At 10, A Memo to Ted Koppel

Later...

KOPPEL: The trial of Oliver North... It's going to be dogging you, you know that.
BUSH: No, I don't, because, Dan, you've made a fatal error... a fatal flaw in your analysis...
KOPPEL: I'll tell you what. If you stop calling me Dan, try calling me Peter or Tom or —
BUSH: Did I do it again?
KOPPEL: Well, that's all right. You can call me anything you like, but, you know, it's —
BUSH: It's Freudian. Hey, listen, it's Freudian.

Later...

BUSH: Ted, I apologize for calling you Dan. I wasn't being smart. I can't see you. I'm in Houston, and I was not trying to be provocative or amusing.
KOPPEL: No, not at all, and I didn't take it that way. Next time, call me Barbara.
KOPPEL: There are a lot of black players... a lot of great black baseball men who would dearly love to be in managerial positions... Is there still that much prejudice in baseball today?
CAMPANIS: I don't believe it's prejudice. I truly believe they may not have some of the necessities to be, let's say, a field manager, or perhaps a general manager.
KOPPEL: Do you really believe that?
CAMPANIS: Well, I don't say that all of them, but they certainly are short. How many quarterbacks do you have, how many pitchers do you have that are black?
KOPPEL: Yeah, but I mean, I gotta tell you, that sounds like the same kind of garbage we were hearing 40 years ago...
HART: The public interest ends where a person's personal life and private life does not affect his or her performance in office. That has been the standard in this country for 200 years. There has to be some linkage.
KOPPEL: May I suggest a link?
HART: Sure.
KOPPEL: And I think it is a link to which you have already pleaded guilty. It is what the Catholics call an occasion of sin; it is being in a situation which can easily be misconstrued, and that, in turn, I would suggest to you, Senator, suggests bad judgment. And bad judgment clearly is something we don't want in our president. We frequently get it, but we don't want it. Now, is that relevant? Is that pertinent?
HART: Yes, it is relevant, and I did exercise bad judgment, but...

Later...

KOPPEL: Let me propose a theory to you. If I were Gary Hart, I might be inclined to come on this program and answer every rotten question about Donna Rice and then be able to say ''I did it, I confronted it once, I'm not going to confront it again. That's over, that's past.'' Is that what you're going to do?
HART: I hadn't really — that's a little more detailed tactically, frankly, than I had proceeded to —
KOPPEL: Well, I might be more cynical than you.