The Chronicle has a daily Election 2004 section and in today’s paper, under the heading “Quotable,” is this:
“She plays the smiling Stepford political wife, which is so opposite from what she is. It’s quasi an embarrassment, and I say that because she’s not the little wife.”
— Paul Costello, Rosalynn Carter’s former press secretary about Lynn Cheney
I’d give the link to it, but it’s not online. This seems highly disrespectful, unless the Chronicle is trying to highlight how nutty Rosalynn Carter’s former press secretary is, which probably wasn’t the intent.
A look at the Chronicle‘s Election 2004 section for the past week shows that there are days when the Chronicle editors can’t find anything “Quotable.” So Wednesday and Thursday were “Quotable”-free, but Tuesday, the Chronicle dug up this:
“We either pull out all the stops over the next few weeks, or we will live to regret it.”
–James Carville, Democratic strategist to prospective donors in a DNC fund-raising letter sent last week.
Actually, the Chronicle was a bit off describing Carville. It should have said, “Democratic strategist and host of CNN’s Crossfire.” And what an illuminating quote!
On Monday, the Chronicle decided this was worthy of being a “Quotable”:
“We’ve got to take out the sanctuaries. We’re going to have to sustain, tragically, some more casualities. Airstrikes don’t do it. And the longer we delay…the more casualties we will incur.”
–Sen. John McCain, on CBS’ Face the Nation. The Arizona Republican called on the president to initiate an urgent ground offense to retake insurgent sanctuaries in Iraq [sic]
Love the ellipsis. Wonder what was taken out so the three dots could go in? And was this really the most “Quotable” quote the Chronicle could find from the Sunday news shows? Why, yes it was. It was a Republican criticizing President Bush.
We have to go back to last Thursday to find another quote. But it’s not given the title of “Quotable” – it’s just in a little box on the Election 2004 page:
“Actually new documents surfaced today proving that President Bush did not fulfill his National Guard service. CBS said they know they’re new because they were just printed over the weekend.”
–Jay Leno, The “Tonight Show” host on a CBS’ [sic] story using disputed documents.
The Chronicle needs to get its Washington bureau looking for better “Quotables.”
