Notable Quotables - 11/05/2007
Chris Endorses Left-Wing Kook
“Well, I agreed with the sentiment at least.”
— MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews during live coverage following the October 30 Democratic debate, after a protester interrupted him on-air screaming, “All U.S. troops out of Iraq now! No more blood for oil!” (With WMV video/MP3 audio)
Fearing Nasty GOP Smear Artists
“Governor Romney misspoke twice on the same day, confusing your name with that of Osama bin Laden. Your party is fond of talking about potential swift boating. Are you fearful of what happened to John McCain, for example, in South Carolina a few years back, confusion on the basis of things like names and religion?”
— Moderator Brian Williams to Senator Barack Obama during MSNBC’s Democratic debate, October 30.
Lauding “Rock Star” Clintons
“Brad and Angelina, Charles and Diana, Burton and Taylor, and you can count Bill and Hillary’s union as one of the most scrutinized marriages of our time. A simple Google search reveals there are more than 40 books about this still-young couple. They met in law school — two bookish, wonkish, idealistic kids who somehow transformed themselves into political rock stars.”
— CBS’s Harry Smith introducing an interview with Sally Bedell Smith, author of a new book on the Clintons, on the October 23 Early Show.
Hardly Her First Liberal Outburst
“I endorse you for President of the United States. It’s very freeing now that I’m not a journalist, that I’m able to speak my own mind and free expression, but I just wanted you to know that I had a dream that before I died I would see a woman as president of the United States. I think you are the woman and I think this is the time.”
— Former ABC News anchor Carole Simpson endorsing Senator Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, as quoted in MSNBC’s “First Read” daily political blog, October 17.
Mocking Bush’s Brownie Moment
“Mr. Bush dismissed comparisons between Katrina and California and seemed generally satisfied by the efforts he witnessed today. But if he actually thought anybody was doing a ‘heck of a job,’ he didn’t say so in public.”
— ABC’s Dean Reynolds on the October 25 World News, recalling how President Bush complimented then-FEMA Director Michael Brown after Hurricane Katrina.
Savoring Al Gore’s “Vindication”
“For Al Gore, winning the Nobel Peace Prize is a personal milestone, vindication of a sort....But more than a personal victory, it’s also a symbolic victory for his cause....Gore has practically screamed from the rooftops about the dangers of global warming.”
— ABC’s Kate Snow on Good Morning America, Oct. 12.
“This guy was laughed off the stage by some in the media, and some Democrats, as a policy stiff when he was Vice President and when he ran in 2000. And now he looks like a genius when it comes to global warming.”
— The Politico’s Jim VandeHei on CBS’s The Early Show, October 12. (With WMV video/MP3 audio)
“This award has eminent scientists everywhere excited.... Joyous, because scientists have been far more worried than anyone about global warming, finding it’s far more dangerous, coming much quicker, than they expected.”
— Reporter Bill Blakemore on ABC’s Good Morning America, October 13.
“You know, Bob, you’d still be holding your breath and kicking your feet if what had happened to Al Gore in Florida had happened to you. He rose above a great injus-tice....He became a prophet on an issue that is crucially important to the world.”
— Ex-Time reporter Margaret Carlson to columnist Bob Novak on Bloomberg TV’s Political Capital, October 13.
Just Ignore Those “Dead-Enders”
“The verdict from the Nobel committee must be sweet vindication....[But] even the Nobel Prize is not going to be enough to silence the naysayers, some of whom still believe that man is not responsible for global warming.”
— ABC’s David Wright on World News, October 12.
“There are a few, I guess you could call them dead-enders out there. There are a few that are still holding true to the notion that maybe this is some sort of natural cycle.”
“It is a tiny fraction of a minority of scientists out there. And when you look at those scientists and trace their funding, frequently you are led to the fossil fuel industry. So, really, it’s not a scientific debate anymore.”
— CNN environment correspondent Miles O’Brien talking about scientists who dispute Al Gore’s premise of a coming climate catastrophe, during the 10am and 11am hours of CNN Newsroom, October 12.
Down Side of Surge Success
“As violence falls in Iraq, cemetery workers feel the pinch”
— Headline over an October 16 story by McClatchy News Service reporters Jay Price and Qasim Zein.
Upset No Dead Soldiers Shown
“We’re doing extremely badly, from my point of view. I was asked if I felt any guilt for the fact that the world has an impression of the war in Iraq as being very bad and going very wrong, and I said I really don’t because I can’t imagine the last time anyone saw a dead American soldier. We’ve hidden that from view. Nobody knows what that looks like and I’ve seen plenty of it. It’s much worse than the picture, the image we even have of Iraq.”
— CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan on NBC’s Tonight Show, October 15. (With WMV video/MP3 audio)
No Doubting Jack’s Priorities
“Thirty million of the poorest Americans will be left in the cold this winter because a government program that’s supposed to help pay their heating bills doesn’t have enough money. This is compassionate conservatism, boys and girls....No money for kids’ health insurance, no money to help poor families pay their heating bills, but President Bush wants $190 billion additional for 2008 for his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan....You really have to wonder what President Bush’s priorities are. Where do the citizens of this country fit into his game plan?”
— CNN’s Jack Cafferty posing his question of the hour on The Situation Room, October 22.
Which Way Is It?
“A CBS News poll out tonight finds Americans overwhelmingly side with Congress on expanding this health insurance program for poor children. Four out of five say it should be expanded to cover children in middle income families. And of those who favor expansion, three out of four are willing to pay higher taxes to get it done.”
— Katie Couric on the October 17 CBS Evening News.
vs.
“Slim majorities back two positions at the core of the President’s opposition to the expansion: 52% agree with Bush that most benefits should go to children in families earning less than 200% of the federal poverty level — about $41,000 for a family of four. Only 40% say benefits should go to such families earning up to $62,000, as the bill written by Democrats and some Republicans would allow.”
— Reporter Richard Wolf writing about the results of the USA Today/Gallup poll in USA Today, October 16.
Jimmy Carter, Blunder Expert
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “On the scale of historic precedents and historic blunders, from your perspective, what kind of blunder was the invasion of Iraq to get rid of Saddam Hussein?...Some suggest it is the worst foreign policy blunder in American history. Are you among those?”
Jimmy Carter: “I would put it almost on an equal basis with Vietnam, yes. Those two in my lifetime certainly would be the worst two blunders.”
— CNN’s The Situation Room, October 10. (With WMV video/MP3 audio)
Thomas the “Nut” Justice
“He [Clarence Thomas] is the most conservative justice to serve on the court, I think, since the 1930s....much more than Scalia. I was at a synagogue where Justice Scalia was giving a speech not too long ago and someone asked him to compare your judicial philosophy and Justice Thomas’s, and he talked for a while, and he said, ‘Well, look, I’m a textualist. I’m an originalist, but I’m not a nut.’ And I think that sums up a little bit the difference between the two. Justice Thomas believes that much of the New Deal is unconstitutional. Justice Scalia doesn’t.”
— CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin on NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show, October 1.
Media Turned Public Against War
“They [the three network evening newscasts] still have the biggest media megaphone, 25 million combined viewers a night. And that becomes very important on the outside game, as you refer to, when you talk about, for example, the coverage of the war in Iraq. I believe that these newscasts in 2005 and 2006 played the biggest single role in helping to turn public opinion against the war.”
— Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz on ABC’s Good Morning America, October 10, in an appearance plugging his book Reality Show: Inside the Last Great Television News War.
Iraq = “Rupert’s War”
GQ magazine: “You’re also opposed to the Iraq war.”
CNN founder Ted Turner: “I’ve become very antiwar. I don’t think the way to accomplish things is to bomb people. All that does is make them angry. That causes insurgent movements and so forth. It’s easy to start wars, hard to stop them.”
GQ: “I know that you think Fox News helped fan the flames of this war.”
Turner: “Well, they did. This is Rupert’s war.”
— From an interview with Turner posted September 20 on GQ’s Web site.
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