Notable Quotables - 11/17/1997

 

How Dare You

 

"You were raised, sir, in a subsidized housing project by a single mother and yet you support welfare reform and oppose affirmative action. How do you square those two sides?"
- NBC's Ann Curry to Paul Harris, the first black Republican elected to the Virginia House of Delegates since 1891, on the November 5 Today.

 

Voters Angry or for Status Quo?

 

"New Jersey really provided the only squeaker election. Republican Governor Christine Whitman's narrow victory reflected what may be voter unhappiness about some local tax issues. In Virginia, Republican James Gilmore also won with a hotly divisive tax proposal to scrap local taxes on cars....Well, the President's coattails aren't very long but in off year elections they aren't necessarily always, but it does come at a time when the President's own personal popularity has remained at a fairly high level. It also comes at a time when the Democrats suggest that the Clinton economy is just so good that the incumbents won and people voted for the status quo."
- ABC's Ann Compton, November 5 Good Morning America.

 

Redneck Conservatives for Discrimination


"About the big setback for affirmative action. The high court today upheld California's ban on programs designed to fight discrimination against women and minorities on the job and in school admissions..."
- Dan Rather on the Supreme Court refusing to review a lower court decision upholding California's Proposition 209, November 3 CBS Evening News.

"But opponents of the policy, spurred by the success of the anti-affirmative action campaign in California said the policy was biased and the time to end it had come. They sponsored Proposition A and tried to make it sound as if it were a way to end discrimination without ever mentioning the words affirmative action. But Houston Mayor Bob Lanier got the city council to re-phrase the language in the proposition making it clear that a yes vote would end the city's affirmative action program....Mayor Lanier said the choice for Houston was clear: people here had to decide whether they wanted to be viewed as a cosmopolitan, diverse, international city or, as he put it, 'Redneckville.' Dean Reynolds, ABC News, Houston."
- November 5 World News Tonight story on Houston's vote to keep its contract set-aside program.

 

Put Aside What's Illegal...

 

"It didn't help that while Republicans railed about misdeeds of the Clinton Administration, their leaders opposed outlawing the huge contributions that helped create the scandal. And few believe these hearings will really fix anything."
- Lisa Myers in a NBC Nightly News story on the end of the Senate fundraising hearings, October 31.

"Your hearings clearly reinforced the public's already low opinion of politicians and politics. Beyond that, what did it accomplish?....At the same time you were criticizing the misdeeds of the Clinton administration, leaders of your own party were opposing changes in the law to outlaw these huge contributions that helped create this scandal. Do you think that undercut your credibility with the public?"
- Questions from NBC's Lisa Myers to Senator Fred Thompson, November 7 Today.

"So far, more than 100 hours of tape of the Panhandler in Chief have been made public. Put aside for a moment the questions about what was illegal and what was just unseemly, and the overall effect is oddly comforting. If nothing else, the tapes prove that the most powerful nation on earth can operate on autopilot while its President chases campaign money."
- Time Senior Writer Richard Lacayo, October 27.

 

Brokaw's Differing Spins on Hearings A Decade Apart

 

"In Washington tonight, one of the most dramatic stories to come out of the campaign finance investigations, which seem to be a swamp without end for both parties."
- Tom Brokaw introducing a story on Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt's testimony, October 30 NBC Nightly News.

vs.

"And when the public phase of those hearings ended today with the testimony of Secretary Weinberger, we were left with an astonishing record of deceit, ignorance, naivet, good or bad intentions, failed policies, and discredited public servants, and this story is not yet complete."
- Tom Brokaw on the Iran-Contra hearings, August 3, 1987 NBC Nightly News.

 

Carjacking? You Asked For It

 

"Aaron Bottoms says he wasn't out to test a law and hopes his attacker survives....Still, driving a car with wheels valued at $700 dollars each these days may be a case of inviting trouble instead of avoiding it."
- CBS Evening News reporter Bob McNamara on Louisiana's first case of allowing a carjacking victim to legally shoot to protect himself, November 5.

 

Ted Calls for Green Activist Media

 

"American media need to take a more active role in saving the planet. Reporters, editors and executives must lead the charge on protecting the environment and rally different cultures together to improve the lot of the have-nots, [CNN chief Ted] Turner said....Population growth harms air quality and depletes the world's food supply, he said. Turner said the United States and other countries should convene a global conference and look hard at family planning, perhaps adopting China's policy of one child per family. 'Voluntary, of course,' he said. 'I had five kids,' Turner added in one of the many asides Friday that typify his speeches, 'but I had them 30 years ago I didn't know.'"
- Arizona Republic reporter Abraham Kwok on Turner's speech in Scottsdale to the American Magazine Association, October 25.

 

From the Far Right to Hollywood

 

"While the Chinese leader was getting the full measure of a White House welcome the cannons, the fifes and drums demonstrators were unfurling a full menu of protests. China's behavior on Taiwan, its record on human rights, its suppression of independence in Tibet. That rally briefly allied speakers from the far right....with Hollywood activism."
- ABC White House reporter John Donvan matching the Family Research Council's Gary Bauer with actor Richard Gere, October 29 World News Tonight.

 

Anita Hill: Joan of Arc

 

"[I]n person, Hill bears only passing resemblance to her rather stern image from newspapers and television. At 41, she is slender to the point of willowy. Her features are elegant, and while she is intense while discussing her political baptism-by-fire, she can also muster a warm smile and a hearty laugh qualities that had little occasion to surface in the nine hours that changed Hill's world. So, she was asked, does she sometimes feel like the Joan of Arc of sexual harassment? Sure, Hill replied, and here came the mirth the Senate never saw: 'I refuse to die, though.'"
- Los Angeles Times reporter Elizabeth Mehren, October 1.

 

We'll Wave As You Pack for Iraq

 

"Open societies, it turns out, haven't been as generous as socialism and communism to women who want to serve in public office. From Albania to Yemen, the number of women in power plummeted after the transition from socialist governments, which sought to develop female as well as male proletariats. As those governments died, so went the socialist ideals of equality and the subsidies for social programs that aided women. In many countries, traditional patriarchal cultures resurfaced."
- Los Angeles Times correspondent Robin Wright, October 2 Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed.

 

L. Brent Bozell III, Publisher
Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
Eric Darbe, Geoffrey Dickens, Gene Eliasen,
Steve Kaminski, Clay Waters;
Media Analysts
Kristina Sewell, Research Associate
Carey Evans, Circulation Director
Rebecca Hinnershitz, Intern