| 1976: | Reagan, giving background on his style of speechmaking, reminisces about doing sportscasts based on telegraph dispatches, in which he would make up all the action and color from minimal data. "It was easier if you weren't at the ballpark, because you didn't feel you were lying," he says. |
| 1983: | Reagan calls the furor over the news that his campaign aides "filched" material used to brief president Carter before debating Reagan "much ado about nothing," and doubts that there ever was "a briefing book as such." Defending those who claim not to remember such a thing, he says, "Look, ask me what paper came to my desk last week and I couldn't tell you." |
| 1986: | J. Danforth Quayle defends his support of Daniel Manion, a Reagan nominee for federal appeals court, on the grounds that, "This is a diversified society." By this he means that we should not restrict the judiciary to those who show high competence. Manion escapes Senate rejection today by one vote, largely thanks to Quayle, although his record cannot be called anything but very lightweight, and his legal writing is at best semi-literate. His father Clarence E. Manion is a prominent member of the John Birch Society, and some say that Daniel Manion's career success is largely due to his father's influence. |