane Robelot, October 19.

"Are the Republicans most vulnerable here because they want to make these big cuts in Medicare and also give a tax cut, including tax cuts to those people making $100,000 or more?"
- Tom Brokaw to Tim Russert, October 19 NBC Nightly News.

"The House and Senate begin debate today on the Republican plan to balance the budget. It would slash spending by a quarter-trillion dollars, which Democrats claim would fund a tax cut for the rich."
- CBS This Morning news anchor Jane Robelot, October 25.

"If enacted it would largely get the federal government out of the business of helping the poor....It would mean a much smaller government. It would probably mean a balanced budget. But I think the critics are also right that in some important ways it would mean a less humane government."
- Wall Street Journal Washington Bureau Chief Alan Murray, October 26 NBC News at Sunrise.

"Republicans vowed to press for huge cuts in government spending and $245 billion in tax cuts. President Clinton vowed to veto it as too radical and too extreme."
- Dan Rather, October 25 CBS Evening News.

"President Clinton has declared the GOP budget proposals too extreme and threatened a veto unless Republicans agree to scale back their $245 billion tax cut and the massive cuts in health care for the elderly and poor, welfare programs, student loans, and the Earned Income Tax Credit for the working poor...For weeks, Democrats have hammered Republicans for seeking large cuts in Medicare and other social programs to help offset the cost of their tax cut for middle- and upper-income Americans."
- Washington Post reporters John E. Yang and Eric Pianin, October 27 front page story.

Reality Check:
"An illuminating way to look at this budget is to take what the government actually spent and raised over the past seven years and compare it to what Republicans propose to spend and raise over the next seven years. The results: Spending will increase by $2.6 trillion. Revenues will increase by $3.3 trillion....Spending will rise by 27 percent and tax revenues by 41 percent....Consider Medicare. Politicians talk about $271 billion in cuts, but actually, under the GOP plan, spending in 2002 will be $86 billion higher than in 1995, an increase of more than 6 percent annually."
- Washington Post columnist James K. Glassman, October 17.

 

Weren't Southern Segregationists All Democrats?

 

"Mr. Clinton has sought to keep blacks involved by standing up for at least some affirmative action programs, which is highly unpopular with many white voters. But he must also respond, to some degree, to the national passion for shrinking government, which will inevitably involve reductions in federal programs that poor blacks regard as lifelines, like Medicaid and urban subsidies. Mr. Clinton can only hope that his party is not punished further for its longstanding commitment to (and identification with) the blacks of America."
- New York Times Washington Bureau Chief R.W. Apple, October 17 "news analysis."

"They were there to remind Americans that even in a time of conservatism and backlash, the business of racism and inequality will not be ignored."
- Time's Richard Lacayo on the Million Man March, Oct. 30.

 

I Won't Condemn Louis Farrakhan, But Bob Dole Is Sickening

 

"I think he [Farrakhan] has begun to rehabilitate himself. I don't know that it will ever be complete. I think he said so many vile things. I don't think we can ever erase that. But if somebody is going to do something decent and encourage the kind of expression of solidarity we saw today, I'm not going to condemn it. I think it was a positive march."
- Newsweek's Eleanor Clift, CBS's Late Late Show with Tom Snyder, Oct. 17.

"He's [Dole's] a raging moderate in his heart. But the things he's doing now to pander to the right wing of the party are sickening."
- Clift, minutes later.

 

Is There Any Doubt?

 

"Two weeks after his acquittal, we'll see how O.J. Simpson is still being treated as if he were guilty."
- Bryant Gumbel, October 16 Today.

 

Reporters Aren't Liberal, They're Just Compassionate

 

Cokie Roberts: "I don't think the coverage of Gingrich and the GOP Congress has been liberally biased..."
Lisa Myers: "I also think there is a bias in favor of spending money, but I don't think it's liberal vs. conservative, but a bias in favor of government programs and spending money to try to solve problems. And it's compassionate to spend money, even if there is not money there to spend and even if you're heaping debt on the next generation."
- The ABC and NBC reporter on CNBC's Meet the Media, Oct. 23.

 

From the Conservatives You've Ignored

 

"This is a pretty big complicated idea and you're looking at a real bedrock program [Medicare] here. How come we haven't heard about this before? Where did this Medical Savings Account come from?"
- Los Angeles Times Washington Bureau Chief Doyle McManus, October 20 Washington Week in Review.

 

Helping Clinton's Triangulation

 

"How do you view the GOP's courtship of the extreme and religious right?"
- Bryant Gumbel to former Democratic Senator Gary Hart, October 17 Today.

"There's a hollowness to the U.S. economy and - as the President explained aboard Air Force One - to the American spirit in this post-Cold War era. Doubt and fear leave people vulnerable to the seductive voice of extremists, he said, drawing votes from centrists like himself."
- Boston Globe reporter John Aloysius Farrell, September 22.

 

Bill the Terrific and the Fabulous Democrats

 

"It's nice, of course, if we have a President we like. But there's more to governing than likability. We learned that from the likable Ronald Reagan, who charmed us with stories as he amassed huge deficits and spent billions on goofy defense plans. No, the record is more important. And Bill Clinton's record is just short of terrific."
- Former NBC News President Michael Gartner in his USA Today column, October 17.

"With eight retiring Senators, Sam Nunn being the latest, I think there's a lot of concern that this party is looking very hard to find its voice and find a clear vision for the fabulous record of things that it's done for this country, and hopefully that will come up in your next segment with Gary Hart."
- U.S. News Director of Editorial Administration (and 1984 Hart press secretary) Kathryn Bushkin, C-SPAN's Sunday Journal, Oct. 15.

 

Saw Off That Tongue

 

Tim Russert: "You're encouraging the President today in saying `Let the Democrats in Congress negotiate.' Are you not concerned that if you cut a deal with Republicans, President Clinton will saw your limb off?"
Sen. Bob Kerrey: "That's a terrible metaphor, since someone's already sawed one of them off."
- Exchange from the October 29 Meet the Press. (Kerrey lost a leg in the Vietnam War).

 

- 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