[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 68 (Wednesday, April 26, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S5725]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            APOLOGY TO THE GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, as the senior senator from the State of 
New York, and as a Democrat, I rise to offer an apology to our 
Governor, George E. Pataki, for the inexcusable conduct of the national 
chair of the Democratic National Committee yesterday in Albany.
  As has now been reported, and not disputed, Mr. Donald L. Fowler 
referred to our Governor as a ``quasi-Governor''. This, he said, is 
self-defining. ``It means almost a governor, a governor who's not quite 
there, a governor who doesn't quite have it together * * *'' Later he 
volunteered to reporters, ``You know what `quasi' means. It means half-
assed.''
  In the annals of political invective, there has been yet more vulgar 
calumny, but in this already sufficiently raucus time, this will serve. 
But will not be allowed to stand.
  Mr. Pataki is our duly elected Governor; a person of manifest ability 
and quiet dignity. It defies reason that the national chair of the 
Democratic Party should journey to the State capital for the purpose of 
summoning New Yorkers to support President Clinton in the next 
election, whilst simultaneously insulting the person New Yorkers chose 
to be Governor in the last election.
  I am sure Mr. Fowler regrets his remarks. I await his apology. And, 
to say again, tender my own on behalf of the great majority of 
Democrats who would not wish to be associated with what has now taken 
place, and who will insist that it not occur again. The President's 
task in New York will be difficult enough; that would make it 
impossible.

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