The Pope's Not Hip
"There are some who
say he would have been more comfortable in the 5th century, but some
theologians say that really, some of the 5th century Popes were more
progressive than John Paul II."
- CBS reporter Jerry Bowen on Sunday Morning, August 15.
"Pope John Paul II
may have slowed down a step or two, but this Pope, who's often combined a
personal warmth with a theological rigidity that seemed at odds with the
times, isn't done yet."
- CBS Evening News reporter Mark Phillips, August 11.
"But as he left
Colorado to fly back to Rome, the Pope's unbending principles to Church dogma
leave many U.S. Catholics with strained feelings to Church teachings despite
their continuing strong faith in God."
- NBC reporter Roger O'Neil, August 16 Today.
Campaigning Against Weld's 0.1 Percent Tax Rate Cut
Weld tax cut proposal
causes doubt
- Boston Globe, August 11
Weld tax-cut plan could
hurt state, congressmen say
- Globe, August 15
Weld risks gambling away fiscal
credibility on tax-cut plan
- Globe, August 18
Newsweek: Blacks Don't Need "White" Values
"Emboldened by a
cultural sea change during the Reagan-Bush era, conservatives scolded, `It's
all your fault.' Dismissively, this camp insisted that what blacks need are
mainstream American values - read: white values. Go to school, get a job, get
married, they exhorted, and the family will be just fine."
- Newsweek General Editor Michele Ingrassia, August 30.
"Conservatives
argue that government programs, by giving people something for nothing,
eliminated the incentive to work in the inner cities and created an amoral
`culture of dependency.' That argument, I believe, is largely nonsense."
- Newsweek Contributing Editor Ellis Cose, same issue.
Pro-Life "Tyranny"?
"For years, women's
clinics that perform abortions have dealt with [what] abortion rights
advocates call the tyranny of the anti-choice minority. This year, the
violence has escalated, one doctor has been shot to death and yesterday
another shot and wounded."
- CNN anchor Susan Rook, August 20 World News.
Republicans: Partisan Grandstanders
"When last week all
but one Republican, Amo Houghton, voted to demand the release of those [House]
post office records, even though the prosecutor had told Congress that it
could jeopardize any potential prosecution. So that there was no thought about
doing what might have been the right thing legally. All but one decided to
grandstand and try to make an issue on the floor."
- NBC White House reporter Andrea Mitchell on C-SPAN's Journalists'
Roundtable, July 30.
Representing the Rich?
"Are you
comfortable really representing the views of what is it, just 1.2 percent of
America's top wage earners, really here, people earning over $180,000 a
year?"
- CNN anchor Judy Woodruff to Sen. Paul Coverdell (R.-Ga.), August 10 Inside
Politics.
"But Senator,
retroactive tax hikes would not affect most Americans. It would affect none of
the poor, would affect none of the middle class, and in fact, the latest polls
indicate a growing majority of Americans now think the tax plan is fair. So
whose interests do you claim to be representing here?"
- Bryant Gumbel to Sen. Coverdell, August 10 Today.
More Cheers for the Clinton Budget
"This is a first
step to gaining some control over this economy, and what the Congress did,
what the Democrats did, was shockingly, they led...This is a gamble, and is a
way to at least begin to clear away some of the debris of the '80s and set the
stage to do some other things for this country, like health care...This is not
hurting the middle class, it's only the rich that made out in the '80s."
- Newsweek reporter Eleanor Clift on The McLaughlin Group,
August 7.
"Clinton campaigned
against Reaganomics, with a view toward making the wealthy pay their `fair
share,' a tax philosophy that was out of favor in Republican
administrations."
- Chicago Tribune reporters Steve Daley and Elaine Povich, August 6
news story.
"This budget is, as
Ross Perot put it, `a bridge built halfway across the river.' But halfway is
farther than anyone has gone before."
- Time Washington Bureau Chief Dan Goodgame concluding August 16
story.
The Misinformed Middle Class
"The middle class
just doesn't believe it's going to be unaffected. By a two to one margin,
people told us they believe the middle class, not the wealthy, are going to be
paying most of the new taxes in this plan. Now that's pure cynicism....As for
the Republicans, they didn't do any work and they don't get any credit. The
public has a lot more confidence in President Clinton than in the Republicans
for managing the economy."
- CNN analyst William Schneider, August 11 Inside Politics.
"I think most
Americans believe their taxes are going to go up because they have heard lots
of radio talk show folks and Republican Senators say so. Now when they get to
filling out the returns and find out that it isn't true, it'll be too late for
President Clinton to get the credit for it."
- National Public Radio anchor Linda Wertheimer, August 8 Face the Nation.
TV Violence: Blame Conservatism
"The gangs that
menace our streets aren't home watching Cinemax, and neither are the
sociopaths who make bonfires in the parks of our homeless. And there are at
least one million homeless, a supply-side migratory tide of the
deindustrialized and dispossessed, of angry beggars, refugee children,
catatonic nomads, none of them watching Road Runner. So cut Medicare and
complain about Amy Fisher movies....Ours is a violent culture that measures
everybody by his ability to produce wealth and morally condemns anybody who
fails to prosper and now blames the talking furniture for our own
incoherence."
- CBS Sunday Morning TV critic John Leonard, August 8.
Katie's Neighborhood
"Most of us don't
think of hookers as sisters, mothers, daughters, or the girls next door, but
of course, that's who they are."
- Today and Now co-host Katie Couric, July 26 Today.
- L. Brent Bozell III; Publisher
- Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
- Brant Clifton, Chris Crowley, Andrew Gabron, Steve Kaminski; Media Analysts
- Jennifer Hardebeck; Circulation Manager
- David Muska; Intern