Much of the coverage of the death of George H.W. Bush’s death has been kind and respectful. Some has been nasty. Then there’s the just plain weird. ABC journalist Terry Moran on Monday during streaming coverage, decided to take a shot at overpaid CEOS? Huh?
He began by lamenting how Americans are all “in their corners” and not really listening to each other. Moran then stretched for this weird moment:
For example, statistics show that CEOs of the generation of George Herbert Walker Bush, when they paid themselves, they didn’t pay themselves 300 times the wages of an average worker, as they do by statistical calculation today. They paid themselves about 30 or 40. They made a good living in the United States, but they would have been ashamed to pay themselves that amount of money. Something has changed with that shared sense of citizenship.
Really on point there, Terry. Later, Moran made sure to highlight the 1988 campaign, one journalists won’t let him forget: “Read my lips. No new taxes. You know? Willie Horton. He was willing to say a lot of things.”
A partial transcript is below:
ABC News coverage of the death of George H.W. Bush
12/3/18
3:46
TERRY MORAN: Take a pause and look back at the way things were, can’t be again because history marches on, but at the way this man led the country and what we might be able to learn something from that. And beyond that, as I said, just by doing this together, perhaps just touching the cords of a shared citizenship. Right? Everybody is in their corners.
Not just in politics, but in business as well. For example, statistics show that CEOs of the generation of George Herbert Walker Bush, when they paid themselves, they didn’t pay themselves 300 times the wages of an average worker, as they do by statistical calculation today. They paid themselves about 30 or 40. They made a good living in the United States, but they would have been ashamed to pay themselves that amount of money. Something has changed with that shared sense of citizenship.
...
MORAN: For him, there was a difference between campaigning and governing. You said what you had to as a campaigner. Right? Read my lips. No new taxes. You know? Willie Horton. He was willing to say a lot of things.
