Notable Quotables - 12/29/1997

 

Reagan Airport? Didn't Nixon Hate Jews?

"This being the holiday travel season, [Grover] Norquist has another crusade: changing the name of Washington National Airport to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The Reagan Washington airport? Remind me, but didn't Reagan get elected by running against Washington? Wasn't he the one who fired the striking air-traffic controllers? (The Ronald Wilson Reagan Control Tower?) And is there evidence that Reagan actually used or liked this airport? (Nope, says a former aide.) So what's next? The Richard M. Nixon Jewish Community Center?"
- U.S. News & World Report writer Gloria Borger, December 15.

 

Kyoto: Only A Success If Liberals Win

"Many nations say the U.S., the world's largest polluter, should agree to higher targets for reduction of greenhouse gases. And they argue that the U.S. proposal of differentiation, separate targets for individual countries, benefits richer nations...If the conference ends without an agreement it will be a huge setback in the battle against global warming and a major embarrassment for the United States and host nation Japan."
- NBC Nightly News reporter Kiko Itasaka, December 7.

 

Insult Those Who Don't Buy Global Warming Mantra

Karen Kerrigan, Small Business Survival Committee: "To say that the science is conclusive, maybe from a bunch of those elitist scientists over in Kyoto, but certainly there are plenty of scientists here in the United States - those who actually have expertise in this area who say that the conclusivity is actually bunk."
Ted Koppel: "I was just going to make the observation that there are still some people who believe in the Flat Earth Society, too, but that doesn't mean they're right."
- Exchange on the December 9 Nightline.

 

The Wall Street Journal's Indictment Expert

"You ought to be real careful about appointing a special counsel. It seems to me it's ludicrous to talk about a special counsel with Henry Cisneros..."
- Al Hunt on the February 18, 1995 Capital Gang on CNN.

"Janet Reno is probably the most independent minded Attorney General since Edward Levy. She has appointed outside counsels when it was not warranted - in the case of Henry Cisneros."
- Hunt on the October 4 Capital Gang. (On December 11, Cisneros was indicted on 18 counts of lying to the FBI.)

 

Far-Right Robber-Baron Doctors

"But other doctors are wondering more vocally than ever whether the [American Medical] Association that claims to speak for them still has any real right to do so. The organization's membership is declining; its policy-making body, the House of Delegates, espouses views far to the right of many members....Other non- members ascribe their disaffection with the association to its century-long advocacy of fee-for-service health care, which they regard as a position inspired by Victorian sanctimony and robber- baron greed that gave rise to today's health-care crisis."
- New York Times reporter Abigail Zuger, December 2 news story.

 

If He's "Centrist," What's a Liberal?

"California Congressman Vic Fazio, a centrist Democrat who is retiring next year, has emerged as perhaps the leading candidate to succeed Erskine Bowles as White House Chief of Staff."
- CNN Inside Politics weekend anchor Wolf Blitzer, December 8 (In 1996, Fazio drew a zero rating from the American Conservative Union, and an 80 from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action.)

 

Lawrence: The Facts Are Not Relevant?

"Larry Lawrence may well have been eligible for burial at Arlington because he died while serving as an ambassador. But in the rancorous atmosphere of Washington, the facts may be almost beside the point."
- ABC's Michel McQueen, December 5 Nightline.

"Ironically, the cemetery officials say that Lawrence may well have been entitled to burial at Arlington simply because he was an ambassador but over the last several days all kinds of questions have been raised about his resume and record. Questions, for example, about whether or not he embellished his academic credentials. So the White House, in the end, says it will not oppose removing his body."
- ABC reporter Linda Douglass, December 15 World News Tonight.

Reality Check:
"Government documents show that of six ambassadors granted burial waivers for Arlington National Cemetery, three died violently in the line of duty while two had records far more distinguished than that of the sixth - M. Larry Lawrence, whose waiver by the Clinton administration is under intense review."
- From a December 6 Los Angeles Times story by Paul Richter.

 

Lawrence Lies Exposed: More Spin Gymnastics

"Republicans are also busy rekindling a controversy over Arlington National Cemetery, and whether the Clinton administration gave a plot to a non-veteran as a political favor."
- CNN World Today anchor Leon Harris introducing a December 4 story.

"Republicans refused Tuesday to call off their campaign to embarrass the Clinton administration with revelations about a dead ambassador who may have lied about his past to secure a prime burial site."
- Reuters report Jonathan Wright opening a December 9 dispatch.

"No one dug into Larry Lawrence's past before making him an ambassador, which then allowed him the higher honor of burial at Arlington. While the non-rich get an FBI check that includes asking the neighbors whether you take out your trash, no one bothered to check whether the rich campaign donor Lawrence was injured at sea, or in the merchant marine at all. Yet another reason for taking money out of campaigns."
- CNN columnist Margaret Carlson's "Outrage of the Week," December 6 CNN Capital Gang.

 

Those From "The Streets" Can't Be Expected to Behave

Sam Donaldson: "What he did could not be condoned. But it's striking that we have taken these sports figures and in other walks of life, too, and we've made them larger than life. We throw all the money in the world at them, the adulation, the people waiting in the aisles. And then when they do not act as if they know that the dessert spoon goes in front of the plate, well, we say, 'Well, that's horrible! That's terrible!'"
George Stephanopoulos: "Sam, he choked his coach!..."
Donaldson: "I'm not condoning it, but these guys, these guys did not come up through finishing schools and we know it. Most of them, many of them clawed their way up from the streets. It's one thing they can do in life and I don't think we can all expect them to have learned all the mores that all of us say we know."
- December 7 ABC's This Week.

 

No One Misses You

"Almost 20 years ago I began hosting the first national network radio talk show for the Mutual Broadcasting System...I left radio three years ago, although my TV show is simulcast on radio by Westwood One. I was very proud of that program. Now I apologize for what I might have started. Talk radio today is an amalgam of screaming, angry hosts with a daily agenda. I love the First Amendment and think hosts have every right to spew what they spew. But in doing so they must open themselves to examination as well...I'm sorry for the way talk radio has developed and am encouraged by the fact that America is beginning to see the light. The constant barrage against President Clinton only proves what I said a couple of years ago. With enemies like this, he doesn't need friends."
- Larry King in his USA Today column, December 1.

 

- 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; Sherri Pascale, Circulation Director
- Rebecca Hinnershitz, Karen Sanjines; Interns