CyberAlert -- 12/28/1999 -- Best NQs of 1999: Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting
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Best NQs of 1999: Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting 2) List of the 44 judges who picked the winners.
-- The Alec Baldwin Award (for Hate Speech
Against the Presidential Impeachers) To determine this year's winners, a panel of 44 talk show hosts, magazine editors, columnists, editorial writers and media observers generously gave of their time to select their choices for the first, second and third best quote from six 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. (See item #2 for the list of judges.) Point totals are listed in the brackets at the end of the attribution for each quote. ABC News anchor Carole
Simpson to Bill Clinton: "You've got the big plane, you've got
the big house, you've got the cars, the protection. Aren't you going
to suffer great post-partum depression after you leave office?"....
"I think there are real questions
about separation of powers and I don't think he [Clinton] should go up
there [appear before the Senate]. And second of all, that herd of managers
from the House, I mean frankly all they were missing was white sheets.
They're like night riders going over. This is bigger than Bill
Clinton."
"You know who the hero of this whole
thing is, it's that guy, what was his name, Richard Llamas, the guy who
stood up in the Senate gallery last week and said, 'Good God vote and
get over with this, will you.' If they had stretched this out for another
two or three weeks, which if they would have had the kind of witnesses Bob
[Novak] wanted to have, I want to tell you something, I think the people
may have stormed the United States Capitol."
"Where have you gone, Joe McCarthy,
oh, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you....Yes folks, Republican efforts
to warn Americans of the danger of fuzzy liberals in charge of the
nation's political system -- and its nuclear secrets -- are about to go
into overdrive."
"She emerged on health care, only to
beat a very bruised retreat. She clearly hated being thought of as just
Bill Clinton's wife. But ironically, it would take his scandals, finally,
to free her. Finally, last November 1998, Hillary Clinton showed the world
what she could do on the campaign trail without him. Political mastery,
every bit as dazzling as his, the thoughtful speech, unapologetically
strong, emboldening Democrats, electing Senators. So her friends say she
has really earned this campaign, this moment, if she chooses, earned it by
changing herself, searching, stumbling, and at the end, by standing, not
by her man, but by herself."
"Yet his achievements as a Senator
have towered over his time, changing the lives of far more Americans than
remember the name Mary Jo Kopechne....He deserves recognition not just as
the leading Senator of his time but also as one of the greats in the
history of this singular institution, wise in its workings, especially its
demand that a Senator be more than partisan to accomplish much."
"There is a scene [in Roots] where
kidnapped African Kunta Kinte won't settle down in his chains. 'Want me
to give him a stripe or two, boss?' the old slave, Fiddler, asks his
Master Reynolds. 'Do as I say, Fiddler,' Reynolds answers. 'That's all
I expect from any of my niggers.' 'Oh, I love you, Massa Reynolds,'
Fiddler tells him. And instantly, my mind draws political parallels. Ward
Connerly, I think to myself. Armstrong Williams. Shelby Steele. Hyperbole,
some might say. I say dead-on. 'Clarence Thomas,' I say to my Cousin
Kim. And she just stares at me. She may be a little tender yet for racial
metaphors. I see them everywhere."
Tim Russert: "Is it
hard holding your own views in check?"
"Republicans are betting that this too
[Columbine] will pass, that as with Jonesboro and Paducah, Pearl and
Springfield, once the white coffins are in the ground and the cameras
gone, the outrage will subside. But maybe not this time. In town meetings
and talk radio, the public has had its fill of politicians talking
resignedly about our gun culture, as if there's nothing to be done about a
subgroup that finds schoolyard massacres an acceptable cost for its right
to be armed to the teeth."
"That smells of bullsh...How much
longer are we gonna take that? How much longer are we gonna be wrapping in
the flag of patriotism to justify 250 millions guns out there? How much
longer?"
Rudy Giuliani joking on
CBS's Late Show about going to Arkansas to run for the Senate: "I've
never lived here. I've never worked here. I ain't never been here. But I
think it would be cool to be your Senator."
Cliff May of the
Republican National Committee: "We have right now a credible
allegation by Juanita Broaddrick that while Attorney General, Bill Clinton
sexually assaulted her and he won't answer."
"Don't you think 13 guys, all of whom,
you know, are not noted for any contribution to civil rights. I'm talking
about the House managers. All of whom are born-again, all of whom are
right-to-lifers, all of whom are you know, anti-immigration, pro-English
Only, etc, etc, don't you think that when that face is presented, isn't
that one of the reasons the majority, the vast majority of the American
people support the President? When they look at the people prosecuting,
some say persecuting him, and say, wait a second, those people wouldn't
even let me into their home or their neighborhood or to work alongside
them?"
"The star power has diminished. John
Kennedy Jr. was the Sun God, the most charismatic of any of the Kennedy
children. So that will lower their wattage some, but there are enough
Kennedys out there making enough contributions that they will be part of
the life of this country well into the next century."
-- Brent Baker, Editor of the MRC's
CyberAlerts and Notable Quotables
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http://www.mrc.org,
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Starting
with the Quote of the Year, below are the winning quotes in 14 categories
in the MRC's "Best Notable Quotables of 1999: The Twelfth Annual
Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting." CyberAlert editions
distributed later this week will feature the top runners-up. Amongst the
award categories:
In
alphabetical order, the 44 judges who generously gave of their time to
evaluate six to ten quotes in each of 14 categories:
Best
of NQ online with video clips as well as the results as picked by visitors
to our Web page.
