Blaming Everyone But the Killer
"My concern with
this guy, Weston, is he's a guy talking up this business about
the evils of big government and he's a nut case, but this is
his rant and I wonder if, you know, in some way the Republicans
in this town haven't gone too far with this kind of
logic."
-FNC
analyst and Washington Post reporter Juan Williams on the
Capitol Hill shooting, July 26 Fox News Sunday.
"This generous nation rebuilt its enemies and held the line
against communism until communism died. We gave the world
lessons in political and economic democracy and free speech and
religious tolerance. We dealt with our flaws openly. And yet, as
we end this American century, with the sounds of gunfire in our
most treasured institutions, we still have so far to go. Just
ask the families of officers Jacob Chestnut and John
Gibson."
- NBC
Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw in end of the show thoughts
on the day of the shooting, July 24.
"It is not hard to imagine, in the super-charged,
controversial, scandal atmosphere of this country that somebody
is angry at the President or anybody in politics in Washington
and if not entirely got their feet on the ground, might act out.
Is it?"
-
MSNBC's John Gibson to security analyst Jeff Beatty, July 24.
"Quickly, we're almost out of time, but it seems to me
that money is an issue. That [mental health] funding was cut 25
percent during the Reagan administration. It's gone down ever
since. Don't we need to funnel more money into helping these
people? The fact that half of the homeless population may be
untreated mentally ill is a real tragedy don't you
think?"
-
Katie Couric to two psychologists, July 29 Today.
Tax Cut = Government Spending
"We're seeing
this fascinating flip-flop where the Democrats now take all of
the economic arguments Republicans used to give and the
Republicans have become the free spending, because a tax cut is
another way of talking about spending government money."
-
Former New York Times and U.S. News reporter Steve
Roberts on CNN's Late Edition, July 26.
"Since 1981 we have increased the national debt five times thanks to the tax cuts." - ABC's Sam Donaldson on This Week, July 26.
Linda Tripp, Wiretapping Witch
"Addressing an
ungrateful nation from the courthouse beach, as the grand-jury
stakeout is known, and shaking like a leaf, Tripp made a
desperate effort to humanize herself as a truth-seeking patriot,
a 'suburban mom' protecting her kids. 'Who am I?' she
began. 'I'm you,' she answered, 'an average American.'
I shouted back at the TV, 'No, you're NOT! Take that
back!'"
- Time's
Margaret Carlson, August 10 issue.
"Linda Tripp seemed to try to cast herself as a victim in
this case, almost an unwilling participant. No mention of those
20 hours of tapes that she surreptitiously recorded with Monica
Lewinsky. Is that curious from your perspective?"
-
CNN The World Today co-anchor Jim Moret to CNN reporter
Bob Franken the night Tripp spoke, July 29.
"Tripp [down arrow]: Says 'I'm you.' We're made-over, illegally-taping, friend-betraying Cruella DeVils?" - Newsweek's Conventional Wisdom Watch, August 10.
"Linda Tripp: She vents, Lucianne crows, Monica sings &
Bill squirms. Its The Witches of Eastwick 1998!"
-
Time's Winners & Losers feature, August 10.
Clinton Should Stonewall
"I simply do not
understand why the President would agree to testify...I would
push it to a constitutional showdown for the simple reason:
these are unchartered waters. The Supreme Court has never
spoken, as to whether a sitting President can be compelled to
testify before a federal grand jury. So rather than leave us in
sort of a legal limb, why not take it through the court system,
let the Supreme Court review all the facts, all the evidence and
make a determination whether or not the separation of powers
doctrine bars a sitting President from having to answer to the
subpoena?"
-
CNN legal analyst and co-host of Burden of Proof Greta
Van Susteren on The World Today, July 27.
"The mood in Congress is not for impeachment, and the mood
in the country is not for impeachment. I would dare Congress to
follow the President into the bedroom."
-
Time Deputy Washington Bureau Chief Jef McAllister in the
August 3 Time Daily.
"Clinton [down arrow]: 'I've done some things Im not
proud of'... 'Nah, that won't work. Keep stonewalling.'"
-
Newsweek's Conventional Wisdom Watch, August 10.
Clift Will Go Down with the Ship
Newsweek's
Eleanor Clift: "If he told the truth the first
time he should stick with it. If he's got adjustments to make,
nows the time."
John
McLaughlin:"So you think, you think that he will
leave things the way they are because it is your feeling that he
told the truth, right?"
Clift:
"My feeling is that he told the truth and I know on this
set there is an entire presumption of guilt. Read the words
carefully. What did he admit to? Read the words carefully. What
did he admit to?...At worst, this is lying about sex and the
American people approach this with a great deal of common sense
and they don't want to see it persecuted to the extent it's
being persecuted."
-
Exchange from The McLaughlin Group, July 25.
Thomas: Slave to the White Right
"Well, he has it
right that he has that right to depart from what is considered
to be the black mainstream in a way of thinking - that's
fine. We're the first to agree with that. I would champion him
on that. What is, the reason the people oppose him is that
because that thinking is wrong, and thats why. And we
expected a black Supreme Court judge to be more sensitive to the
right way of thinking than he turned out to be. It's not that
he doesn't have the right to do it, and he is a black man, a
man in America, as he says. But he's not just any black man in
America. He's someone who has the power to force his ideas and
his way of thinking upon the rest of us. He's a life-altering
black American man."
-
Gannett News Service reporter Deborah Mathis on Clarence
Thomas's speech to black lawyers, August 1 Inside
Washington.
"Instead of discussing the work of the court or his judicial philosophy, Thomas spent half an hour lambasting the big, bad bullies in the liberal, pro-affirmative action camp for trying to make him an 'intellectual slave.' And you thought Johnnie Cochran, who happened to be in the audience, was a master of playing the race card!...
"The question
never has been who Thomas is, but what he has done and how he
got into a position to do it. Those are matters Thomas declines
to explore, for a very good reason: he may not consider himself
an intellectual slave, but he has been lavishly rewarded for
serving a particular political master. He has never made a
serious attempt to engage his black opponents in a serious
debate about his ideas. He owes his meteoric rise exclusively to
the patronage of conservative white Republicans with little
interest in racial equality."
-
Time National Correspondent Jack E. White in a piece
subtitled "Clarence Thomas has a master: the right
wing," August 10.
Any Tragedy Can Be Exploited
"Finally today, guns don't kill people, people kill people. That little slogan from the gun lobby kept running through my mind when I heard that those Capitol policemen had died. It made me wonder what might have happened if the deranged man who shot them had walked into the Capitol with another kind of weapon, say a baseball bat, or a hammer, or even a knife. My guess is not much would have happened....
"Maybe it's not
guns that kill people, but in this case, it's hard to see how
a deranged neer-do-well could have killed two police officers
and wounded a bystander without a gun. Already there's talk,
you heard it here this morning, about more security for the
Capitol. But if we face up to the hard fact that there are a lot
of deranged people out there, and that we need to make it harder
for them to get guns, then perhaps we wouldn't need more
security around our national shrines."
-
CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer, July 26.
Public Apathy About Lying? Good
"I think, not to
underestimate the American public. If you just look at one story
where the press really almost entirely went one way and the
public went the other way, was the whole episode of Monica
Lewinsky. I mean there you had a story where the press was so
consistently hostile on this story, and the public stood back
and said 'Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, we're
not going to go along with it until we're a lot further down
the road.' The public is a lot more sophisticated because
they've been exposed to too many stories that turned out not
to be true."
-
U.S. News & World Report Publisher Mortimer Zuckerman
on the July 7 Good Morning America.
"Like St. Louis fans more interested in McGwire chasing
Maris's record than allegations the President was chasing
Monica, the poll found most Americans, 67 percent, don't think
it's important to know if the President had an affair.... Most
Americans would not favor Mr. Clinton's resignation or
impeachment, even if the allegations prove true. More than half
favor a simple apology or just forgetting about it."
-
Jerry Bowen on the CBS Evening News, July 30.
Geraldo Rivera Gets Religion
Katie Couric:
"If Monica Lewinsky wrote the talking points herself the
White House is reportedly, according to the New York Times,
quite jubilant about this latest development because it blows a
hole in Ken Starr's theory that this was a case of obstruction
of justice."
Geraldo Rivera: "Amen!"
-
Today, July 29.
Publisher:
L. Brent Bozell
Editors: Brent H. Baker and Tim Graham
Media Analysts: Jessica Anderson, Eric Darbe,
Geoffrey Dickens, Mark Drake, Clay Waters
Research Associate: Kristina Sewell
Circulation Manager: Michelle Baetz
Interns: Stacey Felzenberg, Carrie Hale