In their attacks on Fox News and tea-party protesters, White House officials are cribbing from a speech given 40 years ago next month.
[W]e should ask what is the end value–to enlighten or to profit? What is the end result–to inform or to confuse? How does the ongoing exploration for more action, more excitement, more drama, serve our national search for internal peace and stability?
Normality has become the nemesis of the evening news.
Gresham’s law seems to be operating in the network news.
Bad news drives out good news. The irrational is more controversial than the rational. Concurrence can no longer compete with dissent…
What has this passionate pursuit of “controversy” done to the politics of progress through logical compromise, essential to the functioning of a democratic society?
The members of Congress who follow their principles and philosophy quietly in a spirit of compromise are unknown to many Americans–while the loudest and most extreme dissenters on every issue are known to every man in the street.
How many marches and demonstrations would we have if the marchers did not know that the ever-faithful TV cameras would be there to record their antics for the next news show?
Pat Buchanan wrote those remarks for Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, who delivered them on November 13, 1969.