“A Gulag Breeds Rage, Yes, but Also Serenity”
— New York Times headline over article on last Soviet political prisoners being released, February 12, 1992.

“Few tears will be shed over the demise of the East German army, but what about East Germany’s eighty symphony orchestras, bound to lose some subsidies? Or the whole East German system, which covered everyone in a security blanket from day care to health care, from housing to education? Some people are beginning to express, if ever so slightly, nostalgia for that Berlin Wall.” — CBS’s Bob Simon, March 16, 1990 Evening News.

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“It’s short of soap, so there are lice in the hospitals. It’s short of pantyhose, so women’s legs go bare. It’s short of snowsuits, so babies stay home in the winter....The problem isn’t communism; nobody even talked about communism this week. The problem is shortages.” — Commentator John Chancellor talking about the Soviet Union on NBC Nightly News, August 21, 1991.

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“After eight years of what many saw as the Reagan administration’s benign neglect of the poor and studied indifference to civil rights, a lot of those who lived through this week in Overtown [rioting in a section of Miami] seemed to think the best thing about George Bush is that he is not Ronald Reagan...There is an Overtown in every big city in America — pockets of misery made even meaner and more desperate the past eight years.” — Reporter Richard Threlkeld on ABC’s World News Tonight, January 20, 1989, Reagan’s last day as President.

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“The decade had its highs (Gorbachev, Bird)...and the decade had its lows (Reagan, AIDS)”
— Boston Globe headline over two pages of ’80s reviews by the paper’s columnists, December 28, 1989.

“The bottom line is more tax money is going to be needed. Just how much will be the primary issue on the agenda when congressional leaders meet with the President later today....It now seems the time has come to pay the fiddler for our costly dance of the Reagan years.” — Bryant Gumbel opening NBC’s Today, May 9, 1990.

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“The amazing thing is most people seem content to believe that almost everybody had a good time in the ’80s , a real shot at the dream. But the fact is, they didn’t. Did we wear blinders? Did we think the ’80s left behind just the homeless? The fact is that almost nine in ten Americans actually saw their lifestyle decline.
— NBC reporter Keith Morrison, February 7, 1992 Nightly News. Census Bureau data shows median family income increased in all income classes from 1981 to 1989.

“In the plague years of the 1980s — that low decade of denial, indifference, hostility, opportunism and idiocy — government fiddled and medicine diddled, and the media were silent or hysterical. A gerontocratic Ronald Reagan took this [AIDS] plague less seriously than Gerald Ford had taken swine flu. After all, he didn’t need the ghettos and he didn’t want the gays.” — CBS’s John Leonard on Sunday Morning, September 5, 1993.

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“[Soviet dictator Mikhail] Gorbachev has probably moved more quickly than any person in the history of the world. Moving faster than Jesus Christ did.”
— Ted Turner as quoted in Time, January 22, 1990.

“By American presidential standards, Mikhail Gorbachev accomplished enough in his seven-year term to qualify for a bust on Mount Rushmore.” — NBC’s Jim Maceda, December 25, 1991 Nightly News.

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“What do you do for an encore after ending the Cold War and reversing the arms race? How about saving the planet? That’s the latest assignment for Mikhail Gorbachev, having assumed the presidency of the International Green Cross, a new environmental organization...”
— Time’s “The Week” section, May 3, 1993.

“Supreme Court nominee David Souter wants the world to stop viewing him as a nerd. Senate Democrats want to know if, instead, Souter is a neanderthal — a mean-spirited conservative bent on wrecking constitutional protections for women, minorities, and accused criminals.”
— Beginning of September 13, 1990 USA Today cover story by legal reporter Tony Mauro.

“Corporations pay public relations firms millions of dollars to contrive the kind of grass-roots response that Falwell or Pat Robertson can galvanize in a televised sermon. Their followers are largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command.”
— Washington Post reporter Michael Weisskopf in a February 1, 1993 news story.

“I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease....He is an absolutely reprehensible person.” — USA Today columnist and Pacifica Radio talk show host Julianne Malveaux on Justice Clarence Thomas, November 4, 1994 PBS’s To the Contrary.

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“It’s a morbid observation, but if everyone on Earth just stopped breathing for an hour, the greenhouse effect would no longer be a problem.”
— Newsweek Senior Writer Jerry Adler, December 31, 1990.

“The President was remarkably upbeat for a man who runs a country with a monstrous national debt, huge balance of trade problems, a crumbling infrastructure, dirty air, countless homeless people, a coast-to-coast drug epidemic, and a faltering self-image.”
— CBS This Morning co-host Harry Smith the morning after President George H. W. Bush’s State of the Union speech, February 2, 1990.

“The whole week was double-ply, wall-to-wall ugly....The Republican Party reached an unimaginable slouchy, and brazen, and constant, level of mendacity last week....[President Bush] is in ‘campaign mode’ now, which means mendacity doesn’t matter, aggression is all and wall-to-wall ugly is the order of battle for the duration.”
— Senior Editor Joe Klein on the Republican convention, August 31, 1992 Newsweek.

“This is a party that is dominated by men, and this convention is dominated by men as well....Do you think before tonight they thought very much about what happens in America with rape?”
— NBC anchor Tom Brokaw interviewing rape victim Jan Licence after her victims-rights speech to the GOP convention, August 13, 1996.

“Over the past 18 months, while Republicans fulminated about welfare and affirmative action, more than 20 churches in Alabama and six other Southern and Border states have been torched....There is already enough evidence to indict the cynical conservatives who build their political careers, George Wallace-style, on a foundation of race-baiting. They may not start fires, but they fan the flames.”
— Time national correspondent Jack E. White, March 18, 1996 issue.

“I must say I was struck by the expanse of their chests, though. They may have to put out their stats.” — Newsweek reporter Eleanor Clift on Bill Clinton and Al Gore, CNN’s Inside Politics, July 9, 1992.

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“If we could be one-hundredth as great as you and Hillary Rodham Clinton have been in the White House, we’d take it right now and walk away winners....Tell Mrs. Clinton we respect her and we’re pulling for her.”
— Dan Rather to Bill Clinton at a May 27, 1993 CBS affiliates meeting, talking about anchoring with Connie Chung.

“As the icon of American womanhood, she is the medium through which the remaining anxieties over feminism are being played out....Hillary Rodham Clinton will define for women that magical spot where the important work of the world and love and children and an inner life all come together. Like Ginger Rogers, she will do everything her partner does, only backward and in high heels, and with what was missing in [Lee] Atwater — a lot of heart.”
— Time correspondent Margaret Carlson, May 10, 1993.

“His sturdy jaw precedes him. He smiles from sea to shining sea. Is this President a candidate for Mt. Rushmore or what?...A single medley of expressions from Clinton may be worth much more, to much of America, than every ugly accusation Paula Jones can muster.”
— Los Angeles Times television writer Howard Rosenberg reviewing Clinton’s Inaugural Address, January 22, 1997.

“I’m endlessly fascinated by her [Hillary Clinton]....She’s so smart. Virtually every time I’ve seen her perform, she has knocked my socks off.”
— CBS’s Lesley Stahl, as quoted by Gail Shister in the December 8, 1999 Philadelphia Inquirer.

“Some thoughts on those angry voters. Ask parents of any two-year-old and they can tell you about those temper tantrums: the stomping feet, the rolling eyes, the screaming. It’s clear that the anger controls the child and not the other way around. It’s the job of the parent to teach the child to control the anger and channel it in a positive way. Imagine a nation full of uncontrolled two-year-old rage. The voters had a temper tantrum last week [electing a GOP Congress]....Parenting and governing don’t have to be dirty words: the nation can’t be run by an angry two-year-old.”
— Peter Jennings in his daily ABC Radio commentary, November 14, 1994.

“You called Gingrich and his ilk, your words, ‘trickle-down terrorists who base their agenda on division, exclusion, and fear.’ Do you think middle class Americans are in need of protection from that group?”
— NBC’s Bryant Gumbel to House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt, January 4, 1995 Today.

“The new Republican majority in Congress took a big step today on its legislative agenda to demolish or damage government aid programs, many of them designed to help children and the poor.” — Dan Rather, March 16, 1995 CBS Evening News.

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“When NBC Nightly News continues: In Washington, if they cut food stamps, who doesn’t eat?”
— Tom Brokaw, March 22, 1995.

“Next week on ABC’s World News Tonight, a series of reports about our environment which will tell you precisely what the new Congress has in mind: the most frontal assault on the environment in 25 years. Is this what the country wants?” — Peter Jennings in an ABC promo during the July 9, 1995 This Week with David Brinkley.

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“In light of the new welfare reform bill, do you think the children need more prayers than ever before?”
— Bryant Gumbel to Children’s Defense Fund leader Marian Wright Edelman, September 23, 1996 Today.

“Sadly, many home remedies could damage a fetus instead of kill it.”
— Newsweek Senior Editor Melinda Beck on self-performed abortions, July 17, 1989 issue.

“[Rush Limbaugh] is, above all, a sophisticated propagandist, an avatar of the politics of meanness and envy....He must, like all demagogues, scare his listeners, get them to believe in conspiracy, rumor....Like Reagan, Limbaugh is neither curious nor brave; he would rather tell his audiences fairy tales than have them face the world; he would rather sneer at the weak than trouble the strong.”
— Former Washington Post reporter David Remnick in the Post’s Outlook section, February 20, 1994.

“In a nation that has entertained and appalled itself for years with hot talk on the radio and the campaign trail, the inflamed rhetoric of the ’90s is suddenly an unindicted co-conspirator in the [Oklahoma City federal building] blast.”
— Time Senior Writer Richard Lacayo, May 8, 1995.

“The bombing in Oklahoma City has focused renewed attention on the rhetoric that’s been coming from the right and those who cater to angry white men. While no one’s suggesting that right-wing radio jocks approve of violence, the extent to which their approach fosters violence is being questioned by many observers, including the President.... Right-wing talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Bob Grant, Oliver North, G. Gordon Liddy, Michael Reagan, and others take to the air every day with basically the same format: detail a problem, blame the government or a group, and invite invective from like-minded people....Never do most of the radio hosts encourage outright violence, but the extent to which their attitudes may embolden or encourage some extremists has clearly become an issue.” — Today co-host Bryant Gumbel, April 25, 1995.

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“What must it be like to live in Rush Limbaugh’s world? A world where when anyone other than conservative, white men attempts to do anything or enter any profession, be it business, politics, art or sports, the only reason they’re allowed entry or, incredibly, attain excellence is because the standard was lowered....Edgy, controversial, brilliant. What a way to shake up intelligent sports commentary. Hitler would have killed in talk radio. He was edgy, too.”
— Nancy Giles on CBS’s Sunday Morning, October 5, 2003.

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, 1999.

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“Largely as a result of the policies and priorities of the Reagan administration, more people are becoming poor and staying poor in this country than at any time since World War II.” — Today co-host Bryant Gumbel, July 17, 1989.

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“The boom years following World War II saw the U.S. economy take off, giving rise to the growth of the great American middle class. The rising standard of living meant homes, cars, TVs, college for the kids — all in all, a piece of the American dream. But in the Reagan years, economic erosion set in, so much so that the middle class now finds itself in ever-deepening trouble.” — Gumbel on NBC’s Today, January 22, 1992.

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“You’re aligned to a party which owes many of its victories to the so-called religious right and other conservative extremists who are historically insensitive to minority concerns. That doesn’t bother you?”
— Gumbel to black Republican U.S. Rep.-elect J.C. Watts on NBC’s Today, November 9, 1994.

“Let’s not debate his presidency, but his passing. As opposed to a man like Reagan, [Richard] Nixon was highly regarded as a genuine statesman with a first-class mind.”
— Gumbel on NBC’s Today, April 26, 1994.