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The Best Notable Quotables of 1993:
The Sixth Annual Awards for the
Year’s Worst Reporting
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What's the Frequency Award
(for Ratherisms) |
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First
Place
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Dan Rather: "Some days I say `Why is he [Clinton] doing that?' or `Gosh, can he do it a little better?' But it may be time to, sort of as you say, chill. We know when it comes to politics and governing, whatever you think of this President, whether you voted for him or not, he can hang -- which is to say he can do it...."
Arsenio Hall: "See! See! Dan is deep, ain't he? Dan in the Hood!...I thank you for being here. You're a special guy. And I hope whatever you have is contagious."
-- Exchange from The Arsenio Hall Show, January 28. |
Runners-up: |
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"Mr. Clinton was about as relaxed as a pound of liver."
-- Dan Rather referring to his earlier interview with Clinton, January 20
CBS This Morning.
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"Well, in Texas they have a saying: `That's a good way for Momma to drive a Cadillac,' which is a way of saying that if you play with one of these things, particularly if you are in a low-water area. I would say, Harry, this morning there must be lot of people who are in that let's-have-another-cup-of-coffee-and-not-worry-about-it stage. And I agree with that. That's the stage to be in."
-- Dan Rather with CBS This Morning co-host Harry Smith, as Hurricane Emily approached on August 30.
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"If an American inauguration can't bring a lump to your throat and a tear to your eye, if you don't feel as corny as Kansas in August, maybe you need a jump-start and some vitamins."
-- Dan Rather during inauguration coverage, January 20.
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The White Men Can Go Jump Award
(for Victimology)
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First
Place |
"If I'm a young black man in South Central L.A., where poverty is rampant and unemployment is skyrocketing, I see that Washington's promises of a year ago have gone unfulfilled, I see that perhaps for a second time, the court's inability to mete out justice in a blind fashion, why shouldn't I vent my anger?"
-- Bryant Gumbel to Rep. Maxine Waters, April 15 Today. |
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Runners-up: |
"One of the fires was started by a homeless man trying to keep warm. It represents the strains in our society, from neglect to the nihilism, the `burn, baby' nihilism of people who actually go and start fires like this."
-- Newsweek reporter Eleanor Clift on who started the California fires, October 30
McLaughlin Group. |
"Like the country club that bars women from the golf course, where many deals are made, the game of softball can act as another barrier, another means of excluding women from the corporate inner
circle."
-- USA Today reporter Julia Lawlor, June 1 "Life" section story.
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"When rioting, looting, and arson erupted last spring, it wasn't just anger over the Rodney King verdict, it was an explosion of rage over years of social and economic neglect, poor schools, violent streets, joblessness, poverty, and no hope. Has anything changed? Quite honestly, very little has."
-- CNN reporter Greg Lamotte, March 22 World News news story.
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The Henry Luce Would Roll Over
In His Grave Award
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First
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"The real story is the proposed gas tax is far too low...There's only one problem with the 4.3 cents-per-gal. gas tax the Senate has proposed: it's too little...Where it says 4.3 cents, they should add two words: a year. And maybe a third word: forever. For decades, we'd still be paying vastly less for gas than our competitors (in Europe and Asia, gas goes for nearly $4 per gal.). For decades, the hike in the tax would be more or less canceled out by available improvements in fuel efficiency -- so it would cost no more to drive a mile."
-- Time "Money Angles" columnist Andrew Tobias, July 26 issue.
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Runners-up:
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"So Clinton is right to back off his plan for a middle-class tax cut and right again to `revisit' the proposal to increase gasoline taxes, regressive levies he routinely dismissed as unfair during the
campaign."
-- Time Chief Political Correspondent Michael Kramer, January 25. |
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"We need to raise taxes...As for gasoline -- which costs about $3.75 per gal. throughout Europe -- Ross Perot was right. Phase in a 50-cent tax over five years, and you raise $50 billion a year."
--Time "Money Angles" columnist Andrew Tobias, January 25.
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"When Clinton's `Climate Change Action Plan' finally debuted last week, environmentalists could muster only faint praise....There are two major omissions: the plan does nothing to raise auto fuel-economy standards, and it contains no energy-tax hikes to boost conservation."
-- Time Associate Editor Michael D. Lemonick, November 1. |
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