Notable Quotables - 12/09/1991
The Right Hates Being in Power
"Particularly on
the right, they are totally uncomfortable with the notion of being in power,
because they are by definition critics and outsiders. They want to preserve
the purity of their ideas. If you're going to be in power and you're going to
govern, particularly with a Congress in the hands of the other party, by
definition you have to compromise and blur your purity....Look, you have to
understand that Pat [Buchanan] and his friends hate being in power, and the
only way that they can raise money and get their forces going is to send out a
fundraising letter which says `We've been betrayed, send money.'"
- U.S. News & World Report Senior Writer Steven Roberts on the
Monitor Channel program Rod MacLeish's Week, November 23.
Not "Another" Tax Cut
"I'm just a strong
advocate for no tax cut. I've talked to economists all over the political
spectrum and the thing that I've been struck by during the past week is all of
them say it would really be better if Congress did not pass a tax cut...All of
them say if we get any extra money, we should use that to bring down the
federal deficit, rather than use it to give Americans another tax cut."
- Time congressional correspondent Nancy Traver on C-SPAN's Journalists'
Roundtable, November 29.
Cranston: Remorseful or Not?
"CRANSTON REBUKED
BY ETHICS PANEL: He Expresses 'Deep Remorse' Over the S&L Scandal"
- New York Times, November 21
"Cranston Harshly
Rebuked, Shows Little Remorse"
- Los Angeles Times, same day
Tax Cuts Trap Republicans
"The whirlwind that
the GOP sowed nationally with its anti-tax campaigns - and its neglect of
highways, schools, and other public services - has touched down in
California, battering Wilson and tearing the GOP apart. The anti-tax revolt
that was started by California Republicans and culminated in Bush's `read my
lips' campaign of 1988 has hardened voters so indiscriminately against taxes
that those same Republicans can't govern after they're elected. Trapped in
their own anti-tax rhetoric, they find that voters are refusing to pay for
programs that even Republicans support."
- Time reporter Michael Duffy, November 25.
Middle Class: Impoverished or Enriched?
"For the last 18
years, the average voter has been mugged by the American economy. People of
all races have seen their incomes decline. From 1972 to 1986, the real
after-inflation wages of all workers dropped more than 10 percent - 1972 to
1986 - and it's still going on. In the 1980s, the rich got the headlines and
the rest of the country got the shaft."
- NBC's John Chancellor, November 20 Nightly News.
"In fact, though
there was economic expansion in the '80s, the standard of living for most
American families has not improved since the mid-1970s."
- NBC reporter Jeff Madrick, November 23 Nightly News.
"Middle-income
Americans have actually received a modest increase in their cash pay - a 1
percent annual rise through the 1980s, after adjusting for the broadest index
of inflation, the gross national deflator. Of course, rich Americans have done
even better. But any claim that the middle class is doing poorly simply
because the rich are doing better is based on jealousy, not facts."
- Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Rich Thomas, November 4.
Mississippi Racism or Media Mendacity?
"Civil rights
advocates in both parties believe this was only the first shot in a deliberate
White House attempt to play the politics of race. The issue is jobs and who
gets them - a powerful political issue, especially during hard times. It's
what helped David Duke stir white anger in Louisiana and get Republican Kirk
Fordice elected Governor of Mississippi."
- NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell on controversy over signing the "civil
rights" bill, November 21 Nightly News.
"The national
`spin' on Mississippi's gubernatorial election has spun out of control, and
the result has been an unfair likening of our race to Louisiana's....This
newspaper endorsed [Democratic Gov. Ray] Mabus, but we are not blind to the
political shortcomings and strategic mistakes that contributed to his defeat.
The national analysts would do well to delve a little deeper into the factors
behind that defeat rather than make unfounded and largely uninformed
assumptions."
- Editorial in the Meridian (Miss.) Star, November 10.
"Racial Politics": Code Words for Republican Racism
"It's been widely
suggested, and accepted now, that to use the term quotas or anti-affirmative
action are really code words for racial politics, and that all that Duke did
was use the same rhetoric that had become, even rhetoric that was used in the
1988 Bush campaign, in the Helms race and other Republican races. Now is that
legit?"
- Jim Lehrer to John Sununu on The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour, November
18.
Prime the Pump
"Usually, when the
economy is in a slump, the federal government can help end misery by flexing
its fiscal muscle. Franklin Roosevelt's work projects during the Great
Depression are a classic example of how the federal government can help by
putting people to work."
- USA Today front page article by
reporter Mark Memmott, November 20.
Bum Defense
"Appealing as it
may be to dump loafers off the dole, few experts would agree that the nation's
general assistance rolls include many truly able-bodied adults, or that jobs
are available to those who lose their benefits....Many are functionally unable
to get or hold a job - some because of medical or psychological problems;
others lack access to transportation. A few are drug or alcohol
dependents."
- Newsweek Senior Writer Tom Morganthau on Michigan's welfare cuts,
December 2.
Iran: More Progressive Than U.S. on Women
Gordon Peterson:
"You'd rather be any place but Washington? I hope that's hyperbole...How
about Iran?"
Robin Wright, Los
Angeles Times reporter: "Well, that's what people always ask me and
the fact is that there are more women in the Iranian parliament than in the
U.S. Senate."
- Exchange on Inside Washington, November 23.
Democracy Requires Socialized Medicine
"Because health
insurance in the U.S. is tied so tightly to employment (particularly at larger
companies), millions of people who are either unemployed or self-employed have
no insurance. What does this say about our democracy? Why should adequate
medical treatment have anything to with where - or even whether - an
American works?"
- Time Managing Editor Henry Muller in the Time newsletter Editor's
Notes.
Republican Rappers
"[Rap musician] Ice
Cube spreads a thin veneer of political correctness over his writing, but his
ringing endorsement of gun ownership, male superiority, and Asian-bashing
makes him sound much more like a right-wing Republican than he'd ever
admit."
- Washington Post music critic Geoffrey Himes, November 3.
- 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
