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The Best Notable Quotables of 1998:
The Eleventh Annual Awards for the
Year’s Worst Reporting
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Move Over Buddy Award
(for Geraldo Rivera’s Pro-Clinton Lapdoggery) |
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First
Place
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"Twinkle, twinkle Kenneth Starr, now we see how crude you are / Up above your jury high, like the judge up in the sky /Twinkle, twinkle little Starr, now we see how wrong you are /When you drag the agents in, when you bully moms and kin / then you kiss the treacherous Tripp, twinkle, twinkle DC drip/Twinkle, twinkle little Starr, now we see how small you are."
— NBC News reporter Geraldo Rivera singing his version of Twinkle Little Star after playing video of U.S. Representative Mike Pappas (R-NJ) on the House floor singing his version in a birthday tribute to Kenneth Starr, July 21
Rivera Live on CNBC. [71 points] |
Runners-up: |
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"How much of his vital attention is being consumed by Ken Starr’s endless probe, by the Monica Lewinsky saga, by the fears that his trusted Secret Service agents will be forced to rat out the maybe gory details of his private life....And finally, and most importantly, how can our bridge to the 21st century feel about the slanderous charge amounting almost to treason, that for Johnny Chung’s bribe of 100,000 lousy dollars he sold America’s missile secrets to the Chinese, who now aim their deadly devices at America’s children?....I watch him and I wonder how he does it. I watch him and wonder how much is too much for any man."
— Rivera on Clinton’s plight, May 19 Rivera Live on CNBC. [47]
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"Will all of the media, including NBC, give even a fraction of the airtime and the newsprint that we gave to these allegations [Filegate, Whitewater, Travelgate] to the fact that no impeachable offenses were found? When are we going to say to the President of the United States, ‘we’re sorry’?"
— Rivera, after citing a Nexis count of stories on the other scandals, September 14
Rivera Live on CNBC. [44]
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"I thought that Linda Tripp now takes her place in the Hall of Infamy as a betrayer of the order of Benedict Arnold in the, in the, at least in the love ‘90s...I think anybody who wrapped themselves around Linda Tripp and her tapes is now soiled. You felt the need to take a shower. What that woman did to her young friend is beyond the pale. I think it’s much worse than anything Bill Clinton did."
— Rivera as a guest expert on NBC’s Today, November 18. [39]
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"They [Linda Tripp and Lucianne Goldberg] wanted to make money on a book but once push came to shove they were perfectly willing to sacrifice the young former White House intern on the altar of greed, on the altar of hatred for Bill Clinton and his administration and I think they’re going to accomplish that at least in the short term. But if it comes to trial Linda Tripp will be facing some severe questioning by Monica Lewinsky’s very capable counsel. And my God, a first year law student hearing those tapes will be able to make her look like exactly what she is, a treacherous, back-stabbing, good-for-nothing enemy of the truth."
— Rivera from China where he was covering Clinton’s visit, on CNBC’s
Rivera Live, June 26. [32]
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Damn Those Conservatives Award
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First
Place |
"The stock market crashed in October 1987, another setback for Reagan. Black Monday raised doubts about the soundness of Reagan’s economic policies. On Reagan’s watch tax revenues would double, but they never kept up with spending. The national debt nearly tripled. Although most Americans benefited, the gap between the richest and poorest became a chasm. Donald Trump and the new billionaires of the 1980s recalled the extravagance of the captains of industry in the 1880s. There were losers. Cuts in social programs created a homeless population that grew to exceed that of Atlanta. AIDS became an epidemic in the 1980s, nearly 50,000 died. Reagan largely ignored it."
— Narrator of PBS American Experience profile of Ronald Reagan, February 24. [63 points] |
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Runners-up: |
"I’ve got to know, Pat, why is this John Edwards/Lauch Faircloth race so important to the Republicans, other than the obvious that Senator Faircloth is considered to be one of the junior Grand Wizards of the vast right-wing conspiracy?"
— MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann to former Democratic pollster Pat Caddell, October 26
The Big Show. [49]
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"I think Republicans are doing a rendition — remember that old Zero Mostel parody Springtime for Hitler? I think that’s what they’re doing. The moral charge against Bill Clinton is being led by Newt Gingrich, the only Speaker in history to be sanctioned for unethical conduct, the most unpopular political figure in America. Dan Burton, the committee chairman, now has, at least according to the Washington Times, has his staff wearing latex gloves because he says left-wingers are sending him condoms in the mail. His staff aide, Mr. Bossie, most reporters I know think was a duplicitous wacko."
— Wall Street Journal Executive Washington Editor Al Hunt, May 9
Capital Gang. [44]
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"I’m happy about Fritz [Hollings]. He’s a crusty old coot, the kind you don’t really see in Congress any more. Faircloth is a sort of more recent edition. He’s a member of the hater branch of the North Carolina Republican Party, so good riddance to him."
— Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas, November 7
Inside Washington. [43]
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"Bill Bennett, Mr. Virtues, has said basically that Clinton is morally unfit to hold office. I’m sure Bill believes that, but this is the same Bill Bennett who has a close friend and goes on trips with Newt Gingrich, the Speaker of the House who’s been accused of some of the same sort of moral turpitude that the President’s been accused of....Gingrich gave his wife her walking papers a day out of cancer surgery. Now that’s character and as long as we play political games, and we view character in a ideological sense, I don’t think the American public is going to be anything but cynical."
— Wall Street Journal’s Al Hunt on CNN’s Capital
Gang, February 1. [42]
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Politics of Meaninglessness Award
(for the Silliest Analysis)
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First
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"The Communist Manifesto is well worth the $12 that Verso is asking. Despite the hype, its message is a timeless one that bears repeating every century or so: The meek shall triumph and the mighty shall fall; the hungry and exhausted will get restless and someday — someday! — rise up against their oppressors. The prophet Isaiah said something like this, and so, a little more recently, did Jesus."
— Time columnist Barbara Ehrenreich in an April 30 book review for the Web site Salon. [62 points]
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Runners-up:
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"We are often judgmental about people that are different from us...and we don’t even understand what their problems are...A lot of students got killed at Tiananmen Square, but I remember several students got killed at Kent State. And, remember, they have a lot more students than we do. We shot down our own students."
— Ted Turner promoting the new 24-part CNN documentary series Cold
War, September 24 Washington Post. [49] |
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"China has a one-child policy. Is that a good idea for all countries?"
— Good Morning America co-host Lisa McRee to Bill McKibben, author of
Maybe One: A personal and Environmental Argument for Single-Child
Families, May 30. [46]
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"Ken Starr and his people have been working for three to four years, spent more than $30 million, they’ve used dozens if not a hundred or so FBI agents. They may have turned this up, whether you had the Paula Jones case or not. But again maybe not, but again that’s like if a frog had side pockets he’d probably wear a handgun. It didn’t happen that way."
— Dan Rather, Feb. 5 Late Show with David Letterman. [41]
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"I was thinking about what Jane Fonda said the other night about North Georgia and how she thought North Georgia was not unlike parts of the developing world and some politicians in Georgia jumped all over her....And the truth of the matter is there are parts of America which are just as bad as some of the worst parts in the rest of the world and that’s desperately sad."
— ABC News anchor Peter Jennings on Jane Fonda’s charge that children are "starving to death" in Georgia, April 23
CBS Late Late Show with Tom Snyder. [40]
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"The women’s movement brought change and power to millions of American females. Virginal brides surrendered to the sexual revolution. Modern fashions exposed body parts previously reserved for the bedroom. Entering the work force meant the old ways that women met men were ancient history [video clip of a milkman]. And a new breed of superwoman said ‘I can have it all’...The search for pleasure leads some women to shop [video of sex toys] and some to stray...And experts say many husbands and wives can become stronger individuals, and on rare occasions, might even find that cheating recharges their marriage."
— CBS This Morning co-host Jane Robelot, April 23. [39]
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