George Stephanopoulos informed ABC television watchers on May 11 that this is “probably the best chance we’ve had in 15 or 16 years to actually get a comprehensive health care plan through.” The major difference between now and 1994, when the Clinton administration failed to push through its healthcare overhaul, is that today’s industry groups would “rather switch than fight,” he said. 

On the CBS television show Face the Nation on April 12, in an interview with Bob Schieffer, Mexico’s Ambassador to the United States Arturo Sarukhan tried to blame much of the violence in his country on the allegedly lax gun-control laws in the United States. He maintained in part: “Ninety percent of all weapons we are seizing in Mexico, Bob, are coming from across the United States.” Reinstituting the so-called assault-weapons ban in the United States, which expired in 2004, said the ambassador, “could have a profound impact on the number and the caliber of weapons going down to Mexico.”