Minorities: Cannon Fodder for U.S. Military?

“Critics also say that Latinos often wind up as cannon fodder on the casualty-prone front lines. African-Americans saw the same thing happen during the 1970's and 1980's, an accusation that still reverberates. Hispanics make up only 4.7 percent of the military's officer corps.”
 – Lizette Alvarez in a story on U.S. Army recruiting of Hispanics, February 9.

Bubble-Boy Bush, Meet Cocooned Cheney

“To others, though, it is a telling example of the cocoon Mr. Cheney has created within the White House. Even at the most secure meetings in the White House situation room, Mr. Cheney tends to ask questions but leave the participants guessing about his own views -- largely, his colleagues say they suspect, for fear of leaks. His movements, once hidden for security reasons, are now often cloaked out of habit. Several senior members of the administration said they were not told of the shooting accident until late Sunday.”
 – David Sanger’s February 15 “political memo” on Dick Cheney not notifying the White House press corps immediately after accidentally shooting a friend in a hunting accident.

Lou Dobbs’ Non-“Nuanced” View of Immigration

“[CNN anchor Lou] Dobbs said he tried to include the voices of ‘people who would be ignored’ because, in his view, too many reporters are too politically correct to give critics of illegal immigration a fair hearing. ‘Their voices have been denied,’ he said of many of his guests and viewers. Mr. Dobbs, who owns a horse farm in New Jersey, says he has never hired an illegal alien. And as for offering a more nuanced portrayal of illegal immigrants on his program, he says he has no interest in treading that territory.”
 – Rachel Swarns, February 15.

Race-baiting Al Sharpton a “Dignitary”?

“Inside the circular sanctuary, the inner circle near the podium became quite literally that, as dignitaries including the Rev. Jesse Jackson; the Rev. Al Sharpton; Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic Party; Myrlie Evers, the wife of the slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers; and Marion Wright Edelman, the founder of the Children's Defense Fund, mingled and reminisced before the service began.”
 -- Sheila Dewan and Elisabeth Bumiller at Coretta Scott King’s funeral, February 8.

Why It’s So Hard to Actually Cut Spending

“Mr. Bush proposed an array of savings in domestic programs, including big reductions or cuts in 141 programs. Critics asserted those reductions would do little to ease the deficit even as they imposed real hardship on some people, constituting pain for little gain.”
 – Robin Toner on Bush’s budget proposal, February 7.

Danish Cartoonists Like KKK, Nazis?

“…stereotyping in cartoons has a notorious history in Europe, where anti-Semitic caricatures fed the Holocaust, just as they feed anti-Israeli propaganda in the Middle East today.”
– Reporter Craig Smith on the Mohammad cartoons in the February 5 Week in Review in a story headlined “Adding Newsprint to the Fire.”

Betty Friedan’s “Chilling” Portrait of Life Before Feminism

“The portrait she painted was chilling. For a typical woman of the 1950's, even a college-educated one, life centered almost exclusively on chores and children. She cooked and baked and bandaged and chauffeured and laundered and sewed. She did the mopping and the marketing and took her husband's gray flannel suit to the cleaners. She was happy to keep his dinner warm till he came wearily home from downtown.”
 – From Margalit Fox’s February 6 obituary for left-wing feminist Betty Friedan.

Alrighty Then….

 “There are things that should have been popular but were not: the Allende government, geothermal home heating and ‘Arrested Development.’”
 -- TV-beat reporter Alessandra Stanley on the just-cancelled FOX sitcom, February 10.

Actually, It Never Crossed My Mind

“If you were inclined to think that [skater Sarah]Hughes family was traumatized these past weeks by the wicked capriciousness of Michelle Kwan's groin, guess again.”
 – Sports columnist Harvey Araton from the Olympics in Torino, February 13.

See TimesWatch's Quotes of Note Archive

E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org