Remembering Reagan & Evaluating Bush
"Though heir to an
Administration that had been myopic about the sensitivities of minorities,
Darwinian about the plight of the poor and shockingly permissive about the
ethics of its members, Bush tactfully made clear his own sterner
standards...Bush put his hand to his chest, managing to convey the patrician's
distaste for the grimy standards he had lived with, though uncomplainingly,
since 1981."
- from the Time book, The Winning of the White House 1988.
"He appealed to
traditional American values - bigotry, envy, greed, chauvinism and
fear...Reagan was more subtle."
- Clark Clifford on George Bush. From the February 5 Washington Post
Magazine.
"I'm one of the few
people who had no tears in my eyes when that helicopter took off and Reagan
was going back to California. I was going, 'Bye, hope you stay there and have
a nice life.' But Bush on the other hand, though I would never vote for him, I
didn't vote for him, I couldn't stand for the campaign he ran. He's looking
like a President with the appointments he made. He is not doctrinaire."
- Washington Post "Personalities" columnist Chuck Conconi
on Mutual's Larry King Show, January 20.
"How well I
remember the fall day in 1980 when Ronald Reagan was elected...Once the
outcome was clear, I walked the streets till dawn, sure that the world would
come to an end. Now, slightly mellowed but still a staunch liberal, I have a
secret to confess. I've grown fond of the man, and will even be a little sad
to see him go. My fellow Democrats and feminists will stone me for this, but
like Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle, I've grown accustomed to his face in
the Oval Office....It was easy, all too easy, to like Mr. Reagan the man or
myth, even if you disagreed with almost everything he did in practice."
- Jamie Stiehm, a CBS News assignment editor in London until last year,
writing in the January 19 Christian Science Monitor.
Savings & Loans
"Bush's S&L
plan gathers backers"
- Washington Times, February 7.
"Bush's Plan on
S&Ls Meets With Wait-and-See Attitudes"
- Washington Post, same day.
Dan Rather
"Dan Rather of CBS
News referred to Quayle yet again as 'J. Danforth Quayle,' which is not only a
cheap shot by an old cheap shot. The only cure may be to start referring to
the anchor as 'J. Danforth Rather.'"
- Washington Post television critic Tom Shales on coverage of the
Bush address to Congress, February 10.
Afghanistan
"The [Afghan] army
has controlled this beautiful ruggedly landscape with the help of women right
from the revolution. It's the women of this country who have the most to lose
if this Marxist revolution fails, if the government falls to the
fundamentalist Muslim rebels. A woman's place in such a society would be back
under the head to toe covering of the chaterra, cooking and bearing
children."
- Reporter Steve Hurst on CNN PrimeNews, February 9.
Marxist Reporter
"Michael Gartner,
who edited MacDougall's front-page [Wall Street] Journal
stories in the 1960s, and is now President of NBC News, calls him an 'editor's
dream. He was a very thorough, very careful, very good reporter.'"
- February 6 Time article on reaction to the revelation by reporter
A. Kent MacDougall that Karl Marx is his "favorite journalist."
Tax Hike
"We cannot simply
sidestep what is happening by resorting to the old ideologies or to new
slogans. Who wants to read Bush's lips when to do so in the face of gigantic
budget deficit means the slow decline of the America we know and believe
in?"
- Mortimer Zuckerman, Editor in Chief of U.S. News & World Report,
February 6.
Campaign Theories
"There's an awful
lot of hand wringing going on these days about the media-meisters and the
manipulators and all that, and it is largely hysteria....I just don't think
you can make a very good case that Michael Dukakis got manipulated by Lee
Atwater into losing 40 states."
- ABC News White House reporter Brit Hume, quoted in the February 9 Washington
Times.
Bush Budget
"But Democrats
raised a long list of objections. They noted that even though he had
campaigned as the education President, Mr. Bush proposes a small cut in
education funds."
- Reporter Sheilah Kast, on ABC's World News Tonight, February 10.
"The President
proposes rewarding some schools like these with more federal aid and even a
few scholarships for the nation's best math and science students. Flores was
pleased to hear Bush say he wants to be an education President."
- Reporter Robert Hager on NBC Nightly News, same night.
"President Bush
sees more people and companies earning more money and paying more taxes
without any increase in the tax rate. But most experts say that's not likely
to happen. They say inflation will force Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the
Federal Reserve Board, to push interest rates higher. Loan rates would go up.
That would slow down the housing industry and the auto industry and then the
economy as a whole. And with that, the government would collect less money in
taxes and the budget deficit would grow. It would take new taxes to reduce
it."
- Reporter Mike Jensen on the February 10 NBC Nightly News.
Dan Rather:
"President Bush said last night our first obligation is to the most
vulnerable: infants, poor mothers, children living in poverty. Those
sentiments clash with the reality of a decade which has found the federal
government offering school children less food for thought."
Reporter Bob McNamara:
"Pizza and fruit cup might seem like little for lunch, but for many it's
more than the main hot meal of the day, it's the only one. Since 1981, budget
cuts have taken school lunches away from two million children. And nutrition
experts today fear that if President Bush's budget doesn't add up, food
assistance to children will be cut again."
- CBS Evening News, February 10.
U.S. Terrorism
"Navy shot down two
Libyan jets the other day. Seems they mistook them for two Iranian airbuses
full of tourists."
- joke from Kris Kristofferson at a Washington benefit concert for the
Christic Institute. Reported by Alex Heard in February 13 New Republic.
- L. Brent
Bozell III; Publisher
- Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham, Marc S. Ryan; Editors
- Jim Heiser, Jay Marois, Patrick Swan, Dorothy Warner; Media Analysts
- Cynthia Bulman; Administrative Assistant