Cut Gas Prices, Bring Back Saddam
"Just look at the numbers. In March of 2002, when Saddam Hussein was
still in power, average gas prices were 63 cents lower than they are
today. Some motorists we talked to were left asking, ‘What has the
liberation of Iraq really done for Americans -- other than give us
higher gas prices?'"
-- Sandra Hughes on the April 1 CBS Evening News.
Victims of "Record" Gas Prices
"More bad news on gas prices this morning, as the average price for a
gallon of unleaded rose four more cents, another record. The AARP
issued an emergency alert, saying high gas prices are forcing many
seniors to stop purchasing required medicine and, in some cases, to
choose between gas for their cars and food."
-- NBC's Ann Curry on Today, April 1.
"As gas prices keep rising, a worrying new trend: families are taking
out second and even third mortgages on their homes as a way of coping
with soaring prices. Many of these new loans are in California, where
gas prices recently topped $3.00 a gallon. If interest rates rise as
expected, experts say the wave of foreclosures will mean thousands of
families joining the ranks of the nation's homeless."
-- ABC's Robin Roberts, Good Morning America, April 1.
Thalia Assuras: "The evidence is all over the Internet: healthy
young people are putting their own organs up for sale, desperate for
money to deal with fast-rising gas prices. Grad student Julie Potts
just sold her kidney on Ebay."
Julie Potts: "I have enough money for now, but if prices don't come
down, I don't know what I'll sell next. Maybe I can make it with one lung."
Assuras: "The Bush administration still refuses to tap into the
nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. For people like Julie, the
President's cruel pro-industry stance gives ironic new urgency to the
protest slogan, ‘No Blood for Oil.'"
-- CBS's The Early Show, April 1.
Women, Minorities Hit Hardest
"On average, the aggressive white male investor will likely double or
even triple his monthly pension check under the President's plan for
private accounts, while women and minorities would average only about
a 50 percent increase, adding fuel to critics' charges that Social
Security privatization would hit women and minorities hardest."
-- Reporter Bill Plante, CBS Evening News, April 1.
Are They Nuts? Or Cynical?
"As you may know, Terri Schiavo has been in a persistent vegetative
state since 1990 with zero chance of recovery. When Republicans
intervened into a private family dispute to get the Schiavo case
heard in a federal court, do you think they did so because they
fervently believe in a religious-right ideology that favors
prolonging life, no matter what the cost or consequences? Or are they
simply seeking to please their own extremely religious right-wing base?"
-- CBS News/New York Times poll question, April 1.
MSNBC's Matthews Offended By Words He Put In Guest's Mouth
Host Chris Matthews: "Michelle Malkin, you were just saying that
Michael Schiavo, the husband of Terri Schiavo, is wrong to want to
pull the plug on his wife. Why?"
Syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin: "Chris, I don't think we can
be absolutely certain about what his wife, what Terri would have
wanted."
Matthews: "Do you think he's a murderer?"
Malkin: "What? No, Chris let me make my point – "
Matthews: "You do, don't you!? Now, I want you to be clear now.
You're alleging that Michael Schiavo walked in one night oh so many
years ago and took a pillow to Terri, aren't you?"
Malkin: "No, what? I never said – "
Matthews: "How can you come on this program and make such an
allegation? Were you in the room when this attempted murder took place?"
Malkin: "Chris, you're putting words in my mouth."
Matthews: "What gives you the right to drum up this fantasy? It's
something out of an Agatha Christie movie!"
Malkin: "What? I didn't say that at all. Chris let me talk!"
Matthews: "No, Michelle, I want you to be clear. Are you calling
Michael Schiavo a murderer, yes or no?!"
Malkin: "I just wanted to make a general point about the way
euthanasia is viewed by some members of – "
Matthews: "Yes or no, Michelle?! Did Michael Schiavo have a hit
taken out on his wife?"
Malkin: "Chris let me – "
Matthews: "Unbelievable. You've turned this poor husband into a
Scott Peterson! I can't believe you'd come on this program and make
these charges with absolutely no proof. Okay, we'll be back in a
minute, and we're gonna try and keep it clean from here on out.
Sheesh. You're watching Hardball."
-- Exchange on MSNBC's Hardball, April 1.
CBS Clamors for Higher Taxes
John Roberts: "President Bush has adamantly refused to consider
raising taxes to save Social Security, claiming tax hikes would harm
the economy. But Franklin Roosevelt raised the top income tax rate to
90 percent, and his policies helped the country climb out of the
Great Depression. Today, the top rate is a measly 35 percent, and the
federal tax code is larded with far more loopholes than back in the
‘30s. Some analysts see a lot of room for higher rates."
Robert McIntyre, Citizens for Tax Justice: "With these ghastly
deficits, it would be immoral not to raise taxes."
-- CBS Evening News, April 1.
Admit It, We're Despicable
"Scott, Iran has complained about the State Department's latest
annual report on international human rights abusers, which failed to
even mention the documented U.S. abuses at Guantanamo Bay and Abu
Ghraib. Since opening a dialogue with the world is supposed to be a
priority in this President's second term, why can't Secretary Rice at
least be fair and rank the United States somewhere between Cuba and
Sudan in terms of human rights abuses?"
-- ABC's Terry Moran to Press Secretary Scott McClellan at an April 1
White House briefing.
Apogee of America-Hating
"A wise man said the real scholar is not someone who merely presents
a few dry facts, but one who provokes us to think beyond our own
prejudices. With that in mind, academia certainly reached a high
point recently when a University of Colorado professor provoked the
entire country to see itself as much of the rest of the world does:
as an evil empire that deserved the terrorism that confronted it on
September 11, 2001....And so we choose Ward Churchill as our ‘Person
of the Week.' His hope, he told us, was that at least a few Americans
might put aside the smug superiority that has earned the U.S. the
wrath of the international community. Our leaders could certainly
learn from him."
-- Peter Jennings introducing and concluding his profile of Churchill
on ABC's World News Tonight, April 1.
Here's a Shot Deep to Left Field
"After the steroid scandals, fans are ripe for a return to an old-
fashioned style of play, featuring such humble, cooperative,
multilateral plays as the bunt and the hit-and-run, and out with the
game's most unilateral, macho, chest-thumping American event: the
home run. If so, then the logical choice for baseball's next
commissioner would be not the oft-rumored Bush, but rather John
Kerry."
-- Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell, April 1.
Kyoto Treaty: A Bear Necessity
"Their homes were once a pristine wilderness. They reigned supreme
for thousands of years. But civilization changed all that. First came
factories, then the automobile. We recently spent several days with
the biggest victims of the President's rejection of every
international proposal to stem global warming: Alaska's polar bears.
Tonight, ‘Unbearable: Left out in the cold by Washington.'"
-- Ted Koppel introducing ABC's Nightline, April 1.
Is Our Children Swimming?
Katie Couric: "Will new Bush administration budget cuts mean more
deaths at the beach this summer? Joining us to discuss beach safety,
a real expert, former Baywatch star, David Hasselhoff. Thanks for
joining us. David, is it safe to go back in the water?"
David Hasselhoff: "Glad to be here. I'm really only an actor. But,
I guess if you, uh, know how to swim that helps."
Couric: "Interesting! How concerned should parents be that the Bush
administration has slashed CPR funding? How many children do you
think will die as a result?"
-- Exchange on NBC's Today, April 1.
If He Only Had a Clue
"Number five tonight, Hammer of Hypocrisy. It was hard enough not to
gawk at the spectacle of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay lugging
around Terri Schiavo like a human shield. But now the Los Angeles
Times has reported that when Mr. DeLay struggled with his own
father's life-ending brain injury, what is now callous barbarism was
once compassionate conservatism. But there's pandering to be done,
and Mr. DeLay is not going to tell the religious hucksters swarming
around Tampa Bay that the Wizard of Oz isn't handing out new brains
this week in Emerald City."
-- MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, April 1 Countdown.
Leave It to Inspector Dan
"Finally, a personal note. Partisan political operatives drove me
from my rightful place as anchor of the CBS Evening News, alleging,
without proof, that our story on President Bush's evasion of his
National Guard service was somehow based on quote, ‘fraudulent,'
unquote, memos. Following in the footsteps of O.J. Simpson, I am
committing to you here tonight that I will go to any rodeo, to any
part of the Earth, to track down proof of the authenticity of the
memos. No matter what you've heard from fanatics on the right, I
still stand by the accuracy of the story."
-- Dan Rather on the April 1 60 Minutes/Wednesday, his first TV
appearance since leaving the CBS Evening News.
MANAGING EDITOR: Dan Rather
ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Josh Howard, Betsy West, Mary Murphy
DOCUMENT PRODUCTION: Bill Burkett
CHIEF FACT CHECKER: Mary Mapes
PUBLIC RELATIONS: Tom Shales, Marvin Kalb
EXECUTIVE WITHOUT RESPONSIBILITY: Andrew Heyward
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