Intelligent Subversion of the Law
"Stonewalling happens to be
good lawyering and I'm glad the President and Monica Lewinsky
have good lawyers."
- Newsweek's Eleanor
Clift on FNC's Hannity & Colmes, June 3.
"I think if a married man
commits adultery, lying sort of goes with it, and committing
perjury in a civil case that's been thrown out of court, I think
you'd have to look long and hard to find anybody in this country
who has suffered a penalty because of that....Now Sean, I've
been around Washington long enough that I've heard lots of
politicians tell lots of lies. And I don't know that I put lies
about sex in a higher category than lies about public policy
that might affect my life."
- Clift, same show.
Matthew Miller, U.S.
News & World Report: "He [Clinton] either
has to say the truth or decide to lie about adultery, or an
affair...I don't think that the American people will actually
care about that."
Suzy DeFrancis, GOP consultant: "He
[Miller] thinks American people are the most lawless
people..."
Miller: "Not lawless. Intelligent."
-
Exchange on CNBC's Hardball, June 9.
Put On Blinders, Not Binoculars
Ted Koppel:
"It has the potential of being a terrific conspiracy story.
Several members of Congress, including Speaker Gingrich, have
called on President Clinton not to go to China this month as
planned until he answers to Congress. But the story may not have
the additional advantage of being true."
Chris Bury: "For all the sound and fury
here in Washington, no concrete evidence has yet emerged to
support the two most damaging allegations. It is not certain any
classified missile technology was transferred to China. And no
one has produced any proof that President Clinton changed policy
because of campaign contributions."
- ABC's Nightline, June 3.
Unserious, Imbalanced Borger
"Translation [of GOP
policy]: We can't get Bill Clinton to tell the truth about
Monica Lewinsky, so let's get him to fess up to cavorting with
the Chinese. Please. Through their blunderbuss tactics,
Republicans are undermining their own pledges to conduct serious
and balanced inquiries."
- U.S. News & World
Report columnist Gloria Borger in a June 8 article titled
"Commies! Treason! Yippee!"
Rather's Prosecutorial Attack
"Good evening. There is new
information tonight about President Clinton's response to Ken
Starr's hard press in his investigation of the President's
personal life. As CBS News White House correspondent Scott
Pelley reports, the President has declined Starr's unprecedented
request for his testimony."
- Dan Rather, May 27 CBS
Evening News.
"Good evening. There are
these important developments tonight in Ken Starr's
prosecutorial attack against President Clinton and Monica
Lewinsky."
- Dan Rather, June 2 CBS Evening News.
Monica's New Lawyer: Exhibit A for Why Starr Should Quit
"He is a walking, talking
precedent for prosecutorial forebearance. It took [Jacob] Stein
just six months and $312,000 to wrap up his investigation and
decide not to bring any indictments against [then-Attorney
General Ed] Meese. So when he finally sits down with Starr,
Stein won't be just Lewinsky's defender. He'll be Exhibit A in
the argument that it may be time for Starr's nearly four-year
odyssey to come to an end."
- Time reporter
Adam Cohen ending June 15 Stein profile.
Starr Appeal Threatens America
"You've always thought when
you talked to your lawyer it was confidential, even after you
die. But not if the independent counsel has his way....Once you
die, whatever you told your attorney in absolute confidence
suddenly becomes fair game. What you said may hurt your
reputation, or implicate your child in drug abuse or embarrass
your family, it doesn't matter. A prosecutor should, Starr
argues, be able to make your lawyer talk. Whatever the Supreme
Court's ruling may mean to Starr's investigation of the White
House, it could profoundly affect how you deal with your
attorney from now on."
- ABC's Forrest Sawyer, June
8 Nightline.
"For many terminally ill
people, it is one of life's final acts: talking to a lawyer and
feeling safe that their secrets are protected, even in death, by
the attorney-client privilege....Now the attorney-client
privilege is facing its biggest challenge yet here at the
Supreme Court. The case has set off alarm bells among lawyers
and clients, the worry that what they discuss in the strictest
confidence may one day be revealed."
- CBS reporter
Stephanie Lambidakis, June 7 CBS Evening News.
We'd Sooner Forget Public Eye
"The idea of a national
apology for slavery has been floated regularly over the past
year, but always shot down, often by Americans who would sooner
forget it ever existed."
- Bryant Gumbel at
beginning of a June 3 story about Ed Ball, a wealthy Southerner
who wrote a book about coming to terms with the fact his family
owned slaves, June 3 Public Eye.
Goldwater, the Great Ex-Senator
"Goldwater was always
honest, even when honesty didn't pay. My appreciation of
Goldwater came in his and my later years when he called on Nixon
to resign and when he said that Reagan was either a liar or
incompetent for not knowing about Iran-Contra. He told the party
to let abortion alone and to quote 'boot Jerry Falwell in the
ass,' closed quote. He summed up gays in the military
brilliantly. 'You don't have to be straight to shoot straight.'
You don't get more honest than that."
- Time's
Margaret Carlson, May 30 CNN Capital Gang.
"He was also a dangerous
extremist...It [the "Daisy" ad] was a gross
exaggeration and it was demagogic and it was an effective ad,
but there was some truth to it. Goldwater was a guy who was in
favor of unleashing the Strategic Air Command."
- Newsweek
reporter (and former Washington Bureau Chief) Evan Thomas, May
30 Inside Washington.
Moderator Ken Bode:
"Fast, quick trigger-finger, yes, quick to shoot."
Robert Greenberger, The Wall Street Journal:
"But don't you think as Barry Goldwater aged, now maybe
this is a reflection on the country, maybe the country moved
center or Barry Goldwater moved left. But he seems, in his later
years he seemed a lot less unreasonable than some of the
rhetoric you hear coming out of contemporaries on Capitol
Hill."
- Exchange on PBS's Washington Week in
Review, May 29.
"In 1992, Barry Goldwater
came out in favor of lifting the ban on gays in the military -
on the exquisitely conservative grounds that sexuality was none
of the government's business. The tongue-clucking from the right
was deafening. Gary Bauer, the President of the Family Research
Council and now a kingmaker of the GOP's religious right,
lamented publicly that 'it's sad...Sen. Goldwater was once the
authentic voice of American conservatism.' Ah, but Goldwater
didn't change his stripes, the GOP did. Bauer is the
"authentic voice" of something else entirely: a
radical faction that is fast taking over the party - and
trampling the philosophy - to which Goldwater dedicated his
political life."
- Time Daily online writer
Frank Pellegrini, May 29.
Good Morning, Gun Nut
"Speaking of gun safety and
children, Mr. Heston, as you well know and in fact as everyone
in this country knows there has been a spate of school shootings
recently that have been quite disturbing to all Americans. Given
the fact that these seem to be happening with greater frequency
has it caused you to rethink your philosophy about children and
guns and the accessibility of guns for children?"
-
Katie Couric to the NRA's new President, June 8 Today.
Katie Couric:
"Getting back to kids and guns, if you will indulge me for
a moment. You cannot think of any other position the NRA could
take in terms of trying to decrease the number of school
shootings? You feel like this is not your bailiwick, this is not
your problem?"
Charlton Heston: "Not at all. As I told
you the NRA spends more money, more time..."
Couric, cutting him off: "Other than
education."
Heston: "Well what would you suppose? What
would you suggest?"
Couric: "I don't know, perhaps greater
restrictions."
- Exchange on the June 8 Today.
"The Bill of Rights was
written over 200 years ago. There weren't semi-automatic weapons
out there. There weren't AK-47s out there. There were people who
had one-shot rifles, one-shot revolvers. What do you say to
people who say, 'We're in a different time right now and we are
awash in guns'?"
- CBS host Mark McEwen to Heston,
June 8 This Morning.
"Mr. Heston, is there no
room for some limited gun control laws in this country?"
-
ABC host Lisa McRee, June 8 Good Morning America.
I Always Think the Worst of Newt
"I assume the worst when
Newt opens his mouth but I have no idea on this issue whether
Newt was wrong."
- Newsweek's Evan Thomas on
Speaker Gingrich saying Jerusalem should be the capital of
Israel.
Site of Deadly Easter Egg Rolls
"Let's make it clear,
though, that is the official welcoming spot in Beijing. It's a
little bit like the South Lawn of the White House in Washington.
That's where world leaders come for state visits."
-
Today host Matt Lauer responding to Sen. Tim Hutchinson's
claim that Clinton visiting Tiananmen Square "demeans the
lives of those who were killed" in democracy protests, June
9.
Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
Jessica Anderson, Eric Darbe, Geoffrey Dickens,
Tom Roop, Clay Waters; Media Analysts
Kristina Sewell, Research Associate
Michelle Baetz, Circulation Manager
Stacey Felzenberg, Carrie Hale, Interns