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The Best Notable Quotables of 1999:
The Twelfth Annual Awards for the
Year’s Worst Reporting
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Good Morning Morons Award
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First
Place
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Tim Russert: "Is it hard holding your own views in
check?"
Bryant Gumbel: "You know what? In terms of my political views, I hold them in
check. I don’t think that someone who watches is inclined to think that I’m one
way or the other."
-- CNBC’s Tim Russert, October 30. [91]
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Runners-up: |
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"Bush is using this term ‘compassionate conservative’ as he
campaigns, which is an interesting juxtaposition of two seemingly contradictory
terms."
-- Good Morning America co-host Charlie Gibson to William Safire in discussing
phrases used by presidential candidates in the campaign, November 18. [49]
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"But are you comfortable with our national obligations, our national prestige, being
held hostage by the most conservative wing of your party?"
-- Early Show co-host Bryant Gumbel on holdup of UN dues by conservatives who
did not want U.S. money to fund abortions, to House Republican Chairman J.C. Watts,
November 10. [31]
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Gumbel: "Final note. If my research is correct, you sign papers next
week, final papers, on the house in Chappaqua. Do you happen to know what’s the
closest golf course to your house in Chappaqua?"
Clinton: "I don’t know."
Gumbel: "Whippoorwill Country Club in Armonk. Do you know who is a member
there?"
Clinton: "Are you?"
Gumbel, laughing: "Yes, sir."
Clinton, laughing: "I’d be happy to be your guest, any time. I’m
easy about that."
-- End of November 1 The Early Show interview. [26]
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"And so it is that you revolve your story around one [Netscape founder] Jim Clark. A
most unusual and successful businessman, but a strange guy, yeah?"
"But underneath it all, I mean, is he Gordon Gekko? Is he greed is good?"
"But he is in love with money?"
"So you’re going to sit there and tell me that the next great idea is what
drives Silicon Valley and not greed, ultimately?"
-- Most of Bryant Gumbel’s questions to Michael Lewis, author of a book on Silicon
Valley successes, Nov. 3. [23]
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Littleton Shop of Horrors Award
(for Exploiting a Tragedy to
Push Gun Control)
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First
Place |
"Republicans are betting that this too [Columbine] will pass, that as with
Jonesboro and Paducah, Pearl and Springfield, once the white coffins are in the ground and
the cameras gone, the outrage will subside. But maybe not this time. In town meetings and
talk radio, the public has had its fill of politicians talking resignedly about our gun
culture, as if there’s nothing to be done about a subgroup that finds schoolyard
massacres an acceptable cost for its right to be armed to the teeth."
-- Time columnist Margaret Carlson, May 10. [75] |
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Runners-up: |
"Perhaps it will take one more school shooting to move the majority of Americans
into a position more powerful than that of the NRA. Perhaps it will take one more school
shooting to move us from people who support gun control to people who vote it. But as we
continue to let the widows and the wounded do the work, be warned. That next school may be
the one your children attend; the next accident could be close to home."
-- Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen, Nov. 1. [39] |
"Is there any reason, Howard, to believe that this tragic attack on children, for
goodness sakes, will trigger any movement by this Congress to enact tougher, meaningful
new gun laws?"
"You know, Howard, I asked Congresswoman Diana DeGette of Denver, who certainly has
had to wrestle with this, about why her colleagues consistently reject tougher gun control
measures. She said two things, they’re too afraid of the NRA and they’re too
beholden to the NRA. Does it really come down to that? Do Congress people care more about
perpetuating personal power than they do about saving the lives of children?" --
MSNBC’s News with Brian Williams fill-in anchor Gregg Jarrett to Newsweek’s
Howard Fineman, Aug. 12. [38]
Part 1
Part 2
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"When you went to Littleton, a friend of yours, who supports you on gun control, said
to me in the last 48 hours, the President, because as he said Littleton has seared the
national conscience, the President had a chance to roar on gun control and he meowed, and
that was a friend of yours. There are very basic measures that could be taken that people
agree on. We register every automobile in America. We don’t register guns.
That’s a step that would make a difference."
-- Charlie Gibson in Good Morning America’s live interview with Bill
Clinton at the White House, June 4. [30]
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"Littleton, Colorado, is 1700 miles from Washington, D.C., but it might as well be a
million. For many survivors of the Columbine shooting, today’s collapse of gun
control legislation feels like a slap in the face. NBC News correspondent Jim Avila has
that part of the story."
-- MSNBC’s News with Brian Williams anchor Sara James, June 18. [27]
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Shooting the Constitution Award
(for Advocating the Banning of Guns)
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First
Place |
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"That smells of bullsh...How much longer are we gonna take that? How much longer
are we gonna be wrapping in the flag of patriotism to justify 250 millions guns out there?
How much longer?"
-- Geraldo Rivera responding to video clip of NRA chief Charlton Heston, May 3 Rivera
Live on CNBC. [62]
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Runners-up:
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"Get rid of the guns. We had the Second Amendment that said you have
the right to bear arms. I haven’t seen the British really coming by my house looking
for it. And besides, the right to bear arms is not an absolute right anyway, as New
York’s Sullivan Law proves. We talk about ourselves as a violent society, and some of
that is right and some of it is claptrap. But I think if you took away the guns, and I
mean really take away the guns, not what Congress is doing now, you would see that violent
society diminish considerably."
-- PBS NewsHour essayist Roger Rosenblatt, May 20. [61]
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"Whatever is being proposed is way too namby-pamby. I mean, for example, we’re
talking about limiting people to one gun purchase, or handgun purchase a month. Why not
just ban the ownership of handguns when nobody needs one? Why not just ban semi-automatic
rifles? Nobody needs one."
-- Time national correspondent Jack E. White, May 1 Inside Washington.
[53]
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"Repealing the Second Amendment is no cause for the faint-hearted, but it remains the
only way for liberals to trigger an honest debate on the future of our bullet-plagued
society. So what if anti-gun advocates have to devote the next 15 or 20 years to the
struggle? The cause is worth the political pain. Failing to take bold action condemns all
of us to spend our lives cringing in terror every time we hear a car backfire."
-- USA Today columnist Walter Shapiro, Sept. 17. [50]
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