Posted on 12/29/2003 8:44:01 AM PST by PJ-Comix
The winning quotes in the MRC's “Best Notable Quotables of 2003: The Sixteenth Annual Awards for the Year’s Worst Reporting.”
To determine this year’s winners, a panel of 46 radio talk show hosts, magazine editors, columnists, editorial writers and media observers each selected their choices for the first, second and third best quote from a slate of five to eight quotes in each category. First place selections were awarded three points, second place choices two points, with one point for the third place selections. Point totals are listed in the brackets at the end of the attribution for each quote. Each judge was also asked to choose a “Quote of the Year” denoting the most outrageous quote of 2003.
The MRC’s Kristina Sewell distributed and counted the ballots. Rich Noyes assembled this issue and Mez Djouadi posted the complete issue on the MRC’s Web site.
To see the full results, with RealPlayer clips of many of the television quotes, go to: www.mediaresearch.org
For an Adobe Acrobat PDF that matches the eight-page hard copy version: www.mediaresearch.org
Now, the winning quotes in 17 award categories:
Damn Those Conservatives Award
“Attorney General John Ashcroft has earned himself a remarkable distinction as the Torquemada of American law. Tomas de Torquemada...was largely responsible for... [the] torture and the burning of heretics -- Muslims in particular. Now, of course, I am not accusing the Attorney General of pulling out anyone’s fingernails or burning people at the stake (at least I don’t know of any such cases). But one does get the sense these days that the old Spaniard’s spirit is comfortably at home in Ashcroft’s Department of Justice.”
-- Former CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite in his syndicated column published in the September 22 Philadelphia Inquirer. [65 points]
Baghdad Bob Award for Parroting Enemy Propaganda
Diane Sawyer: “I read this morning that he’s [Saddam Hussein] also said the love that the Iraqis have for him is so much greater than anything Americans feel for their President because he’s been loved for 35 years, he says, the whole 35 years.”
Dan Harris in Baghdad: “He is one to point out quite frequently that he is part of a historical trend in this country of restoring Iraq to its greatness, its historical greatness. He points out frequently that he was elected with a hundred percent margin recently.”
-- ABC’s Good Morning America, March 7. [52 points]
Dominique de Villepin Snottiness Award for Whining About the War
“I want to speak to you today about war and empire.... We are embarking on an occupation that, if history is any guide, will be as damaging to our souls as it will be to our prestige and power and security....We have forfeited the goodwill, the empathy the world felt for us after 9/11, we have folded in on ourselves....We are far less secure today than we were before we bumbled into Iraq. We will pay for this, but what saddens me most is that those who will by and large pay the highest price are poor kids from Mississippi or Alabama or Texas who could not get a decent job or health insurance and joined the army because it was all we offered them.”
-- New York Times reporter Chris Hedges in a May 17 commencement address at Rockford College in Illinois, as quoted by the Rockford Register Star. The graduates booed Hedges off the stage. [82 points]
The Invisible Liberal Award for Camouflaging Ideology
“The rap on Dean is that he’s like Dukakis and Mondale and McGovern. Well, McGovern was a liberal, but we had an issue and that was the war. Dukakis was no liberal and neither was Mondale. Both of them had several people to the left in those primaries. It was what the Republicans did to them once they got the nomination that made them seem to be liberals in both cases.”
-- Former NBC and CNN reporter Ken Bode on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show, August 10. [72 points]
Media Suck-Up Award
“You became First Lady like no other First Lady before you. You had your own interests, you got involved in public policy. No First Lady had done that without being severely criticized. Did you realize what you were getting into?” “I don’t think people realize how strong your faith is.”
-- Barbara Walters to Hillary Clinton in a June 8 ABC special promoting her book, Living History. [34 points]
Pompous Peter Award for Jennings’ Arrogant Condescension
“This week we were surprised to see several hundred artists and writers walking through the streets of Baghdad to say thank you to Saddam Hussein. He had just increased their monthly financial support. Cynical, you could argue at this particular time, but the state has always supported the arts, and some of the most creative people in the Arab world have always been Iraqis. And whatever they think about Saddam Hussein in the privacy of their homes, on this occasion they were praising his defense of the homeland in the face of American threats.”
-- ABC’s Peter Jennings in Baghdad, concluding the January 21 World News Tonight. [67 points]
Romanticizing the Rabble Award for Glorifying Protesters
“The size of the demonstrators, at least here, at least in Europe, seems to underscore, Chris, that there are now perhaps two world superpowers. There’s the United States and then there are those millions of people who took to the streets opposing U.S. policy.”
-- MSNBC’s David Shuster to Hardball host Chris Matthews, February 17. [81 points]
Barbra Streisand Political IQ Award for Celebrity Vapidity
Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore: “What happened to the search for Osama bin Laden?...You don’t think they [the U.S. government] know where he is?”
Bob Costas (astonished): “You think they know where Osama bin Laden is and it’s hands off?”
Moore: “Absolutely, absolutely.”
Costas: “Why?”
Moore: “Because he’s funded by their friends in Saudi Arabia! He’s back living with his sponsors, his benefactors. Do you think that Osama bin Laden planned 9/11 from a cave in Afghanistan? I can’t get a cell signal from here to Queens! I mean, come on, let’s get real about this. The guy has been on dialysis for two years. He’s got failing kidneys....I think the United States, I think our government knows where he is and I don’t think we’re going to be capturing him or killing him any time soon.”
-- Exchange on HBO’s On the Record with Bob Costas, May 9. [81 points]
Begala & Carville Prize for Demonizing George W. Bush
“This is the worst President ever. He [George W. Bush] is the worst President in all of American history.”
-- Hearst White House columnist Helen Thomas at a Society for Professional Journalism banquet, as quoted by the Torrance, California Daily Breeze’s John Bogert in a January 19 story. [80 points]
Fruitless Plains of Poverty Award
“We are about to show you bread lines in America that you may find hard to believe. With the recession there has been a sudden leap in the number of people on emergency food assistance. The lines we found looked like they’d been taken from the pages of the Great Depression. It’s not just the unemployed. We found plenty of people working full-time, but still not able to earn enough to keep hunger out of the house. If you think you have a good idea of who’s hungry in America today, come join the line. You’d never guess who you’d meet there....Almost half the people fed by these lines are kids. The Agriculture Department figures one out of six children in America faces hunger; that’s more than 12 million kids. Nationwide, children have the highest poverty rate. Preschoolers come here with their parents and play in boxes as empty as the day’s want ads.”
-- CBS’s Scott Pelley’s report from a food line in Marietta, Ohio, on the January 8 60 Minutes II. [74 points]
Bill Moyers Sanctimony Award
“I decided to put on my flag pin tonight -- first time. Until now I haven’t thought it necessary to display a little metallic icon of patriotism for everyone to see....I put it on to take it back. The flag’s been hijacked and turned into a logo -- the trademark of a monopoly on patriotism.... “When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao’s Little Red Book on every official’s desk, omnipresent and unread. But more galling than anything are all those moralistic ideologues in Washington sporting the flag in their lapels while writing books and running Web sites and publishing magazines attacking dissenters as un-American....I put this on as a modest riposte to men with flags in their lapels who shoot missiles from the safety of Washington think tanks, or argue that sacrifice is good as long as they don’t have to make it....I put it on to remind myself that not every patriot thinks we should do to the people of Baghdad what bin Laden did to us.”
-- Bill Moyers on PBS’s Now, February 28. [83 points]
Media Millionaires for Higher Taxes Award
“While these arguments we’re having here in Washington over tax cuts may look sort of abstract to most people in America, it is not abstract when your kid’s teacher gets laid off....Libraries are closing, teachers are getting laid off. Gray Davis is in the position of having to decide whether he should deny prosthetic limbs to poor people.”
-- Time’s Karen Tumulty on CBS’s Face the Nation, May 11. The Cato Institute found California’s state spending grew from $39.5 billion in fiscal year 1994 to $78.1 billion in fiscal year 2001, a 98 percent increase. [50 points]
Politics of Meaninglessness Award for the Silliest Analysis
“To many New Yorkers, the scenes of a city under siege were achingly familiar. New Yorkers watching the televised bombing of Baghdad yesterday said they were riveted by the raw and uninterrupted display of American military might. But for some, the bombing brought back particularly visceral and chilling memories. They could not help thinking about Sept. 11, and how New York, too, was once under assault from the skies.”
-- New York Times reporter David Chen in a March 22 news story headlined “Baghdad Bombing Brings Back Memories of 9/11.” [58 points]
Good Morning Morons Award
“There’s an article in the Style section of the Washington Post this morning. It says you’ve logged 26 years of personal minutiae, filling 4,400 two-by-three inch notebooks, color-coded by season. An example: '12:17' -- this is when you made the announcement -- 'Ascend stage, stumble, regain balance; 12:18: Applause, 'Where the Streets Have No Name,’ plays (U2); 12:19: Clap, wave; 12:20: Adjust tie (red, white stripes); 12:21: Double thumbs up; 12:22: Sing along with National Anthem, right hand on heart.’ What, what do you do this for?!”
-- Katie Couric to Senator Bob Graham on Today, May 7, apparently unaware the article she quoted from was a spoof of the presidential candidate’s diary. [61 points]
Al Franken Cheap Shot Award (for Lambasting Rush Limbaugh)
“What must it be like to live in Rush Limbaugh’s world? A world where when anyone other than conservative, white men attempts to do anything or enter any profession, be it business, politics, art or sports, the only reason they’re allowed entry or, incredibly, attain excellence is because the standard was lowered. Be they liberals, people of color, women, the poor or anyone with an accent.... Edgy, controversial, brilliant. What a way to shake up intelligent sports commentary. Hitler would have killed in talk radio. He was edgy, too.”
-- CBS Sunday Morning contributor Nancy Giles on October 5. [82 points]
What Liberal Media? Award
CBS’s Lesley Stahl: “Today you have broadcast journalists who are avowedly conservative....The voices that are being heard in broadcast media today, are far more -- the ones who are being heard -- are far more likely to be on the right and avowedly so, and therefore, more -- almost stridently so, than what you’re talking about.”
Host Cal Thomas: “Can you name a conservative journalist at CBS News?”
Stahl: “I don’t know of anybody’s political bias at CBS News....We try very hard to get any opinion that we have out of our stories, and most of our stories are balanced.”
-- Exchange on Fox News Channel’s After Hours with Cal Thomas, January 18. [51 points]
Quote of the Year
“If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old. Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought comfort to her in her old age.”
-- Charles Pierce in a January 5 Boston Globe Magazine article. Kopechne drowned while trapped in Kennedy’s submerged car off Chappaquiddick Island in July 1969, an accident Kennedy did not report for several hours.
END Rundown of winning quotes
On Tuesday: The first runners-up.
One thing you have to give Petah Jennings credit for---He NEVER fails to deliver in the Arrogant Condescension Dept.
Unfrigginbelievable.
She has personally lived through all of American History.
Becki
-- Barbara Walters to Hillary Clinton in a June 8 ABC special promoting her book, Living History. [34 points]
Translation: You became the shame of all of the First Ladies before you . You always had your own SELF-SERVING interests. You got involved in soooo many criminal activities. You were severely criticized by anyone with half a brain. Did you realize how much you were hated? I don't think people realize the lengths you will go to get what you want!
Kennedy never reported the accident. Two boys fishing found the car the next day. The sheriff had already found out who the owner was from the RMV. Kennedy encountered the Sheriff on the way back to the accident scene the next day and said he was meaning to report it. ("Oh, mean there's a Blond in the Pond?")
Dukakis was no liberal and neither was Mondale. Both of them had several people to the left in those primaries. It was what the Republicans did to them once they got the nomination that made them seem to be liberals in both cases."
One candidate wanted to ban the Pledge of Allegiance and the other said outright that he was going to raise America taxes. No, of course they are not liberals...
I would love to personally deliver the Peter Jennings Arrogant Condescension Award to him personally. I would also design the award to look like a Lettuce Roll.
But after adding "Boston Globe", I think I found the right(left?) guy:
;-)
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