Howard Rosenberg [112]

"His sturdy jaw precedes him. He smiles from sea to shining sea. Is this President a candidatefor Mt. Rushmore or what?...In fact, when it comes to influencing the public, a single medley of expressions from Clinton may be worth much more, to much of America, than every ugly accusation Paula Jones can muster."

Timothy Noah [57]

"Gore's commitment to the world of big ideas is no pose. Unlike John F. Kennedy and Adlai Stevenson, who became darlings of the highbrow set without fully earning the honor, Gore is truly engaged in the life of the mind...Had the younger Gore not become a Congressman at 28, a Senator at 36, and Vice President at 44, he might have become the sort of essayist who aspires to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters."

Katie Couric [77]

"In fact, Senator Specter, as Senator Torricelli mentioned, two votes have left campaign finance reform legislation pretty much DOA. Do you think that prompts the American people to wonder about the sincerity of Congress to really enact change and suspect that perhaps this is an intentional effort to embarrass the Democratic Party?"
"But it's so ridiculous, you know people watching this just think that reform is necessary. They can't understand why you guys can't get your acts together!"

Lisa Myers [54]

"Your hearings clearly reinforced the public's already low opinion of politicians and politics. Beyond that, what did it accomplish?....At the same time you were criticizing the misdeeds of the Clinton administration, leaders of your own party were opposing changes in the law to outlaw these huge contributions that helped create this scandal. Do you think that undercut your credibility with the public?"

Jodi Applegate [59]

"So a couple of White House aides helped Webster Hubbell find work, and he did find work, some of it with Democratic donors. It may not look good, but is there any proof anything was done wrong?...All right, similar kind of question about Jorge Cabrera, a convicted drug smuggler who gave $20,000 to the DNC, wound up at a fancy dinner with Al Gore, wound up at a White House Christmas party with Hillary Clinton. But they gave the money back when they found out about his background. It may not look good, but is there any proof that anything was done wrong?"

Larry King [52]

"All right. So what if we made this case -- OK, he's pretty tough with fundraising. But there's no proof that the Chinese had any in, except they gave money. He did a bad deal for you. And he has turned on his friends maybe a little. But nobody made big money in Whitewater. It was years ago. He was in Arkansas. He's a good President. I am happy. No boy is dying overseas. Country seems to be coming around. Supreme Court is pretty good. Are you better off than you were four years ago? Yes. What I if I made that case?"

Gloria Borger [71]

"In fact, the Speaker will forever remain his own caricature -- a Dennis the Menace meets Darth Vader kind of guy. A fellow who, for instance, wants to give all children in America laptops but take away their free school lunches."

Kent Jenkins Jr. and Paul Glastris [62]

"But there's another reason why all but nine of the 225 House Republicans backed Gingrich: deep reservations about the man next in line, the hard-right majority leader, Dick Armey. Just as Dan Quayle's lack of gravitas led many Republicans to pray for the health of George Bush, Armey's ideological stubbornness and hot-headed rhetoric inspire in his colleagues protective optimism about Gingrich....In a House brimming with mean-spirited rhetoric, Armey stands out."

Walter Cronkite [64]

"I thought that we Americans overreacted to the Soviets and the news coverage sometimes seemed to accentuate that misdirected concern. Fear of the Soviet Union taking over the world just seemed as likely to me as invaders from Mars. Well, perhaps I was naive, but I'd seen those May Day parades and Soviet bread lines and miserable conditions hidden behind them. That war-devastated country didn't seem that threatening to me...The nuclear arms race was on in earnest. All the anti-Soviet paranoia that had been festering since the war really blew up then. A Soviet bomb was seen as an assault on us. But I saw it as part of their pursuit of nuclear equality. After all, what should we expect, that our enemy's just going to sit still there and not try to develop the bomb?"

Jane Robelot [57]

"Under Cuba's communist form of government, a Cuban family's basic necessities, housing, education, health care, and transportation, are provided by the state for free or at very little cost."

Matthew Miller [107]

"John Huang isn't the poster boy for what ails money and politics -- Steve Forbes is...Forbes represents the purest, most offensive challenge to the idea that money should equal speech...Must we really accept a doctrine that lets a vain twit pour Daddy's millions into so much flat tax propaganda that it lands him on the cover of Time and Newsweek and influences the national agenda? Forbes has been encouraged by what money can buy and won't go away. If anything's sinister about campaign finance nowadays, it's this..."
"Thus the key question: Is Steve Forbes constitutional? The court might tell us that Forbes' fetishes are among those ugly things we have to tolerate in a free society. In any event, this is the kind of conversation that might begin to fix our campaigns, not witch hunts for red perils that don't exist."

Jim Miklaszewski [47]

"President Clinton's best defense for any campaign fundraising excesses or irregularities by Democrats appears to be that the Republicans do it too. And even more."

Joan Lunden [94]

"Well, for centuries, I mean, Scandinavia has really been known, all these countries, for their innovative and their progressive social systems. But when it comes to protecting women's rights and children's rights, Norway could really teach most other countries a thing or two. They are the top priorities here. Largely responsible for this, former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, and she is the first woman to hold that post...
"She's been very instrumental in pioneering some of these sweeping changes that have really greatly improved the quality of life for women and for children in Norway. Nice to have you here. I think most women, when they hear that, they just want to pack up and come right over here. But these have been sweeping changes that really have improved life here for women and children. Why do you think it happened in such a short time?....And they also have the lowest crime rate in the world. This is a very, very interesting country that we could learn a little bit from. Hopefully, we can get some of those programs instituted in America. Thank you for having us here."

Katie Couric [52]

"But in fairness, what is wrong with Newt Gingrich reaching out to some other groups, extending himself? I mean, can't you catch more flies with honey? Isn't there something about that? And perhaps the rigidity of some of the conservative Republicans and their almost religious adherence to the Contract with America, didn't that ultimately backfire on them?"

Sam Donaldson and George Stephanopoulos [106]

Sam Donaldson: "I think Governor Weld has done this country a service in a sense, even though I think that he's been shot down in the ocean now, and that is by allowing the country to see Senator Helms in action. Over the years I've run into him two or three times at receptions here and he's the most gentlemanly, courtly, friendly, pleasant individual you would ever hope to meet. But, when you see him in action, you see beneath that courtliness beats the heart of a dictator and I think the country is appalled."
George Stephanopoulos: "Or a terrorist. The President is really, I think made a mistake because he's been negotiating with a terrorist here."

William Schneider [64]

"He had deep roots in the conservative traditions of the Old South. In his campaigns, Helms had been known to exploit the race issue for political advantage, which is exactly how slave owners and conservatives used to dominate Southern politics."

Bob Herbert [99]

"[Food] stamps, a blessing, allowed them [able-bodied adults without children] to purchase about $25 worth of food a week. They would not be able to eat like a President or member of Congress, but they could have some soup, maybe a little pasta, some tuna, some beans. They wouldn't starve, and they would have enough energy to continue looking for a job...After 90days, the following notice is to be disseminated: Put down that soup spoon, poor person, the Clinton administration and the Republican-led Congress are clearing the table."

David Rosenbaum [68]

"Republicans got their tax cuts for families and investors and some savings in domestic programs. But they dropped the plans they had in 1995 and 1996 for crippling Medicare and Medicaid, abolishing government departments and agencies, expanding the military, and relaxing environmental protections."

Juan Williams [94]

"The most shameful act of '96 was welfare reform....welfare reform became a political football in '96, an easy way to kick around the poor and especially poor children and immigrants, even legal immigrants. Bill Clinton thought the GOP had a hot issue, so he closed his eyes and signed a bill that punishes children and people who want to work, but can't find a job in a tough market for entry level employment. This was a criminal act, further dividing us as haves and have nots. It was shameful."

Tom Brokaw [52]

"Are some current policies in Washington, however, exacerbating the problem? For example, the new welfare reform bill is going to put about a million kids on the street without a safety net beneath them. We're also now pulling back from the benefits that we've provided in the past to legal immigrants in this country and it's putting a big burden on a lot of the states out there. You come from an immigrant experience yourself. Do you think that the welfare reform bill went too far in just those two areas?"

Bonnie Erbe [81]

"The right wing has lied repeatedly in an effort to move public opinion on this issue....Lie No.1: Conservatives care about life. The renowned quipmeister, Rep. Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat, once said, 'Conservatives' interest in life begins at conception and ends at birth.' Truer words were never spoken. If they did care about taking care of babies and protecting the helpless, they would not be so driven to cut government programs that help the poor, nor so concerned about paying a few dollars less of their own money in taxes."

Michael Barone and Margaret Carlson [55]

Michael Barone, Reader's Digest: "I'm not as confident as Bill Press that I know the inner workings of the mind of Paula Jones. I don't feel that I do..."
Margaret Carlson, Time: "What mind?"

Al Neuharth [78]

"What if Watergate had elected McGovern?....The Cold War would have ended in the '70srather than in the '90s. McGovern, in his campaign, debunked the threat and invincibility of the so-called evil Soviet empire. Republican and Democratic Presidents preached that myth for four decades, until the USSR self-destructed ....George McGovern. A man before his time. Prescient. Decisive, but decent. The USA and the world would have been far better off if we'd been heedful of his early Watergate warnings and had put McGovern in the White House in 1972."

New York Times [59]

Crime Keeps On Falling; but Prisons Keep On Filling

Elizabeth Mehren [75]

"[I]n person, [Anita] Hill bears only passing resemblance to her rather stern image from newspapers and television. At 41, she is slender to the point of willowy. Her features are elegant, and while she is intense while discussing her political baptism-by-fire, she can also muster a warm smile and a hearty laugh -- qualities that had little occasion to surface in the nine hours that changed Hill's world. So, she was asked, does she sometimes feel like the Joan of Arc of sexual harassment? Sure, Hill replied, and here came the mirth the Senate never saw: 'I refuse to die, though.'"

Tony Mauro and Mimi Hall [50]

"Justice William Brennan led the Supreme Court on a quiet revolution that expanded individual rights and press freedoms to an extent found nowhere else in the world...Brennan saw his influence wane as justices appointed by Presidents Reagan and Bush cut back the court's role as active protector of individual rights."

Eleanor Clift [79]

"I don't think voting for Clinton makes you a liberal. I mean, Bill Clinton isn't even a liberal, and second, if you're liberal, does that mean you can't be fair? What hypocrisy that we sit around and talk about the press like it's some sort of 'they.' It's us. Are we too liberal? N-o....The bias is in favor of bad news and you go after whoever is in power, and the name of the game is kill the king, which is why Bill Clinton does not get a free ride."

Ellen Hume [60]

"Scholar after scholar has disputed, in studying the actual content of the press, what you've justblithely handed out that it's this left-wing media. That's a charge from the '50s. That's not thecurrent press. Tom Patterson -- no, the bias is a bias against politicians of all kinds, not a bias forone side or other."

Washington Post and New York Times [99]

Nuns Tell of Panic About Fund-Raiser Documents Destroyed or Altered to Conceal Temple's Role With DNC

vs.

Nuns Say Temple Event With Gore Was Not A Fund-Raise

Los Angeles Times and Washington Pos [67]

Dem tells of 'contribution swap' scheme

vs.

DNC Ex-Aide Denies Teamster 'Swap' Plan

Robert Scheer [111]

"The mood of the Republican congressional leadership is so ideologically obtuse as to doom even this modest first step down the path of responsibility. They would rather kill people than raise taxes."

Dan Rather [66]

"Earlier tonight, we reported the President's apology for medical experiments that allowed black Americans to die of syphilis. The President noted how badly this hurt public trust in government, especially among minorities. The same criticism is being made today on another score. As CBS News correspondent John Blackstone reports, it's the fallout from California's voter-approved ban on state affirmative action programs."