Notable Quotables - 12/10/1990
They Never Knew They Had It So Good
"Under communism
few grew rich, but few went hungry; in many cases people enjoyed surprisingly
high levels of prosperity. In Poland, for example, wealthy entrepreneurs were
able to afford Western luxury automobiles; in Czechoslovakia ownership of
second homes was common. Now many may no longer be able to enjoy such
extravagance."
- Time Warsaw correspondent John Borrell, December 3 news story.
"Poles had hoped
that the long wait had ended, but it has not. After four decades of standing
in communism's food lines, capitalism has created a new place to wait: at the
unemployment office."
- NBC reporter Mike Boettcher, November 16 Nightly News.
Pummeling the Prime Minister
"Margaret Thatcher
leaves behind a unique and complicated legacy. She came to office promising to
'renew the spirit and solidarity of the nation,' yet divided Britain between
north and south, haves and have-nots, winners and losers."
- Washington Post reporter Glenn Frankel, November 25.
"A Thatcher
revolution has brought great prosperity to some, but such basic elements in
Britain's welfare state as health service, education, and housing have all
deteriorated under Thatcher."
- ABC reporter Barrie Dunsmore on World News Tonight, November 20.
"Thatcher is (one
yearns to finally say 'was') an instructive example to Americans of what
happens when the mechanics of a parliamentary democracy unite a right-wing
extremist with an automatic majority of constitutionally docile legislators -
hell. In 11 years, she never could persuade a majority of her country's voters
to support her, and thus her policies, for the simple reason that she and her
policies never ceased being inimical to their welfare."
- Boston Globe columnist and former reporter Tom Oliphant, November
28.
Ted Turner's Israel
"Turner, after
describing a recent trip to the Mideast, noted that he 'raised millions for
Jewish causes' but feels Israel now has 'apartheid just like in South
Africa.'"
- Editor & Publisher reporter David Astor on CNN founder's
speech to the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors, November 17 E
& P.
Paying for Reagan
"Some say Ronald
Reagan won the Cold War by spending so much on defense that the Kremlin went
bankrupt trying to keep up. That won't wash. During Reagan's presidency the
United States itself became a bankrupt country."
- NBC commentator John Chancellor, November 20 Nightly News.
"Bush was saddled
with a lot of the supply-side voodooism of the Reagan era, but just as Herbert
Hoover could not escape the excesses of Warren Harding and doltishness of
Calvin Coolidge, no one will even remember the dish that Bush was served up by
Reagan....Reagan was not the President of morning in America: he was President
of the free lunch. He gave us growth, but the cost was borrowed money, more
than a trillion dollars of debt."
- Retired Boston Globe Washington Bureau Chief Robert Healy, October
11.
Offsetting Those Damaging Credentials
"His service as an
Assistant Attorney General in the Reagan Administration is offset by his
strong support for abortion rights and the environment."
- New York Times reporter Fox Butterfield on Massachusetts
Governor-Elect William Weld, November 1.
People Not Doing What Time Wants
"The defeat of
California's Big Green and other ecological initiatives in the recent election
demonstrated that voters are still confused about the best way to deal with
environmental concerns."
- Time New York reporter Eugene Linden, December 3.
"In no area did
Congress show less courage than on gasoline levies. The new deal will raise
the present 9 cent-per-gal. tax by a nickel, costing the average driver a mere
$34 a year. The plan rejected four weeks ago by the House had proposed a
10-cent hike. Even that was only half the amount economists say is needed to
significantly discourage fuel conservation."
- Time Associate Editor Richard Lacayo, Nov. 5.
"Americans are
aware of their problems but refuse to confront the fact that in order to
maintain their influence in the world, they have to change their life-style.
Americans have no constitutional right, for example, to cheap gasoline. In
Europe we pay the same price for a liter of gas as Americans pay for a gallon
- or four times as much. The additional amount we lay out goes to taxes that
provide the infrastructures that make our cities civilized and safe. Yet we do
not feel cheated at the pump. Instead of being lulled by a reassuring Reagan
line or a comforting Bush stance, Americans should accept the necessary:
sacrifices and more taxes."
- Dominique Moisi of the French Institute of International Relations, in Time's
"Essay," October 29.
"Today, with the
health-care situation moving rapidly beyond crisis to near catastrophe, the
age-old and obvious solution has the tone of a desperate whine: Why can't we
have national health insurance - like just about everybody else in the
civilized world, please?"
- Time Essayist Barbara Ehrenreich, Dec. 10.
No Good Ideas
"But the GOP is
clearly using fears about quotas to stir up white resentment and white
votes....If no-new-quotas becomes the Republican mantra, it will reveal how
desperate the party is for ideas."
- Newsweek Washington reporter Eleanor Clift, December 3.
A World Without Cuomo
"When the economy
heads south, as it now has, the kind of government that spends lavishly to
protect the environment and help the less fortunate may be seen as threatening
the interests of the middle class. If in fact, that is where the majority is
at in 1992, Cuomo will be left without a winning national message and the
country will be left with George Bush's inane points of light."
- Time Special Correspondent Michael Kramer, November 19.
Cokie's Crazies
"Picking the
sanctions against South Africa as an example, Cokie Roberts, congressional
correspondent for National Public Radio, explained the lengths to which she
had to go to be fair when reporting a congressional debate on the subject.
'Even if only a few people were against sanctions,' she noted, 'you have to
give equal time to those two or three crazies as to all those who were in
favor. That creates a kind of distortion.'"
- Quoted by Helle Bering-Jensen in Insight, December 10.
The Green Time Machine
Mock Newscast: "By
2005, 40 million are dead of starvation...epidemics rage in New York; toxic
waste spills throughout Europe; evacuation is ordered from New Orleans;
greater temperatures are still to come."
James Burke [pretending
he's in 2050]: "I found that the other day in some old library. It's a
videotape from 1990, and that was how they thought we'd turn out. Funny how
they would miss one of the changes that we would really care about. I mean, do
you remember hamburgers, traffic jams, log fires in winter, a place called
Miami, a time when the Japanese weren't running everything?"
- From the PBS special After the Warming, November 21.
- L. Brent
Bozell III; Publisher
- Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
- Callista Gould, Jim Heiser, Marian Kelley, Gerard Scimeca; Media Analysts
- Jennifer Hardebeck; Administrative Assistant
