Since 1987, the Media Research Center has been compiling its list of notable quotables, providing a clear window into the leftist mindset that pervades most of America’s large news organizations. At the end of the year, the center and a panel of judges choose the best examples. As usual, this year’s crop reveals the media’s perennial contempt for all things conservative. (The full set of winners and finalists can be found at http://www.mrc.org.) Happy New Year!
THE OBAMAGASM AWARD
“Some princes are born in palaces. Some are born in mangers. But a few are born in the imagination, out of scraps of history and hope. . . . Barack Hussein Obama did not win because of the color of his skin. Nor did he win in spite of it. He won because at a very dangerous moment in the life of a still young country, more people than have ever spoken before came together to try to save it. And that was a victory all its own.” – Nancy Gibbs, Time magazine
THE IRRELEVANT REV. WRIGHT AWARD
“To see [Jeremiah Wright’s] career completely destroyed by three 20-second sound bites, all of the work he has done, his entire legacy gone down the drain, has been absolutely devastating to me – to him, sorry. . . . We are still a racist country. . . . I think it brought out a lot of latent racism.”
– The Washington Post’s Sally Quinn, on PBS’ Charlie Rose
CAN WE FLUFF YOUR PILLOW, TOO? AWARD
“What makes you angriest at John McCain, the Republicans? What’s being said about your husband that you want to shout from the mountaintops is not true?” – NBC’s Brian Williams to Michelle Obama
BARBRA STREISAND CELEBRITY VAPIDITY AWARD
“I’d like to tip off law enforcement to an even larger child-abusing religious cult. Its leader also has a compound, and this guy not only operates outside the bounds of the law, but he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats. That’s right, the Pope is coming to America. . . . If you have a few hundred followers, and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you ‘Pope.’ . . . The Catholic Church is the Bear Stearns of organized pedophilia. . . . The Church’s attitude: ‘We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it,’ which is fine. Far be it for me to criticize religion.” – Bill Maher, HBO
MEDIA HERO AWARD
“There is another ground-breaking, crossroads moment. That is for Sen. Hillary Clinton, who ran her campaign on her own terms. This woman, as we said, forged into determination and purpose her whole life. As someone said, ‘No thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.’ “
– ABC’s Diane Sawyer, quoting a 17th-century discourse about Jesus
JOHN MURTHA ‘RACIST AMERICA’ AWARD
“What do you think the bigger obstacle is for you in becoming president: the Clinton campaign machine or America’s inherent racism?”
– ABC’s Chris Cuomo to Barack Obama on Good Morning, America
FROM CAMELOT TO OBAMALOT AWARD
“Today, the audacity of hope had its rendezvous with destiny. No mere endorsement this, more like a political anointment from the Kennedys, merging ideals from two different eras. . . . Obama is now an adopted son of Camelot. His candidacy blessed not just by the Lion of the Senate, patriarch of the clan, but by JFK’s daughter.” – David Wright on ABC’s Nightline
CRUSH RUSH AWARD
Author/humorist P.J. O’Rourke: “It’s the twilight of the radio loud-mouth, you know? I knew it from the moment the fat guy – “
Bill Maher: “You mean Rush Limbaugh and Sean – “
O’Rourke: ” – from the moment the fat guy refused to share his drugs. . . .”
Maher: “You mean the OxyContin that he was on? . . . Why couldn’t he have croaked from it instead of Heath Ledger?” – HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher
QUOTE OF THE YEAR
“It’s part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama speak. My – I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often. . . . Seriously, it’s a dramatic event. He speaks about America in a way that has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with the feeling we have about our country. And that is an objective assessment.”
– MSNBC’s Chris Matthews