Third Runners-Up Quotes in the MRC's Best of NQ Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting
The third runners-up quotes in the MRC's "Best Notable Quotables of 2010: The Twenty-Third Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting." As announced in a CyberAlert Special last week, the awards issue was posted, with videos, on Monday, December 20, but following tradition, Monday, Tuesday, yesterday and today - the last weekdays of the year - MRC.org's BiasAlert and corresponding CyberAlert e-mail newsletter will run the winning quotes followed on succeeding days by the runners-up.
The page linked above also has links for the text of the entire issue in MS Word, OpenOffice Writer or WordPerfect formats. You can also download a colorful and easily read-able PDF version.
To determine this year's winners, a panel of 46 radio talk show hosts, magazine editors, columnists, editorial writers, and expert 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 alongside each quote. Each judge was also asked to choose a "Quote of the Year" denoting the most outrageous quote of 2010.
The MRC's Michelle Humphrey and Melissa Lopez distributed and counted the ballots. Alex Fitzsimmons helped produce the numerous audio and video clips included in the Web-posted version. Rich Noyes and Brent Baker assembled this issue and Brad Ash posted the entire package on the MRC's Web site.
The list of the judges, who were generous with their time, is posted online and listed below after the winning quotes.
Now, the third runners-up quotes in the 17 award categories (see the "Best Notable Quotables of 2010" pages for video clips of each television quote):
The Poison Tea Pot Award for Smearing the Anti-Obama Rabble (Third runner-up)
"The angry faces at Tea Party rallies are eerily familiar. They resemble faces of protesters lining the street at the University of Alabama in 1956 as Autherine Lucy, the school's first black student, bravely tried to walk to class. Those same jeering faces could be seen gathered around the Arkansas National Guard troopers who blocked nine black children from entering Little Rock's Central High School in 1957. 'They moved closer and closer,' recalled Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine. 'Somebody started yelling, "Lynch her! Lynch her!"'"
- The Washington Post's Colbert King in a March 27 column. [26 points]
Rodney Dangerfield Award for Demanding Respect for Obama's "Achievements" (Third runner-up)
"Big problems. Big achievements. Big costs. Historians say President Obama's legislative record during a crisis-ridden presidency already puts him in a league with such consequential presidents as Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt. But polls show voters aren't totally on board with his achievements, at least not yet, and the White House acknowledges that his victories have carried huge financial and political costs. 'There are always costs in doing big things,' Obama told USA Today."
- Opening of May 12 USA Today cover story by Susan Page and Mimi Hall, "Will doing 'big things' wind up costing Obama?" The accompanying picture showed a portrait of Abraham Lincoln peering down at Obama. [35 points]
Damn Those Conservatives Award (Third runner-up)
"Tonight, we start with the party of hate. The Republican Party in this country has been running on hate and division for the last 50 years....What black person, gay guy or girl, immigrant or Muslim American in their right mind would vote for the Republican Party? They might as well hang a sign around their neck saying, 'I hate myself.'"
- Fill-in host Cenk Uygur on MSNBC's The Ed Show, August 26. [42 points]
The Shovel Ready Media Award for Claiming Success for Obama's "Stimulus" (Third runner-up)
"People complain about the size of government, they're complaining about the deficit, they're complaining about TARP and who knows what all else. As we're standing here looking at it right now, just if you can step away, was the stimulus big enough?"
"There are plenty of economists out there, Mark Zandi, who say what's really needed is a second stimulus."
"Laura Tyson, what about a more significant stimulus, beyond the things, these, you know, a block here, a block here, a block here, but another say couple hundred billion dollars, what about, say, something like a new WPA?"
- Fill-in host Harry Smith interviewing a panel of economists on CBS's Face the Nation, September 5. [38 points]
They Don't Miss Him Yet Award for Still Bashing Bush (Third runner-up)
"When are you going to get out of Afghanistan? Why are we continuing to kill and die there? What is the real excuse - and don't give us this Bushism, 'If we don't go there, they'll all come here!'"
- Longtime White House correspondent Helen Thomas to President Obama at his May 27 press conference. [35 points]
No Wonder It Sold For $1 Award for Newsweek's Priceless Bias (Third runner-up)
"Terror Begins at Home; Fearmongering politicians are scoring cheap political points at the expense of the American people."
- Newsweek's headline and subheadline over story by managing editor Dan Klaidman about Republican criticism of President Obama's policies, February 22 issue. [40 points]
Media Hero Award (Third runner-up)
"The life and times of Arianna Huffington, who represents such a voice of truth and the highest aspiration for any individual that hopes to improve themselves each and every day, as they go through their days, to be better, not only for themselves, but to those around them. I believe she is a role model for all of us in that regard and couldn't be happier for her. Happy birthday, Arianna."
- MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan marking the left-wing Huffington Post publisher's 60th birthday on the eponymous Dylan Ratigan Show, July 16. [31 points]
Master of His Domain Award for Obama Puffery (Third runner-up)
"When he turns to solving problems through policy, he reveres facts, calling for data and then more data. He looks for historical analogues and reads voraciously. 'This is someone who in law school worked with [Harvard professor] Larry Tribe on a paper on the legal implications of Einstein's theory of relativity,' said senior adviser David M. Axelrod. 'He does have an incisive mind; that mind is always put to use in pursuit of tangible things that are going to improve people's lives.'"
- Washington Post reporters Anne Kornblut and Michael Fletcher in a January 25 front-page story about Obama headlined, "The Seeker as Problem-Solver." [36 points]
Dumb and Dumber Award for Matthews and Olbermann's Leftist Blatherings (Third runner-up)
"What's going on out there in the Republican Party is kind of a frightening, almost Cambodia re-education camp going on in that party, where they're going around to people, sort of switching their minds around saying, if you're not far right, you're not right enough."
- Chris Matthews during an MSNBC primetime special about President Obama's Q&A with House Republicans, January 29. [28 points]
The Ground Zeroes Award for Impugning Americans as Islamophobic (Third runner-up)
"It might be Islamophobia, Obamaphobia, or both, but when loud speakers are blaring 'Born in the USA' and signs say 'No Clubhouse for Terrorists,' it's clear we aren't just talking about a mosque anymore. There is a debate to be had about the sensitivity of building this center so close to Ground Zero. But we can not let fear and rage tear down the towers of our core American values."
- Evening News anchor Katie Couric in her "Katie Couric's Notebook" posted at CBSNews.com, August 23. [35 points]
Hazing Arizona Award for Denigrating Immigration Enforcement (Third runner-up)
"With this new law, will you ramp it up? Will you, will you grab people on street corners? I mean, what will you do with this new law?"
- ABC's Bill Weir to Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Good Morning America, April 25. [37 points]
The Supremely Slanted Award for Elevating Elena Kagan (Third runner-up)
"We know she [Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan] was a spectacularly successful dean at Harvard Law School where she was the first female dean - that she just moved the place, got it really moving again. Students loved her. She knocked heads on the faculty to get hires done. She was a spectacularly successful policy bureaucrat in the Clinton White House."
- NPR's Nina Totenberg on Inside Washington, May 14. [34 points]
The Half-Baked Alaska Award for Pummeling Palin (Third runner-up)
"What she said was drivel. No, let me amend that: it was anti-intellectual drivel....Those who celebrate Sarah Palin's lack of knowledge as a form of 'authenticity' superior to Barack Obama's gloriously American mongrel ethnicity and self-made intellectuality are representatives of a long-standing American theme - the celebration of sameness, and mediocrity, in a country that has succeeded brilliantly because of its diversity and restlessly eccentric genius."
- Political columnist Joe Klein on Time's "Swampland" blog about Palin's Tea Party speech, February 7. [40 points]
Obama's Orderlies Award for Prepping America for ObamaCare (Third runner-up)
"I think providing health care for people who can't afford it is something that most people do agree with - that there has to be some kind of alternative other than our national, our nation's emergency rooms for people who need health care. And I read somewhere - I think it was in The New Yorker - that 45,000 people died needlessly because they simply don't have access to health care, and that just seems so unfair and so undemocratic."
- Katie Couric in a December 22, 2009 Facebook video chat. The statistic Couric cited was generated by the left-wing Physicians for a National Health Program. [23 points]
The Crush Rush Award for Loathing Limbaugh (Third runner-up)
Anchor David Shuster: "Many conservatives today reacted harshly to the action in Congress. But nobody on the right produced as much controversial venom this afternoon as Rush Limbaugh...."
Georgetown University's Michael Eric Dyson: "If anybody is fomenting dissent, it is Rush Limbaugh, the politics of division, the cruel denial of the utter humanity of Mr. Obama...."
Shuster: "Rush Limbaugh creates this picture of fascism and Nazism on the march. And you then start to have people going out of control acting crazily on Capitol Hill, yelling all kinds of racist things at members of the Congressional Black Caucus, yelling hateful things at Barney Frank...."
Dyson: "This is a bigotocracy. I think Rush Limbaugh is trying to foment a universe of bigotocracy."
- Exchange during 3pm ET hour of MSNBC Live, March 22. [33 points]
The Audacity of Dopes Award for the Wackiest Analysis of the Year (Third runner-up)
"I call NPR 'National Pentagon Radio.' They're no more left wing than Fox News as far as I'm concerned. Look at the commentators they have on there, right? They're all right-wing commentators. I couldn't get in the door of NPR. I'm sure you don't appear on their shows either, right? They lean so far right. The idea that they're part of the liberal media, as if they were. Look, except for MSNBC, these guys control all the media as far as I'm concerned."
- Left-wing radio host and former CNN and MSNBC co-host Bill Press on Ed Schultz's radio show, Oct. 22. [31 points]
The Barbra Streisand Political IQ Award for Celebrity Vapidity (Third runner-up)
"Sarah Palin's an idiot. Come on. This is a remarkably, stunningly, jaw-droppingly incompetent and mean woman."
- TV and movie producer Aaron Sorkin on CNN's Parker Spitzer, October 4. [29 points]
The 46 judges, check the online listing for links to Web pages for each of them:
- Lee Anderson, editorial page editor, Chattanooga Times Free Press
- Chuck Asay, syndicated editorial cartoonist, Creators Syndicate
- Brent H. Baker, MRC's Vice President for Research & Publications; Editor of CyberAlert and MRC's NewsBusters blog
- Mark Belling, radio talk show host, WISN-AM in Milwaukee
- Robert Bluey, Director, Center for Media and Public Policy at the Heritage Foundation
- Neal Boortz, WSB Atlanta-based nationally syndicated radio talk show host
- L. Brent Bozell III, President of the Media Research Center
- Priscilla L. Buckley, author; retired senior editor, National Review
- Mark Davis, WBAP radio in Dallas-Ft.Worth talk host, columnist for the Dallas Morning News
- Midge Decter, author; Heritage Foundation Board of Trustees
- Bob Dutko, nationally syndicated radio talk show host, WMUZ in Detroit
- Jim Eason, retired San Francisco radio talk show host
- Erick Erickson, editor of RedState.com
- Eric Fettmann, associate editorial page editor, New York Post
- David Freddoso, online opinion editor for The Washington Examiner
- Tim Graham, Director of Media Analysis, Media Research Center; Senior Editor of the MRC's NewsBusters blog
- Steven Greenhut, Director of the Pacific Research Institute's Journalism Center
- Lucianne Goldberg, publisher of Lucianne.com news forum
- Quin Hillyer, senior editorial writer, Washington Times; senior editor of The American Spectator
- Mark Hyman, TV commentator, Sinclair Broadcast Group
- Jeff Jacoby, syndicated columnist for the Boston Globe
- Cliff Kincaid, Editor, Accuracy in Media
- Mark Larson, radio talk show host, KCBQ/KPRZ in San Diego
- Jason Lewis, nationally syndicated radio talk show host
- Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor-at-large, National Review Online
- Brian Maloney, radio analyst, creator of The RadioEqualizer blog
- Steve Malzberg, radio talk show host, WOR Radio Network
- Patrick McGuigan, Editor of CapitolBeatOK.com; Senior Editor for The City Sentinel
- Colin McNickle, editorial page editor for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
- Vicki McKenna, radio talk show host, WISN in Milwaukee and WIBA in Madison, Wisconsin
- Jan Mickelson, radio talk show host, WHO in Des Moines
- Rich Noyes, Director of Research, Media Research Center; Senior Editor of the MRC's NewsBusters blog
- Kate O'Beirne, President, the National Review Institute
- Marvin Olasky, provost of The Kings College in New York City and Editor-in-Chief of World magazine
- Henry Payne, Detroit News editorial cartoonist, Editor of TheMichiganView.com
- Wladyslaw Pleszczynski, Editorial Director, The American Spectator
- Dan Rea, host of Nightside, on WBZ Radio in Boston
- Chris Reed, editorial writer, San Diego Union-Tribune
- Mike Rosen, talk radio host at KOA in Denver; columnist for the Denver Post
- James Taranto, Wall Street Journal editorial board member and editor of "Best of the Web Today"
- Cal Thomas, syndicated and USA Today columnist
- R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., Editor-in-Chief, The American Spectator
- Clay Waters, Editor of the MRC's TimesWatch site
- Walter E. Williams, professor of economics, George Mason University
- Thomas S. Winter, Editor-in-Chief of Human Events
- Martha Zoller, radio talk show host, Georgia News Network
- Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.
