Can't Say If George Tilts Left or Right; Why Would Excellent Hillary Duck Any Questions?
Can’t Figure Out if George Tilts Left or Right
“I don’t think you can look at George [Stephanopoulos] over the last few years and say there was a partisan bent to his interviewing, or to his anchoring, or to his reporting.”
— BBC World News America anchor Katty Kay on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, May 15.
Why Would Excellent Hillary Duck Any Questions?
“She can handle any question you throw at her. It’s a mystery to me why she doesn’t want to take a couple questions every day so that this is isn’t a story, and so she has a chance to respond to negative stories that are out there and to make her case. Because she does it — she does it very well.”
— USA Today’s Susan Page on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, May 19.
Hillary’s So “Manipulative” and “Secretive,” She Could Be Another FDR
“Franklin Roosevelt — probably the best president we ever had, certainly in the 20th century — was very secretive and manipulative, and we still thought he was a good president. So if Hillary Clinton is secretive, we know that, is that going to help us get any further here?”
— Host Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball, May 21.
“Neophyte” GOP vs. “3:00 in the Morning” Hillary
“She is the red phone at 3:00 in the morning candidate, and you have bunch of fresh-faced, youngish Republicans for the most part, who look like neophytes. And no matter how hawkish they are, they all sort of sound the same. They’re going to have to put themselves far to the right, in sort of neo-con territory, to distinguish themselves from her.”
— New York magazine essayist Frank Rich on CBS’s Face the Nation, May 17.
The Only Hillary Clinton Cover-Up Worthy of ABC’s Airtime
Anchor David Muir: “Hillary Clinton, in the meantime, making headlines of her own tonight. We’ve seen the effect the White House can have on a president. People have long joked about the evolving gray hair. Tonight, Mrs. Clinton making a prediction:”
Clip of Hillary Clinton: “I’ve been coloring my hair for years. You’re not going to see me turn white in the White House.”
Muir: “Hillary Clinton and her prediction tonight.”
— ABC’s World News Tonight, May 27.
Angry About Media Bias — Against Socialist Bernie Sanders
“In democracy, the voters decide who wins a presidential election. But the media has great influence over which candidates get serious consideration. So when it comes to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and the 2016 race, it’s clear that he’s getting a raw deal. It’s long since time the press gave him the respect he deserves....The fact that he is utterly fearless in advocating for Scandinavian-style democratic socialism is no reason to treat him like a kook.”
— National correspondent Ryan Cooper writing in The Week, May 26.
Exactly How Racist Are America’s Police Departments?
“Your first day on the job, you were dealing with what was going on in Baltimore....We’ve had Ferguson, we’ve had Cleveland, we’ve had North Charleston. What’s going on in this country?...Is it individual racism, or do you think it’s institutional racism?”
— Co-host Norah O’Donnell to Attorney General Loretta Lynch on CBS This Morning, May 22.
Enthusing Over Barack & Bill’s Twitter Schtick
“No sitting president has done what this sitting president did today. We’ll have the story coming up....President Obama test drove his own personal Twitter account today. In his first tweet, he wrote: ‘Hello, Twitter. It’s Barack. Really! Six years in, they’re finally giving me my own account.’”
— Anchor Scott Pelley on the CBS Evening News, May 18.
Co-host Michaela Pereira: “The President has finally joined Twitter....Well, that led former President Clinton to tweet, ‘Welcome to Twitter, @POTUS! One question: does that username stay with the office? #askingforafriend.’”
Co-host Alisyn Camerota: “That’s cute!”
Pereira: “Not to be outdone, President Obama responded to Clinton, saying, ‘Good question. The handle comes with the house. Know anyone interested in @FLOTUS?’ — aka, the First Lady?...It is hilarity!”
— CNN’s New Day, May 19.
Co-host Willie Geist: “They’re adorable together, aren’t they?”
Weatherman Al Roker: “They really are.”
News reader Tamron Hall: “They are. Comedy team. Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin.”
— Discussing the same set of tweets on NBC’s Today, May 19.
It’s a “Travesty” We’re Not Throwing Even More Money at Amtrak
“By a global standard, the United States has not been paying much. For the size of its economy, it lags far behind many of the world’s most developed countries in spending on rail networks. As a consequence, industry experts say, the United States has among the worst safety records despite having some of the least-extensive passenger rail networks in the developed world.”
— New York Times reporter Nicola Clark in a May 21 article headlined, “Low U.S. Rail Spending Leads to Poor Safety, Experts Say.”
“Well, I’m all for government subsidy, as long as the money is being spent efficiently. You know, China, Chuck, moves 2.5 million people a day on high-speed rail. And everyone who travels in and out of this country knows that when you fly from Hong Kong to LAX, it’s like flying from The Jetsons to The Flintstones. And anyone who’s gone into New York City, Penn Station, and taken the elevator there up from the track, it’s like it was invented before suitcases, okay? It can fit, like, one narrow body....It’s a travesty. And we should be discussing it without this kind of tragedy. It should be a top priority.”
— New York Times columnist Tom Friedman addressing moderator Chuck Todd on NBC’s Meet the Press, May 17.
Why Communists Beat America When It Comes to Train Tracks
“We have a country where people can complain. In communist countries like China, they just draw a straight line, whether it goes through your house or not, it’s a straight line. We have this Amtrak, I’ve been taking it for a half a century, it doesn’t go in a straight line. In this case, it tried to make a turn and turned over, because there’s so many turns on that route. How do you get rid of the turns?”
— MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews on May 13, fretting about curves in train tracks.
The Liberal Climate Agenda vs. “Haters” and “Scientific Deniers”
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson: “If the people understand what science is and how it works and why it works, then you can vote intelligently on issues that involve scientific principles-”
Host Charlie Rose: “And things like climate change....But my question is, are we, I mean do we have too many scientific deniers in our country, or do we give too much prominence to those who want to look the other way on science?”
— Exchange on PBS’s Charlie Rose, May 25.
“Even the Pope is on board. Later this summer, Pope Francis is expected to send a letter to all of his bishops warning them of the effects of climate change on the poor. Bill Nye ‘the science guy’ is here, ready to fight the haters. Before we begin, I just want to say, 97 percent of scientists say climate change is real, and much of it is driven by man. So let’s go on. You tweet about climate change after extreme weather events all the time, and each time it makes climate change deniers freak out. Is this your strategy?”
— Anchor Carol Costello on CNN Newsroom, May 29.
After 27 Years, Still Whining About Willie Horton
“Now that we know whether [GOP presidential candidate] Jeb [Bush] would have launched his brother’s invasion of Iraq — yes, I don’t know, I’m not saying, and no — I want to know if Jeb would have launched his father’s [1988] campaign against Willie Horton....As Susan Estrich, the Dukakis campaign manager, would write: ‘There is no stronger metaphor for racial hatred in our country than the black man raping the white woman. If you were going to run a campaign of fear and smear and appeal to racial hatred, you could not have picked a better case to use than this one.’”
— Longtime U.S. News & World Report political correspondent Roger Simon in his Politico column, May 19.
Blame Reagan for Squelching Coverage of the Homeless?
Host Tavis Smiley: “How did the issue of homelessness fall off of the radar for discussion?”
Actress Susan Sarandon: “I think that the conversation changed around the Reagan era, where everything was your fault. And so you blamed, you were blamed for not trying hard enough, you know, from drinking, for drugs, whatever....”
— May 13 edition of PBS’s Tavis Smiley.
Chris Hasn’t a Clue If Dave’s a Liberal
“It reminds me of Johnny Carson, who I watched, another guy for 30 years, and Carson never talked politics. Nobody could read his politics like we can’t read Letterman’s, I don’t know what Letterman’s politics are.”
— MSNBC host Chris Matthews, quoted by the Washington Post’s “The Fix” blogger Chris Cillizza in a May 20 article, “Is David Letterman a liberal? It’s surprisingly hard to say.”
vs.
“My feeling about Cheney — and also Bush, but especially Cheney — is that he just couldn’t care less about Americans. And the same is true of George Bush. And all they really want to do is somehow kiss up to the oil people....Is there any humanity in either of these guys?”
— Letterman interviewing ex-White House press secretary Scott McClellan on CBS’s Late Show, June 11, 2008.
“Politics notwithstanding, what an impressive man. I mean, my goodness, he walks out here and you can feel the electricity in the room, and the people in the audience jumped to their feet and it’s very impressive. Smart, handsome, charismatic guy. Just tremendous.”
— Letterman talking about President Obama on the Late Show, May 5.
Saturday Night Live’s Fake Hillary: “I’m Rooting for Her!”
The Hollywood Reporter’s Michael O’Connell: “You have a huge platform in the next year and a half being the Hillary Clinton of SNL. How are you going to approach that? Do you feel pressure?”
Actress/comedienne Kate McKinnon: “I do feel immense pressure. I’m rooting for her, obviously....I’d be so nervous to meet her. I find her so resplendent!”
— From an interview with McKinnon and five other female comics, June 5 Hollywood Reporter.
Giving Thanks Every Day for the Great Barack Obama
“I’ve been watching politics since Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and Obama is my favorite, favorite president. I am just thankful for every day that he’s in office. I am so proud that he represents my country and I think he represents me — I think he represents the America that I know....Every day that Barack Obama and Michelle Obama are in the White House is a day that I am thankful for.”
— Singer James Taylor, as quoted by Associated Press music editor Mesfin Fekadu in a May 14 dispatch headlined, “James Taylor says Obama is great; riding Hillary train.”
PUBLISHER: L. Brent Bozell III
EDITORS: Brent H. Baker, Rich Noyes, Tim Graham
DEPUTY RESEARCH DIRECTOR: Geoffrey Dickens
RESEARCH ANALYST: Mike Ciandella
NEWS ANALYSTS: Scott Whitlock, Kyle Drennen, Matthew Balan, Jeffrey Meyer and Curtis Houck
INTERN: Connor Williams
