MRC's 'DisHonors Awards' Held Thursday Night; Limbaugh Honored --3/30/2007
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2. Text of the 15 Nominated Videos Played for the Audience
3. The 13 'DisHonors Awards' Judges Who Evaluated the Quotes
4. Audience Awards the 'Quote of the Year' to Arthur Sulzberger Jr.
5. Live Streaming of Gala Failed; Bozell Canceled by Fox & Friends
Following the presentation of the DisHonors Awards videos in five categories (see text of quotes in #2 below with a link to the video clips), a look at "Baker's Funny Clips" (in reference to Brent Baker who oversees the MRC's News Analysis Division), a highlight reel of past galas and the audience picking the "Quote of the Year," the evening was topped off with Rush Limbaugh accepting the MRC's first annual "William F. Buckley Award for Media Excellence" recognizing Limbaugh's "outstanding leadership in the conservative movement, defending and advancing conservative principles through the media." Greeted by the crowd of 1,000 with a standing ovation, Limbaugh joked about his "humility," recounted examples of how the "drive-by media" distort his points and thanked his listeners and the MRC for contributing to his success. DisHonors Awards winners were selected by a distinguished panel of 13 leading media observers, including Limbaugh, Tony Blankley, Ann Coulter, Steve Forbes, Mark Levin, Robert Novak, Walter E. Williams and Thomas S. Winter, who served as judges. For the full list, see item #3 below. Cal Thomas, a syndicated columnist and panelist on FNC's Fox News Watch, served as Master of Ceremonies and explained how illness prevented scheduled presenters Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter from attending. Syndicated radio talk show host Neal Boortz presented the first two awards, followed by business leader Herman Cain who set up the six funny clips and presented the third award. Mary Matalin, a former adviser to President Bush and Vice President Cheney, handled the fourth and fifth awards. In place of the journalist who won each award, a conservative accepted it in jest. Those standing in for the winners: Former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele, radio talk show host G. Gordon Liddy, game show host Pat Sajak and Ward Connerly, President of the American Civil Rights Institute. Plus, "Osama bin Laden" accepted an award via video from a cave in Pakistan. The evening began with welcoming remarks from Cal Thomas, an invocation by Father John Hopkins and the Pledge of Allegiance led by Rear Admiral James J. Carey (Retired). Between the fifth award and the "Quote of the Year" competition, Cain and Dick Eckburg, the Chairman of the MRC Board Trustees, honored MRC President L. Brent Bozell with a Steven Penley painting of Bozell and conservative opinion leaders integral in the MRC's 20-year history. To get the full flavor of the jovial and mocking atmosphere of the evening, you'll need to watch video of the event. C-SPAN was there and should show the program at some point in the future. In the meantime, the MRC's Michael Gibbons has already posted RealPlayer and Windows Media videos, as well as MP3 audio clips, of each nominated quote (see item #2 below) as well as the highlights pf past "DisHonors" galas, and overnight the MRC's Michelle Humphrey and Kristine Looney rendered video of Limbaugh's remarks and the audience's selection of the Quote of the Year.
So, check this address for the latest posting of videos: www.mediaresearch.org
A listing of the three finalist quotes, as selected by the panel of 13 judges, played in each of five award categories: "God, I Hate America Award," "Dan Rather Memorial Award for the Stupidest Analysis," "I'm Not a Political Genius, But I Play One on TV Award," "Tin Foil Hat Award for Crazy Conspiracy Theories" and the "Puppy Love Award."
These 15 videos are online in RealPlayer and Windows Media formats, as well as with MP3 audio clips: www.mediaresearch.org + God, I Hate America Award Presented by Neal Boortz Runners-up: # "Americans are puzzled over why so many people in the world hate us....We're trying to protect ourselves with more weapons. We have to do it, I guess, but it might be better if we figured out how to behave as a nation in a way that wouldn't make so many people in the world want to kill us." -- CBS's Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes, September 10. # "The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war on the false premise that it had something to do with 9/11 is 'lying by implication.' The impolite phrase is 'impeachable offense.'...When those who dissent are told time and time again -- as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus -- that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of that freedom, we are somehow un-American; when we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have 'forgotten the lessons of 9/11;' look into this empty space behind me and the bipartisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me this: Who has left this hole in the ground? We have not forgotten, Mr. President. You have. May this country forgive you." -- MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on September 11, ending his Countdown with a commentary delivered from the site of the World Trade Center. And the winner is:
# "It wasn't supposed to be this way. You weren't supposed to be graduating into an America fighting a misbegotten war in a foreign 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.
Presented by Neal Boortz Runners-up: # "A past President, bullied and sandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster, finally lashed back....The nation's marketplace of ideas is being poisoned by a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would've quit....As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he [President Bush] is having it done for him, by proxy. Thus, the sandbag effort by Fox News Friday afternoon." -- Keith Olbermann referring to Bill Clinton's interview with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, MSNBC's Countdown, September 25. # "Finally tonight, the Winter Games. Count me among those who don't like 'em and won't watch 'em. In fact, I figure when Thomas Paine said, 'These are the times that try men's souls,' he must have been talking about the start of another Winter Olympics. Because they're so trying, maybe over the next three weeks we should all try, too. Like, try not to be incredulous when someone attempts to link these games to those of the ancient Greeks, who never heard of skating or skiing. So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world's greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention." -- Bryant Gumbel on HBO's Real Sports, February 7. And the winner is:
# Katie Couric: "A passionate student of history, Condi Rice believes turmoil often precedes periods of peace and stability. And she rejects the notion that the U.S. is a bully, imposing its values on the world." Accepting for Katie Couric.....G. Gordon Liddy
Presented by Herman Cain Runners-up: # "I think President George W. Bush, I think Cheney, I think Rumsfeld, I think all of these people have lost any moral integrity. I find what we are doing is hugely immoral....Al-Qaeda tortures. We torture. Al-Qaeda's killed innocent people. We kill innocent people....We have no business doing what we do." -- Harry Belafonte on CNN's The Situation Room, January 23.
# "The election is four days away, and I'm through dicking around with you. Here are the leads, here are your talking points: One, when they say '€˜Democrats will raise taxes,' you say, 'We have to because someone spent all the money in the world cutting Paris Hilton's taxes and not killing Osama bin Laden.' [applause].... And the winner is:
# Co-host Rosie O'Donnell: "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." Co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck: "But do you understand that, that the belief funding those attacks, okay, that is widespread. And if you take radical Islam and if you want to talk about what's going on there, you have to-"
Presented by Mary Matalin Runners-up:
# "There is an extraordinary amount of academic work that you quote in the book [Dean's book, Conservatives Without Conscience]. A lot of it is very unsettling, it deals with psychological principles that are frightening and that may have faced other nations at other times in '€" Germany and Italy in the '30s coming to mind in particular. How does it apply now? And to what degree should it scare us?...This whole edifice requires an enemy -- communism, al-Qaeda, Democrats, me, whoever -- for the Two-Minute Hate....Are you actually saying here they [conservative Republicans] would set up, encourage, terrorism from other countries to set them up as a bogeyman to have again that group to hate here, that group to more importantly be afraid of here?...You've been at one of the central moments of history in the 20th century. What kind of danger -- are we facing a legitimate threat to the concept of democracy in this country?" -- MSNBC's Keith Olbermann to ex-Nixon White House lawyer John Dean, who claimed in his book that modern conservatives are moving the Republican Party toward "authoritarianism," July 10 Countdown. And the winner is: Accepting for Jack Cafferty...."Osama bin Laden" via video
Presented by Mary Matalin Runners-up: # "You know you are the equivalent of a rock star in politics....Many people, afterwards [after Obama's 2004 Democratic convention speech], they weren't sure how to pronounce your name, but they were moved by you. People were crying. You tapped into something. You touched people. What did you tap into that, that was missing?...If your party says to you, 'We need you,' and, and there's already a drumbeat out there, will you respond?" -- Some of co-host Meredith Vieira's questions to Senator Barack Obama on NBC's Today, October 19. # "You can see it in the crowds. The thrill, the hope. How they surge toward him. You're looking at an American political phenomenon. In state after state, in the furious final days of this crucial campaign, Illinois Senator Barack Obama has been the Democrats' not-so-secret get-out-the-vote weapon. He inspires the party faithful, and many others, like no one else on the scene today...And the question you can sense on everyone's mind, as they listen so intently to him, is he the one? Is Barack Obama the man, the black man, who could lead the Democrats back to the White House and maybe even unite the country?...Everywhere he goes, people want him to run for President, especially in Iowa, cradle of presidential contenders. Around here, they're even naming babies after him." -- Co-anchor Terry Moran profiling Senator Barack Obama on ABC's Nightline, November 6. And the winner is: # "For the first time in the 218-year history of the Congress, a woman was voted by her colleagues to be Speaker of the House. Nancy Pelosi, Democrat from California, took the gavel. But in a picture perhaps even more symbolic, the new Speaker was on the floor for a time, holding her 6-year-old [really 6-month-old] grandson, all the while giving directions on how events were to proceed. It seemed the ultimate in multitasking: Taking care of the children, and the country." -- ABC World News anchor Charles Gibson, January 4, 2007. Accepting for Charles Gibson....Ward Connerly
The Judges: To select the winners of the MRC's "2007 Dishonors Awards: Roasting the Most Outrageously Biased Liberal Reporting of 2006," a distinguished panel of 13 leading observers of the liberal media in action generously gave of their time to serve as our judges. They reviewed three to five quotes in each of five award categories. For each set of quotes the judges picked first and second place choices. First place selections earned two points, second choices were allocated one point. The MRC's Michelle Humphrey and Kristine Looney tabulated the ballots. - Tony Blankley, Washington Times editorial page editor; McLaughlin Group panelist - Neal Boortz, nationally syndicated radio talk show host - Steve Forbes, President and CEO of Forbes Inc. - John Fund, columnist for OpinionJournal.com - Mark Levin, nationally syndicated radio talk show host - Rush Limbaugh, host of The Rush Limbaugh Show - Mary Matalin, Editor-in-Chief, Threshold Editions - Robert Novak, nationally syndicated columnist, Chicago Sun-Times - Kate O'Beirne, Washington Editor of National Review - William A. Rusher, Distinguished Fellow at the Claremont Institute; Chairman of the Board of the Media Research Center - Cal Thomas, nationally syndicated columnist and a panelist on FNC's Fox Newswatch - Walter E. Williams, columnist and professor of economics at George Mason University - Thomas S. Winter, Editor-in-Chief of Human Events
Quote of the Year. Following the presentation of the awards, MRC President L. Brent Bozell came on stage where he was joined by Master of Ceremonies Cal Thomas, the three presenters (Neal Boortz, Herman Cain and Mary Matalin) and the four acceptors (Michael Steele, G. Gordon Liddy, Pat Sajak and Ward Connerly). Attendees saw replays of the four winning quotes uttered by members of the news media: Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Katie Couric, Jack Cafferty and Charles Gibson.
Then, as a picture of each nominee was displayed, audience members were asked by Bozell to express their opinion on which quote deserved the Quote of the Year designation as the worst bias of 2006. The loudest hoots and boos were earned by New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. for his expression of shame that America hasn't fully enacted the liberal agenda:
Live online streaming of the "DisHonors Awards" failed and Brent Bozell canceled by FNC's Fox & Friends. Unfortunately, after much plugging by the MRC (including CyberAlert), our efforts to provide live online streaming of our Thursday night 20th Anniversary Gala featuring the "DisHonors Awards" failed. I do not know exactly what occurred, but know that I'm not alone in being very disappointed by the technical failure by our provider which meant, as others have informed me, that the live stream did not begin to work until about 9:50pm EDT -- more than half way through the gala. Thursday CyberAlert Specials reported that MRC President Brent Bozell would appear Friday morning at 8:45am EDT on FNC's Fox & Friends to discuss the gala. That interview has been cancelled. -- Brent Baker
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