Perspectives

Newsweek magazine, May 1, 2000, page 21

This may seem very scary. It will soon be better.
A female immigration agent to Elián González as she carried him from the house.
Auntie Janet...

Elián is safe … He will be reunited with his father. Attorney General Janet Reno, after federal agent seized Elián González from his Miami relatives’ home.


Have a happy Easter. Have a really happy Easter. New York Mayor Rudolph Gluliani, when asked to comment on his wife, Donna Hanover’s starring role in The Vagina Monologues, a racy off Broadway play written by a Hillary Clinton supporter.


I broke my promise to always tell the truth? Sen. John McCain, apologizing for his failure to call for the removal of the confederate flag over the South Carolina capitol because he feared losing the state’s presidential primary.

On the couch...

We have no classified program that relies on aliens from outer space. Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon, on an internet posting of the first detailed satellite images of Area 51, a top-secret Air Force site believed by UFO buffs to conceal extraterrestrial artifacts.

When discussing dictators, we will never again say, He’s an s.o.b., but he’s our s.o.b.. Lino Gutierrez, a senior State Department official, on the importance of building democracy in Latin America.


For the first time in 14 years, he can go to bed without fearing that he will be executed? Brian Powers, lawyer for convicted murderer Terry Williams, after the Supreme Court commuted his death sentence on the ground that Williams’s trial lawyer mishandled the sentencing phase of the case.

Little Al Gore...

You got me. Novelist Christopher Buckley, to Secretary of Defense William Cohen, after Cohen spotted his 1991 novel, which he had signed and presented to Buckley, for sale for $3,500 on an Internet site.


We have no leadership, just a crazy old man who is scared of losing power. Obey Mudzingwa, an opposition member, on Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, who, opponents believe, is encouraging upheaval over land redistribution so he can establish martial law and stay in power.


Wouldn’t it be nice to live in the safest town in America? Ignatius Piazza, founder of Front Sight, Nev., billed as the nation’s first gun-resort community, with plans for 177 home lots, a K-12 private school, 12 shooting ranges, an assault tower and 400 yards of training tunnels.