Notable Quotables - 11/23/1992
Time Swoons Over the Sexy President
"At a moment when
the American libido seems to oscillate between Puritanism and rampant
exhibitionism, how significant is it that for the first time in more than 30
years the nation has elected a President with sex appeal?....The swooning and
the cooing on the rope lines during the last days of the Clinton campaign were
unavoidably reminiscent of Kennedy. In Louisville, Kentucky, the scene seemed
out of Beatlemania....Cheryl Russell, editor of The Boomer Report, a
monthly newsletter on consumer trends, captures a new dimension in the
national psyche when she confides, 'Every woman I know is having sex dreams
about Bill Clinton. We're finally getting a President our own age who we can
imagine having sex with. I don't recall anyone having sex dreams about Michael
Dukakis.'"
- Time Senior Writer Walter Shapiro, November 16.
"With his
computer-like mind and his joyous addiction to pressing the flesh, Clinton was
a brilliant campaigner. Almost too brilliant: toward the end his biggest
vulnerability was his reputation as a dexterous accommodator, the schoolboy
politician perennially concerned about preserving his political
viability."
- Shapiro, same issue.
"Through it all,
[Clinton] persevered, his resilience and toughness becoming antidotes to the
attacks on his character. A lifetime in politics equipped him with tactical
savvy and strategic good sense. Like other Southern populists before him,
Clinton seemed instinctively to know how to put the hay down where the goats
were."
- Time Special Correspondent Michael Kramer, October 19.
Al Gore Suck-Up Award
"My star this week,
as we look back on it, has to be Vice President-Elect Al Gore. He gave quite a
performance at the news conference. You've never seen anyone stand so quietly,
so still with knowing nods and interested glances and tilts of the head. I
thought he was very, he was very stagy there. I think it also showed
discipline for what will be required for him as Vice President."
- USA Today White House reporter Jessica Lee on the Fox Morning
News, November 16.
Eleanor Thanks Pat
"I also want to say
thank you, Pat, for pushing the President so far to the right that it made it
a lot easier for the Democrats to capture the mandate of the middle
class...What [Buchanan] did was make George Bush kowtow to the right more than
he needed to. He overcorrected with that convention, which portrayed the
Republican Party as a party of homophobics, and anti-choice, anti-women, and
everything else."
- Newsweek reporter Eleanor Clift on The McLaughlin Group,
November 7.
Liberal Cliches As News Beyond Dispute
"Everyone knows the
rich got richer in the 1980s. Now a new study shows how dramatic the change
was. According to the Economic Policy Institute, more than half of America's
new wealth went to the richest one-half of one percent of families. The bottom
60 percent of families in income saw no gain or got poorer."
- Dan Rather on a group founded by Dukakis and Clinton advisers, October 29 CBS
Evening News.
Hell in a Handbasket
"In the last few
years, I have watched as this country changed from the land of milk and honey
that my parents willed me to, to a landscape of homeless and underprivileged
reminiscent of the worst of the Third World."
- ABC News Assignment Editor Susana Ramirez in a World News Now
commentary, November 13.
GOP Sunk by the Radical Right
"[Voters] had grown
weary of 12 years of Republican rule, symbolized by a President who seemed
insensitive to their bread-and-butter concerns. They were angry at a GOP that
ignored, even resented, the rise of a multiracial society and a new social
mainstream that includes working women, single-parent families and gays and
lesbians seeking equal rights."
- Newsweek reporter Howard Fineman in the magazine's special
November/December post-election issue.
"I think some
moderate Republicans were put off by the tone at the convention. The
Republicans relinquished too much time to what some term the radical religious
right. Did you feel comfortable with the convention?...Do you agree with the
tone and the content of Pat Buchanan's speech?"
- Today co-host Katie Couric to President Bush, October 30.
Hurray for the Clinton Court
"The Reagan
judicial revolution...They were the judges who cut back on abortion rights,
affirmative action, and the rights of criminal defendants as part of a
deliberate campaign by Reagan - and to a lesser extent, George Bush - to
limit the power of judges and get them out of the business of solving social
problems...the nation in the next four years will see an expansion in the
rights of women, minorities, and homosexuals, and new judicial respect for a
broad range of factions that have not fared well under Reagan and Bush judges
- ranging from labor unions and refugees to death row inmates and
homosexuals."
- USA Today Supreme Court reporter Tony Mauro, November 9.
Liberal Bias: The Ongoing Denial...
"I think that one
would be lying to say that most reporters are not more liberal than most
Americans. You're quite right about that. But they will go for a good story
before an ideological story 99 times out of 100...Look at the coverage of
Ronald Reagan. Jimmy Carter - terrible press. And Ronald Reagan - much more
favorable press. And you shatter the ideological bias idea."
- Newsweek media critic Jonathan Alter on CNN's Crossfire,
October 21.
"I think there are
reporters around Clinton who are baby boomers who are drawn to him. I think
there are a lot of reporters in Washington who just wish for a new story. But
I watch probably as many talk shows, and as many interview shows, what George
Bush calls the professional talking heads on Sundays, as anybody else. I
actually think the bias, in the overall system, is from the center to the
right."
- PBS omnipresence Bill Moyers on CNN's Larry King Live, November 2.
"I am shocked when
people say that [the media was pro-Clinton], I really am. I mean, people
forget January and February, when the media was on Clinton's case with
Gennifer Flowers, all the draft stuff. I'm amazed at the public's selective
memory."
- ABC anchor Carole Simpson on C-SPAN, November 10.
...And the Admission of Reality
"We're unpopular
because the press tends to be liberal, and I don't think we can run away from
that. And I think we're unpopular with a lot of conservatives and Republicans
this time because the White House press corps by and large detested George
Bush, probably for good and sufficient reason, they certainly can cite chapter
and verse. But their real contempt for him showed through in their reporting
in a way that I think got up the nose of the American people."
- Time writer William A. Henry III on the PBS election-night special
The Finish Line.
"Indeed, coverage
of the campaign vindicated exactly what conservatives have been saying for
years about liberal bias in the media. In their defense, journalists say that
though they may have their personal opinions, as professionals they are able
to correct for them when they write. Sounds nice, but I'm not buying
any."
- Former Newsweek reporter Jacob Weisberg in The New Republic,
November 23 issue.
- 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
- David Muska; Intern
