A Summary of the MRC's "DisHonors Awards" Held Thursday Night --3/31/2006

1. A Summary of the MRC's "DisHonors Awards" Held Thursday Night
A rundown of the MRC's "2006 DisHonors Awards: Roasting the Most Outrageously Biased Liberal Reporters of 2005," as presented on Thursday night before an audience of more than 900 at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Washington, DC. Cal Thomas served as Master of Ceremonies with Larry Kudlow, Tony Blankley and Mark Levin pitching in as presenters of five award categories with conservatives, including Major General Jack Singlaub (Retired) and Stan Evans, accepting the awards in jest. The audience also saw a "Tribute to the American Military" video. It was preceded by a "Toast to the Fallen Comrade" and followed by remarks from Herman Cain.

2. Text of the 15 Nominated Videos Played for the Audience
A listing of the three finalist quotes, as selected by the panel of 17 judges, played in each of five award categories: "Slam Uncle Sam Award," "Cindy Sheehan Media Hero Award," "Send Bush to Abu Ghraib Award," "Aaron Brown Memorial Award for the Stupidest Analysis" and the "I'm Not a Political Genius But I Play One on TV Award."

3. The Judges Who Selected the Winning Quotes
The list of the 17 judges, all leading media observers, who gave generously of their time to evaluate the quotes and pick the winners.

4. Audience Awards the "Quote of the Year" to Ted Turner
The "Quote of the Year," as chosen via the cheering, clapping and noise-making by the audience: Ted Turner on North Korea.

5. "Top Ten Things Overheard During George W. Bush's Trip to Cancun"
Letterman's "Top Ten Things Overheard During George W. Bush's Trip to Cancun."

A Summary of the MRC's "DisHonors Awards"
Held Thursday Night

Cal Thomas, Larry Kudlow, Tony Blankley Mark Levin, Jack Singlaub, Stan Evans, Linda Chavez, Ken Cribb and Ron Robinson highlighted the presentations and acceptances of MRC's "2006 DisHonors Awards: Roasting the Most Outrageously Biased Liberal Reporters of 2005," which were presented on Thursday night, March 30, before an audience of more than 900 packed into the Independence Ballroom of the Grand Hyatt hotel in Washington, D.C.

Following the presentation of the DisHonors Awards videos in five categories (see links to videos below), a look at several unintentionally humorous clips from network newscasts and the audience picking the Quote of the Year, the audience watched a "Tribute to the American Military" video. It was preceded by a "Toast to the Fallen Comrade" and followed by remarks from Herman Cain, the former President of Godfather's Pizza and National Chairman of the MRC's Media and Business Institute.

DisHonors Awards winners were selected by a distinguished panel of 17 leading media observers, including Rush Limbaugh, Steve Forbes, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Robert Novak and Mary Matalin, who served as judges (see list in item #3 below).

Cal Thomas, a syndicated columnist and panelist on FNC's Fox Newswatch, served as Master of Ceremonies. Lawrence Kudlow, host of CNBC's Kudlow & Company and National Review Online's economics editor, was the first presenter of nominated video clips, followed by Washington Times Editorial Page Editor Tony Blankley and nationally syndicated radio talk show host Mark Levin.

In place of the journalist who won each award, a conservative accepted it in jest. Those standing in for the winners: Major General Jack Singlaub (Retired), radio talk show host and conservative commentator Linda Chavez, Ron Robinson, President of the Young America's Foundation, Ken Cribb, President of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and a former Reagan administration official, and author Stan Evans, the founder of the National Journalism Center, who delivered an especially hilarious routine.

The evening began with welcoming remarks from Cal Thomas, an invocation by Reverend Robert Sirico, President of the Acton Institute, and the Pledge of Allegiance led by Colonel Robert Rust (Retired).

To get the full flavor of the mocking atmosphere of the evening, you'll need to watch video of the event (it will not be carried by C-SPAN). 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), and through the day Friday, as the MRC's Michelle Humphrey and Karen Hanna render video of the event, he will be adding video segments of Cal Thomas introducing the presenters, the presentations of the awards, the remarks of those accepting them and the "Tribute to the American Military." So, as the hours pass, check back with this address to see what has been added since you last looked: www.mediaresearch.org

Text of the 15 Nominated Videos Played
for the Audience

A listing of the three finalist quotes, as selected by the panel of 17 judges, played in each of five award categories: "Slam Uncle Sam Award," "Cindy Sheehan Media Hero Award," "Send Bush to Abu Ghraib Award," "Aaron Brown Memorial Award for the Stupidest Analysis" and the "I'm Not a Political Genius But I Play One on TV Award."

These 15 videos are online in RealPlayer and Windows Media formats, as well as with MP3 audio clips: www.mediaresearch.org

Below are the top runners-up in each award category as picked by the judges, followed by the winner and the name of the conservative who accepted the award in jest:

+ Slam Uncle Sam Award

Presented by Larry Kudlow

Runners-up:

# "I just want to say: Who are we? We are people who have always been for inspections of prisons, for some degree of human rights, and now we're defending neither....We have now violated everything that we stand for. It is the first time in my life I have been ashamed of my country." -- NPR's Nina Totenberg, commenting on a front-page Washington Post report that captured terrorists are being held at undisclosed sites, Inside Washington, November 4.
# Andrea Mitchell: "It is an iconic picture: American hostages, hands bound and blindfolded, being paraded outside the U.S. embassy in Tehran by their captors. But has one of those student radicals now become Iran's newly elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?..."
Brian Williams: "Andrea, what would it all matter if proven true? Someone brought up today the first several U.S. Presidents were certainly revolutionaries and might have been called terrorists at the time by the British Crown, after all." -- NBC Nightly News, June 30.

And the winner is:

# Actress Jane Fonda: "From an historical point of view, they [the Vietnamese] were defending their country. If we had been invaded and an invading force came into this country and divided us in half at the Mississippi River and accused anyone from the west of the Mississippi River who crossed over to east side, either to fight against the invaders or to see their family, the enemy, you know, we would understand why people were fighting and why people from both sides of the Mississippi would be trying to get rid of the invaders, you know. But horrible things happened, horrible things happened in the process of us, of them fighting us because we were there and we shouldn't have been there [Vietnam]. So, you know, from that point of view, no, they weren't good guys. They did bad things, just like we did. But we should never have been there."
Host Chris Matthews: "But there were a lot of people, Jane, who are very, a lot of people who are very gung-ho American, very patriotic, thought that war was a mistake at the time and later. But they can't imagine slipping out of their American skin, their American soul and becoming so objective, as you just were a minute ago, to put yourself above both us and the Vietnamese and saying, 'I find the Vietnamese were objectively the good guys.' How do you step out of being an American to make such an objective judgment?" -- Exchange on MSNBC's Hardball on April 15. Fonda was promoting her new book, My Life So Far.

Accepting for Chris Matthews....Major General Jack Singlaub (Retired)

+ Cindy Sheehan Media Hero Award

Presented by Larry Kudlow

Runners-up:

# "I see her [Hillary Clinton] in '€" she's very consistent [in] what she's always believed. She's always had strong religious faith. She's been a strong Methodist. She does have conservative social values on many issues." -- U.S. News & World Report Editor at Large David Gergen, on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, February 9.

# "As was the practice in all that he did, Dan was meticulously careful to be fair and balanced and accurate. When did we stop believing that this is indeed how we all perform our jobs, or try to? When did we allow those with questionable agendas to take the lead and convince people of something quite the opposite? It's shameful. But I digress."

-- MSNBC President and former ABC and CNN news executive Rick Kaplan praising ex-CBS anchor Dan Rather on September 19 as the latter received a lifetime achievement award from the National Television Academy, a ceremony televised on C-SPAN on October 1.
And the winner is:

# Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan: "We're not going to cure terrorism and spread peace and good will in the Middle East by killing innocent people or -- I'm not even saying our bullets and bombs are killing them. The occupation '€" they don't have food, they don't have clean water, they don't have electricity. They don't have medicine, they don't have doctors. We need to get our military presence out of there, and that's what's gonna start building good will....I see Iraq as the base for spreading imperialism...."
Host Chris Matthews: "Are you considering running for Congress, Cindy?"
Sheehan: "No, not this time...."
Matthews: "Okay. Well, I have to tell you, you sound more informed than most U.S. Congresspeople, so maybe you should run." -- Exchange on MSNBC's Hardball, August 15.

Accepting for Chris Matthews....Linda Chavez

+ Send Bush to Abu Ghraib Award

Presented by Tony Blankley
Runners-up:

# "For many of this country's citizens, the mantra has been, as we were taught in social studies it should always be, whether or not I voted for this President, he is still my President. I suspect anybody who had to give him that benefit of the doubt stopped doing so last week. I suspect, also, a lot of his supporters, looking ahead to '08, are wondering how they can distance themselves from the two words which will define his government, our government: New Orleans. For him, it is a shame, in all senses of the word. A few changes of pronouns in there and he might not have looked so much like a 21st century Marie Antoinette." -- MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, September 5 Countdown.

# "After meeting with Louisiana officials last week, Reverend Jesse Jackson said, quote, 'Many black people feel that their race, their property conditions and their voting patterns have been a factor in the response.' He continued, quote, 'I'm not saying that myself.' Then I'll say it: If the majority of the hardest hit victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans were white people, they would not have gone for days without food and water, forcing many to steal for mere survival. Their bodies would not have been left to float in putrid water. They would have been rescued and relocated a hell of a lot faster than this, period....The President has put himself at risk by visiting the troops in Iraq, but didn't venture anywhere near the Superdome or the convention center, where thousands of victims, mostly black and poor, needed to see that he gave a damn." -- Contributor Nancy Giles on CBS's Sunday Morning, September 4.

And the winner is:

# CNN's Jack Cafferty: "What should Karl Rove do if he is indicted?...He might want to, he might want to get measured for one of those extra large orange jump suits, Wolf, because looking at old Karl, I'm not sure that he'd, they'd be able to zip him into the regular size one."
CNN's Wolf Blitzer: "Well, he's actually lost some weight. I think he's in pretty good shape."
Cafferty: "Oh, well then, maybe just the regular off the shelf large would handle it for him."
Blitzer: "Yeah. But, you know, it's still a big if. It's still a big if."
Cafferty: "Oh, I understand. I'm, I'm just hoping, you know. I love, I love to see those kinds of things happen. It does wonders for me." -- CNN's The Situation Room, October 17.

Accepting for Jack Cafferty....Ron Robinson

+ Aaron Brown Memorial Award for the Stupidest Analysis

Presented by Tony Blankley

Runners-up:

# "Do I need to be concerned that I'm going to go live with a church family, are they going to proselytize me, are they going to say, 'You better come to church with me or else, I'm, you know, you're not going to get your breakfast this morning'?" -- Co-host Harry Smith asking author/pastor Rick Warren about church families taking in those displaced by Hurricane Katrina, on CBS's Early Show, September 6.

# Reporter Brian Ross: "Mary Mapes was the woman behind the scenes, the producer who researched, wrote and put together Dan Rather's 60 Minutes report on President Bush's National Guard service, a report which Rather and CBS would later apologize for airing...."
Ross to Mapes: "Do you still think that story was true?"
Ex-CBS producer Mary Mapes: "The story? Absolutely."
Ross: "This seems remarkable to me that you would sit here now and say you still find that story to be up to your standards."
Mapes: "I'm perfectly willing to believe those documents are forgeries if there's proof that I haven't seen."
Ross: "But isn't it the other way around? Don't you have to prove they're authentic?"
Mapes: "Well, I think that's what critics of the story would say. I know more now than I did then and I think, I think they have not been proved to be false, yet."
Ross: "Have they proved to be authentic though? Isn't that really what journalists do?"
Mapes: "No, I don't think that's the standard." -- ABC's Good Morning America, November 9.
And the winner is:

# Ted Turner: "I am absolutely convinced that the North Koreans are absolutely sincere. There's really no reason for them to cheat [on nukes]....I looked them right in the eyes. And they looked like they meant the truth. I mean, you know, just because somebody's done something wrong in the past doesn't mean they can't do right in the future or the present. That happens all the, all the time."
Wolf Blitzer: "But this is one of the most despotic regimes and Kim Jong-Il is one of the worst men on Earth. Isn't that a fair assessment?"
Turner: "Well, I didn't get to meet him, but he didn't look '€" in the pictures that I've seen of him on CNN, he didn't look too much different than most other people I've met."
Blitzer: "But, look at the way, look at the way he's, look at the way he's treating his own people."
Turner: "Well, hey, listen. I saw a lot of people over there. They were thin and they were riding bicycles instead of driving in cars, but-"
Blitzer: "A lot of those people are starving."
Turner: "I didn't see any, I didn't see any brutality...." -- Exchange on CNN's The Situation Room, September 19.

Accepting for Ted Turner....Ken Cribb

+ I'm Not a Political Genius But I Play One on TV Award

Presented by Mark Levin

Runners-up:

# "Most Republicans who are registered Republicans are decent, honest good people who you have a difference of opinion with. The leadership of the Republican Party are a bunch of sociopathic maniacs who have their lips super-glued to the ass of the conservative right." -- Actor Alec Baldwin during an appearance on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, April 1.

# "The President is a moron! I'm saying it. I don't care. He's an idiot. Cheney is evil. I'm sick of, impeach them, get them out! I hate them! I hate them. Get them out. They got to go!...You shouldn't give any money to religion, religion should be free, what are you sending money to religion for, it's such BS....What do you watch O'Reilly for? He's a moron, he's a fool. O'Reilly's an idiot! He and Hannity can suck it! I hate those two idiots...It's disgusting! What is it going to take for you people? Get Bush out! Impeach. Out! Out! Out!" -- Actress/comedienne Kathy Griffin on Comedy Central's Weekends at the DL, September 10.

And the winner is:

Rosie O'Donnell: "This President invaded a sovereign nation in defiance of the UN. He is basically a war criminal. Honestly. He should be tried at The Hague. This man lied to the American public about the reasons for invading a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11. And as a Democrat, as a member of this democracy...I feel I have a responsibility to speak out, as does every other person who disagrees with this administration. And it's scary in a country that you can say something against the President and then worry about your career. That Dan Rather gets taken off CBS News for writing, for saying a report that essentially was true, that George Bush did not show up-"
Geraldo Rivera: "Okay, okay, we get it, we get it!"
O'Donnell: "Okay, there you go. But anyway, it infuriates me." -- Exchange on FNC's At Large with Geraldo Rivera, April 30.

Accepting for Rosie O'Donnell....Stan Evans

The Judges Who Selected the Winning
Quotes

The Judges: To select the winners of the MRC's "2006 Dishonors Awards: Roasting the Most Outrageously Biased Liberal Reporting of 2005," a distinguished panel of 17 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 Karen Hanna tabulated the ballots.

In alphabetical order:

- Tony Blankley, Editorial Page Editor of the Washington Times and McLaughlin Group panelist

- Neal Boortz, Atlanta-based nationally syndicated radio talk show host

- L. Brent Bozell III, President of the Media Research Center

- William F. Buckley, Jr., Editor-at-Large of National Review

- Steve Forbes, President and CEO of Forbes Inc.

- John Fund, columnist for OpinionJournal.com

- Sean Hannity, co-host of FNC's Hannity & Colmes and an ABC Radio talk show host

- Laura Ingraham, analyst and nationally syndicated radio talk show host

- Mark Levin, nationally syndicated ABC Radio talk show host

- Rush Limbaugh, host of The Rush Limbaugh Show

- Mary Matalin, Editor-in-Chief, Threshold Editions

- Robert Novak, Chicago Sun-Times columnist and commentator for the Fox News Channel

- Kate O'Beirne, Washington Editor of National Review

- William Rusher, Distinguished Fellow at the Claremont Institute

- Cal Thomas, nationally syndicated columnist and 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

For the online posting of the list of judges, with links to Web pages for them: www.mrc.org

Audience Awards the "Quote of the Year"
to Ted Turner

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 and the three presenters -- Larry Kudlow, Tony Blankley and Mark Levin -- while "noise-makers" were passed out to the audience. Attendees saw replays of the four winning quotes uttered by members of the news media: Chris Matthews, with two, plus Jack Cafferty and Ted Turner.

As a picture of each nominee was displayed, audience members were asked by Bozell to use the "noise-makers" to indicate to him and the others on stage their preference so they could decipher the audience's preference.

It wasn't even close. Despite Bozell's pleas to remain quiet during the re-play of the videos, many in the crowd made noise during the re-play of the Turner clip. When the screen shots were shown, the audience erupted at seeing Ted Turner's face and so he won the Quote of the Year for this incredible naivete displayed on CNN's September 19 Situation Room:

Ted Turner: "I am absolutely convinced that the North Koreans are absolutely sincere. There's really no reason for them to cheat [on nukes]....I looked them right in the eyes. And they looked like they meant the truth. I mean, you know, just because somebody's done something wrong in the past doesn't mean they can't do right in the future or the present. That happens all the, all the time."
Wolf Blitzer: "But this is one of the most despotic regimes and Kim Jong-Il is one of the worst men on Earth. Isn't that a fair assessment?"
Turner: "Well, I didn't get to meet him, but he didn't look '€" in the pictures that I've seen of him on CNN, he didn't look too much different than most other people I've met."
Blitzer: "But, look at the way, look at the way he's, look at the way he's treating his own people."
Turner: "Well, hey, listen. I saw a lot of people over there. They were thin and they were riding bicycles instead of driving in cars, but-"
Blitzer: "A lot of those people are starving."
Turner: "I didn't see any, I didn't see any brutality...."

"Top Ten Things Overheard During George
W. Bush's Trip to Cancun"

From the March 30 Late Show with David Letterman, the "Top Ten Things Overheard During George W. Bush's Trip to Cancun." Late Show home page: www.cbs.com

10. "Feels great to get away after three straight weeks of work"

9. "As President of the United States, I pledge to do whatever's necessary to help the Cancunians!"

8. "Couldn't we have stayed home and gone to Chi-Chi's?"

7. "Cozumel? Isn't that the chick I made Secretary of State?"

6. "When do I get to meet Zorro?"

5. "Holy crap, how'd they move these pyramids from Egypt?"

4. "I'll have a non-alcoholic pina colada...just kidding, juice me up, Pepe!"

3. "NAFTA? Don't they make auto parts?"

2. "Secret service! He's choking on a nacho"

1. "Once you get a little buzz going, my poll numbers don't look so bad"

-- Brent Baker