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2. The Judges Who Selected the Winning Quotes
3. Audience Awarded the "Quote of the Year" to Bill Moyers
On Thursday night, March 27, before an audience of more than 800 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., the Media Research Center presented the "DisHonors Awards: Roasting the Most Outrageously Biased Liberal Reporters of 2002." I'm sure all who attended will agree that it was a humorous evening as we all relished mocking the media's anti-conservative agenda and promotion of ludicrous liberal reasoning. Following the awards presentation, attendees heard a set a songs from the Charlie Daniels Band. Winners were selected by a distinguished panel of 15 leading media observers who served as judges -- including Rush Limbaugh, Lawrence Kudlow, Steve Forbes, William F. Buckley Jr., Lucianne Goldberg, Michael Reagan, Kate O'Beirne, John Fund, Robert Novak and Walter Williams. For the list of judges, see item #2 below. Cal Thomas, a syndicated columnist and host of FNC's After Hours with Cal Thomas, served as Master of Ceremonies. Sean Hannity, national radio talk show host and co-host of FNC's Hannity & Colmes, was the first presenter, followed by national radio talk show host Laura Ingraham and columnist/author Ann Coulter. In place of the journalist who won each award, a conservative accepted it in jest. Those standing in for the winners: National Review Editor Rich Lowry, Club for Growth President Steve Moore, Judge Robert Bork, columnist/author Mona Charen and, filling in at last minute for Rush Limbaugh, whose plane was grounded by weather and so was unable make what was planned to be a surprise appearance, Washington Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley. The evening began with welcoming remarks from Cal Thomas, an invocation by Reverend Vincent Rigdon, the Pledge of Allegiance led by retired General Ed Hirsch and the singing of God Bless America by Kim Polote. At the roast the top three quotes in each category were played in random order followed by the announcement of the winner. Cal Thomas and the presenters entertained the audience with humorous comments about current events, mocking the pretentiousness displayed in the nominated quotes and the poor journalism of those being highlighted. Each acceptor offered gag reasons for why the member of the media or celebrity who won could not attend. Following the five awards, the audience, through its cheering and clapping, picked the Quote of the Year. To get the full flavor of the humorous atmosphere of the evening, you'll need to watch a tape of the event. A C-SPAN camera was there, and I'll let you know as soon it is put on the C-SPAN schedule. Also, over the next few days, the MRC's Mez Djouadi will be posting RealPlayer video clips of segments of the dinner. As soon as some clips are up, I'll send an e-mail directing you to them. 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. Ozzy Osbourne Award (for the Wackiest Comment of the Year) Presented by Sean Hannity Runners-up:
Helen Thomas: "Does the President consider this [election outcome] a mandate to fulfill his agenda? Going to war with Iraq, privatizing Social Security, weakening the Civil Service Commission and so forth?"
"If I were biased, I don't believe I would have gotten the job." And the winner is:
"Seven years ago, when the last referendum took place, Saddam Hussein won 99.96 percent of the vote. Of course, it is impossible to say whether that's a true measure of the Iraqi people's feelings." Accepting for David Wright....Rich Lowry The I'm Not a Geopolitical Genius But I Play One on TV Award Presented by Sean Hannity
"Let us find a way to resist fundamentalism that leads to violence -- fundamentalism of all kinds, in al Qaeda and within our government. And what is our fundamentalism? Cloaked in patriotism and out doctrine of spreading democracy throughout the world, our fundamentalism is business, the unfettered spread of our economic interests throughout the globe. Our resistance to this war should be our resistance to profit at the cost of human life."
Brit Hume: "You've probably heard or read that at a Democratic Party fundraiser in Los Angeles over the weekend, Barbra Streisand performed a re-worked version of her famous hit song Memories from the movie The Way We Were. You may have heard that it was called Miseries and was about life under this Republican administration. You may not have believed that this actually happened. Well:" And the winner is:
"I despise him [President George W. Bush]. I despise his administration and everything they stand for....To my mind the election was stolen by George Bush and we have been suffering ever since under this man's leadership....There has to be a movement now to really oppose what he is proposing because it's unconstitutional, it's immoral and basically illegal....It is an embarrassing time to be an American. It really is. It's humiliating." Accepting for Jessica Lange....Steve Moore (Note: As Hannity explained, the nominees in this category are not journalists, but celebrity pontificating became such a part of the political discourse during the year that we decided such obnoxiousness could not go without award.) And They Called It Puppy Love Award Presented by Laura Ingraham
"Huge political talent. Huge political vision and I suspect - none of us, I can't predict who's going to win the next election, much less what history is going to say about anyone. But I think President Clinton's role in modernizing the Democratic Party around a set of economic ideas and also holding onto the principles of social justice, and presiding over the greatest prosperity in human history. Those would seem to me to have to be central to his legacy."
Brian Williams: "Is it fair to call him [Jimmy Carter] the best former President in, at minimum, modern American history, and perhaps, well, I guess, the last 200 years?" And the winner is:
"For Castro, freedom starts with education. And if literacy alone were the yardstick, Cuba would rank as one of the freest nations on Earth. The literacy rate is 96 percent." Accepting for Barbara Walters....Judge Robert Bork Ashamed of the Red, White, and Blue Award Presented by Laura Ingraham
"I think the chipping away of our civil liberties is unprecedented. Even in World War II, I never saw anything like that in Washington or any of the wars. I think that people are standing mute, and I remember the rabbi in the March on Washington program. He said that the greatest sin of all in the Nazi era was silence. He had been in a concentration camp for many years. People have got to, they must speak up now or forever hold their peace."
Phil Donahue: "Let me tell you what is impressive. You're not wearing a flag. Well, I don't want to damn you with my praise, but I say hip-hip-hooray for that, and I think you gave the right answer when you spoke at Northwestern University. Remember what you said? Did somebody ask you, say 'why didn't you wear a flag?'" And the winner is:
Bill Maher: "Not for the rest of the world. We take pride in being big charity givers. We're in fact dead last among the industrialized nations. We give an infinitesimal amount of our money to people around the world. I think what people around the world would say is it would take so little for this rich country to help and alleviate so much misery and even that is too much for them. We're oblivious to suffering." Accepting for Bill Maher....Mona Charen I Hate You Conservatives Award Presented by Ann Coulter
"This is interesting news that we get now, and it may put the President under a lot of heat today as the public learns that he knew, through his daily CIA intelligence briefings, that bin Laden had potential terror attack plans under way. And this marks a shift in the official version of events leading up to the September 11th attacks. So the questions is exactly what did the President know and when did he know it?...
"If we'd really been watching and paying attention we could have headed off 9/11. But the German prosecutorial system was pretty laid back and didn't want to be John Ashcroft, you know, they didn't want to be the SS, they had that worry there, no Gestapos. And so it was a great place for terrorists to operate." And the winner is:
"The entire federal government -- the Congress, the executive, the courts -- is united behind a right-wing agenda for which George W. Bush believes he now has a mandate. That agenda includes the power of the state to force pregnant women to surrender control over their own lives. It includes using the taxing power to transfer wealth from working people to the rich. It includes giving corporations a free hand to eviscerate the environment and control the regulatory agencies meant to hold them accountable. And it includes secrecy on a scale you cannot imagine. Accepting for Bill Moyers....Tony Blankley, filling in at last minute for Rush Limbaugh who was unable to make it because weather grounded his plane. Led by MRC President L. Brent Bozell, the audience then picked the Quote of the Year. See item #3 for the winner. The evening ended with a raucous set of six songs from the Charlie Daniels Band, including "The Last Fallen Hero" and "Devil Went Down to Georgia."
- L. Brent Bozell III, President of the Media Research Center
Quote of the Year. Following the presentation of the awards, attendees saw replays of three of the five winning quotes: ABC's David Wright claiming "it is impossible to say whether" the 99.96 percent vote for Saddam Hussein is "a true measure of the Iraqi people's feelings," ABC's Barbara Walters proclaiming that "if literacy alone were the yardstick, Cuba would rank as one of the freest nations on Earth," and Bill Moyers denouncing conservatives for acquiring "monopoly control of the American government and the power of the state to turn their radical ideology into the law of the land." Then, as a picture of each nominee was displayed, audience members were asked by MRC President L. Brent Bozell to hoot, holler and applaud to indicate their preference so that he, along with Cal Thomas, Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter (Sean Hannity had left to do his FNC show), could decipher the audience's preference. David Wright earned scattered applause and Barbara Walters a bit more. But the room erupted with loud and sustained disdain for Moyers. The Moyers quote which won the Quote of the Year dishonor:
"The entire federal government -- the Congress, the executive, the courts -- is united behind a right-wing agenda for which George W. Bush believes he now has a mandate. That agenda includes the power of the state to force pregnant women to surrender control over their own lives. It includes using the taxing power to transfer wealth from working people to the rich. It includes giving corporations a free hand to eviscerate the environment and control the regulatory agencies meant to hold them accountable. And it includes secrecy on a scale you cannot imagine. As soon as we have a Web page up with clips of all of the quotes played at the event, as well as some video from the roast, I'll let you know. -- Brent Baker [1]
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