Posted on 11/08/2007 5:15:15 AM PST by William Tell 2
To commemorate its 20th Anniversary, the Media Research Center has compiled the most outrageous liberal media quotes of the past two decades in a special edition of “Notable Quotables,” the MRC’s bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous, often humorous quotes from the liberal media. The Top 10 “Notable Quotables” of the past 20 years are provided below, and the full special edition containing more than 100 quotes -- many accompanied by audio and video clips -- is available online at www.MRC.org.
“This collection shows the scope of the very problem the MRC was founded to combat,” says MRC President Brent Bozell, “and the extent to which the liberal media have smeared conservatives and cheered liberals over the years. While the public increasingly abandons the liberal media, reporters continue to be immune to the fact that their bias is a problem.”
1. Reviling Ronald Reagan “In the plague years of the 1980s -- that low decade of denial, indifference, hostility, opportunism and idiocy -- government fiddled and medicine diddled, and the media were silent or hysterical. A gerontocratic Ronald Reagan took this [AIDS] plague less seriously than Gerald Ford had taken swine flu. After all, he didn’t need the ghettos and he didn’t want the gays.”-- CBS’s John Leonard on “Sunday Morning,” Sept. 5, 1993.
2. Damn Those Conservatives “Corporations pay public relations firms millions of dollars to contrive the kind of grass-roots response that [Jerry] Falwell or Pat Robertson can galvanize in a televise d sermon. Their followers are largely poor, uneducated and easy to command.”-- Washington Post reporter Michael Weisskopf in a Feb. 1, 1993, news story.
3. Typical Liberal Compassion “I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease.... He is an absolutely reprehensible person.” -- USA Today columnist and Pacifica Radio talk show host Julianne Malveaux on Justice Clarence Thomas, Nov. 4, 1994, on PBS’s “To the Contrary.”
4. Fawning Over Bill and Hillary “If we could be one-hundredth as great as you and Hillary Rodham Clinton have been in the White House, we’d take it right now and walk away winners. . . . Tell Mrs. Clinton we respect her and we’re pulling for her.” -- Dan Rather to Bill Clinton at a May 27, 1993, CBS affiliates mee t ing, talking about anchoring with Connie Chung.
5. Three Cheers for Liberalism “It is liberalism, whether people like it or not, which has animated all the years of my life. What on Earth did conservatism ever accomplish for our country?” -- Charles Kuralt talking with Morley Safer on the CBS special, “One for the Road With Charles Kuralt,” May 4, 1994.
6. Talk Radio Terrorists “The bombing in Oklahoma City has focused renewed attention on the rhetoric that’s been coming from the right and those who cater to angry white men.... Right-wing talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Bob Grant, Oliver North, G. Gordon Liddy, Michael Reagan and others take to the air every day with basically the same format: Detail a problem, blame the government or a group and invite invective from like-minded people.... Never do most of the radio hosts encourage outright violence, but the extent to which their at ti tudes may embolden or encourage some extremists has clearly become an issue.” -- Bryant Gumbel, co-host of NBC’s “Today Show,” April 25, 1995.
7. Dan’s Salute to ‘Honest’ Bill Host Bill O’Reilly: “Do you think President Clinton’s an honest man?” Dan Rather: “Yes, I think he’s an honest man.... I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things.” -- Exchange on Fox News’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” May 15, 2001.
8. Extolling Virtues of Fidel’s Prison “For Castro, freedom starts with education. And if literacy alone were the yardstick, Cuba would rank as one of the freest nations on Earth. The literacy rate is 96%.” -- Barbara Walters on ABC’s “20/20,” Oct. 11, 2002.
9. Apologizing for Awful America “It wasn’t supposed to be this way. You weren’t supposed to be graduating into an America fighting a misbegotten war in a fore ign land. You weren’t supposed to be graduating into a world where we are still fighting for fundamental human rights, whether it’s the rights of immigrants to start a new life or the rights of gays to marry or the rights of women to choose. You weren’t supposed to be graduating into a world where oil still drove policy and environmentalists have to fight relentlessly for every gain. You weren’t, but you are. And for that, I’m sorry.” -- From New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.’s, May 21 graduation address at the State University of New York at New Paltz, shown on C-SPAN May 27, 2006.
10. Rosie vs. ‘Radical Christianity’ “As a result of the [9/11] attack and the killing of nearly 3,000 innocent people, we invaded two countries and killed innocent people in their countries.... Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America.” -- Rosie O’Don nel l on ABC’s “The View,” Sept. 12, 2006.
Of course he did ... it seemed to me, at least, that his supposedly "heart-warming" monologues on NPR back in the mid '80s were always dripping with contempt and hatred. I was even then aghast that anybody (other than urban leftists) ever liked them.
The way to stop the AIDS plague in the eighties would have been to completely shut down the bath houses.
THEN what would the leftists have said?
This is my favorite:
“The nature of the evidence is irrelevant*; it’s the seriousness of the charge that matters.”
I think this was during the Clarence Thomas lynching.
*especially when the ‘nature’ is lame or non-existent.
NOBODY spews hatred as much as a “Tolerant” and “Compassionate” Liberal....
In the early eighties David Horowitz proposed exactly that measure. During one visit to San Francisco in the early eighties he gave a speech to a bunch of homosexual activists and other interesed parties concerning the AIDS crisis. He thought he was going to be applauded for coming up with an obvious solution (closing bathhouses) to fighting the disease.
Instead he was stunned at the audience response to his speech. Which was sullen silence followed by angry questions accusing Horowitz and other nasty people of trying to inhibit the gay lifestyle. Horowitz correctly concluded that most gay activists were (1) not playing with a full deck and (2) not serious about stopping AIDS.
I made the mistake of thinking that Keillor’s writing would be as charming as his storytelling, and bought one of his books. It turned out to be a bitter, petty, nasty diatribe. Later on, I perused another of his books at the library, and found more of the same.
Now if I hear him on radio or TV, I change stations.
Dan Rather: “Yes, I think he’s an honest man.... I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things.”
Kind of like.....Dan himself!
:-D
“Cuba would rank as one of the freest nations on Earth. The literacy rate is 96%.”
IIRC, the US literacy rate USED TO be that, before the welfare mentality (communism) took over.
So much for that theory.
I’m confused - does Rosie think 9/11 was a Bush/US conspiracy, or doesn’t she?
Cordially,
It seems to me that this quote (about the 1994 Republican "takeover" of Congress) is equally apropos of the 2006 elections.
Sorry, but it seems to me he wasn’t quoting anything, so you can’t attack Brokaw on that. He was probably just generalizing on what he saw as the founding principles.
Which actually in certain light isn’t wrong. It’s just certain phrases have become charged with certain meanings. Taken as straight English, though, the terms aren’t far off.
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
I give up. I hope he didn't think he was quoting the Declaration of Independence.
Oh, but the MSM celebrated the 2006 elections!
Between 1994 and 2006 the MSM always referred to Congress as, "the Republican-controlled Congress" (said in pejorative manner, in a way to cast illegitimacy and scorn). After 2006, the MSM now always refers to Congress as simply, "Congress". You NEVER EVER hear or see Congress mentioned as, "the Democrat-controlled Congress" as they did with Republicans.
A large number of cases were related to IV drug use. Who knows how to stop that?
Wait, I just had an idea...
The correct conclusion is that they were merely obeying the first commandment of liberalism, which is "Do whatever you want, no matter how destructive it may be to yourself or others."
Among my favorites is the Dan’s “Fake but accurate” quote.
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