Notable Quotables - 10/12/1992

 

Eleanor's Good News

John McLaughlin: "Bush is dragging down the GOP senatorial and congressional candidates. It could be a rout for the GOP."
Eleanor Clift, Newsweek: "That could be termed good news, John."
- McLaughlin Group, October 3.

 

More Tough Questions for Anita Hill

"You talked, Anita, about some of the very supportive letters you've gotten, and some of the letters that have touched you. Have you received any hate mail?....They find you offensive, most of all, because you are a black woman?....Twenty years from now, fifty years from now, when people look back at these hearings, how do you want them to think of you?"
- Katie Couric's questions to Anita Hill, October 7 Today.

Are Polls Important: Depends on Clinton's Lead

Clinton's Lead Appears solid, May Be Growing Post-ABC Poll Shows Margin of 21 Points
- Washington Post, September 22

Clinton Slide in Survey Shows Perils of Polling
- Same paper, a week later when poll showed a 9-point lead for Clinton

 

Gagging Over Guam

"At every convention, they brag America's day begins here. What they don't trumpet is that something could also be ending on Guam - the right of American women to get an abortion. Guam's legislature didn't just sing its national anthem. By a whopping unanimous vote, it enacted the most stringent anti-abortion rights bill ever passed in any American jurisdiction....As [legislators] debated, Guam's archbishop sat in the gallery....So talk all you want about separation of church and state back home. Just don't talk about it on this island, which is 96 percent Catholic."
- CBS reporter Bob Faw, October 1 Evening News.

 

Taking Criticism Seriously

"The major media have simply banned evidence that Miss Flowers is telling the truth. That kind of manipulation by suppression is the liberal media's favorite trick, and accounts for 90 percent of the power they wield. It's a lot of power, because nobody can possibly be fully informed on all of the topics debated in the public arena...presidential elections are simply too important, and too closely watched, for the liberal media to pull off their usual massive quota of suppressions, distortions, and outright lies."
- William Rusher's column in the September 25 Washington Times.

"That's crazy!...The press has been, if anything, much more vigilant about fairness and objectivity and sort of explaining issues front to back this year than it ever was."
- U.S. News & World Report Assistant Managing Editor Harrison Rainie responding to the Rusher column on C-SPAN's Journalists' Roundtable, September 25.

"As Murphy Brown said, `What planet is this man living on?'"
- response of New York Times reporter Drummond Ayres, same program.

vs.

"I believe I'm going to have to stand by exactly what I said, that the coverage has not been equal, has not been fair."
- CNN anchor Reid Collins on bias against Bush, on CNN's Reliable Sources, Sept. 5.

 

Rooney Concedes the Obvious

"On September 15th, an organization known as Accuracy in Media ran a full-page ad in a New York newspaper. The ad said: 'We're fed up with negative, one-sided, deceptive news.' There are several things I agree with in this ad. I agree that generally speaking, network news people are liberal. I guess I'd have to say I have a liberal bias myself most of the time."
- 60 Minutes humorist Andy Rooney, September 27.

 

Cultural Elite Contrast

"Pat Buchanan: Diehard Nixon aide, far-right pundit, far-right presidential hopeful and currently Republican Party ideologue- without-portfolio. Scourge of sodomites and all-around fun guy."

"Bill Moyers: Public television's earnest, elegant and eclectic man of words and thought. Doing God's work here on Earth, but sometimes the halo can be blinding."
- Newsweek's cultural elite list, October 5.

 

CNN or DNC?

"Over the past 80 years or more, other nations of the industrialized world have enacted comprehensive systems to pay for health care and control costs...But the U.S. has only a patchwork system of insurance and leaves prices to the private market. Result? Costs rising relentlessly and millions of people without insurance."

"His commercials did reflect press accounts of the House Bank affair. But what the press reported was misleading - it described the affair as a scandal. But in reality, the so-called House Bank was not even a bank, just House members covering each other's checks. Nobody was cheated, no taxpayer's money misused."
- CNN reporter Brooks Jackson in the special Government for the People, October 4.

 

Why Bother Voting?

Clinton Sounds a Lot Like Bush on Most Key Issues Facing Small Business

On Global Matters, Two Candidates; Positions Are Mostly in Sync

Bush, Clinton Differ Little on Military
- Washington Post headlines of Sept. 13, Sept. 18 and Sept. 29

 

Simon Says

"Mr. Buchanan, some surveys have suggested that your speech at the Republican convention, in which you specifically denounced gay rights, and some other speeches there have promoted a lack of tolerance, an incivility, a lack of manners in a sense, among certain Republicans that has not gone over well with American voters, not just gay Americans, but people who feel homosexual rights is a basic civil rights issue. Have you hurt the Republican ticket with those remarks this year?"
- Weekend Today co-host Scott Simon questioning Pat Buchanan, October 3.

"Did [Buchanan's convention speech] in any way do the gay community a favor?...It's called Americans of every sexual preference together to say that this is a human rights issue. In that sense, has it cut against the people who wanted to, maybe from your point of view, further inflict your community with ignorance?"
- Simon to Jeff Yarborough, Editor-in-Chief of the gay magazine The Advocate, same show.

Al Gore, Icon of the New Manhood

"Al Gore leaned against his orthopedic back pillow, drank bottled water and reflected on the human spirit and his newfound sense of self. How is it that the wooden-tongued policy wonk of 1988 has emerged as a spokesman for the inner child, an icon of the new manhood?...But when Vice President Dan Quayle derides Gore's notions as `pretty bizarre stuff,' he may not be aware that millions of people attend support groups every week in the U.S."
- Time Chicago reporter Elizabeth Taylor, October 12 issue.

 

- L. Brent Bozell III; Publisher
- Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
- Brant Clifton, Nicholas Damask, Steve Kaminski, Marian Kelley, Tim Lamer; Media Analysts
- Jennifer Hardebeck; Circulation Manager