Upset because North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms had blocked the nomination of liberal Republican William Weld to be Ambassador to Mexico, ABC's Sam Donaldson thought the incident showed that beneath Helms' "courtliness beats the heart of a dictator, and I think the country is appalled."
"Or a terrorist," then-political analyst George Stephanopoulos interjected. "The President is really, I think made a mistake because he's been negotiating with a terrorist here." (ABC's This Week, September 14, 1997)