If It Were 33 Tea Partiers, They'd Have Killed Each Other
Host Chris Matthews: "The message coming out of the Tea Party people, and lot of them are good people, is every man for himself, basically. 'No more taxes, no more government, no more everything. No more safety net. No more health care for everybody. Everybody just get out there, make your buck, save it, screw the government, move on.' Right? You know these people, if they were every man for himself down in that mine they wouldn't have gotten out."
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka: "That's exactly right."
Matthews: "They would have been killing each other after about two days."
- Talking about the 33 miners rescued in Chile after being trapped for 10 weeks, MSNBC's Hardball, October 13. [Audio/video (0:40): Windows Media [1] | MP3 audio [2]]
Obama: A Victim of Republican Lies and Ignorant Public
"That Obama is on the defensive after successfully, and against the odds, ringing up a long list of significant victories - a health care bill of historic importance - is due, in part, to Republicans' repetitive lies (they're far more disciplined at 'messaging'), plus an alarmingly ill-informed public (the media play their part) and Obama's own role in allowing the Republicans to win the arguments."
- Long-time Washington reporter and TV analyst Elizabeth Drew in an October 8 opinion piece [3] for Politico.com.
"Centrist, Moderate" Obama vs. Irrational "Cro-Magnon" Party
"There are some seriously strange people running, thanks to the Tea Party....It's not just suspicion of government. We have people out there believing that this basically centrist moderate President we have is a socialist bringing Sharia law to America. None of that is rational."
- New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on ABC's This Week, October 10.
"It sounds like we're listening to the Cro-Magnon political party sometimes. They don't believe in evolution, they believe guns should be used against Congressman and Congresswomen if you don't like the way they voted and we should reconsider the best thing Congress has done in 100 years - civil rights."
- Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball, September 29.
Badgering Europeans to Spend as Recklessly as Obama
"The jobless recovery. But are spending cuts in Europe holding back growth here? Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister, defends austerity.... Many economists...are saying that Europe is, in fact, going around it the wrong way, that in fact it needs more stimulus to provide more growth and then to attack deficits from a position of strength. Why won't Europe do that?...There are tens of millions of people out of work all over the world right now. They seem to be having to pay for the excesses of the bankers, the billionaires, the speculators. How can you have fiscal discipline and make it fair?"
- ABC's Christiane Amanpour to French finance minister Christine Lagarde on This Week, October 10.
"Where Would We Be" Without Government Bailouts?
Correspondent Dean Reynolds: "Tea Partiers are overwhelmingly white, male, Protestant and fired up. Steve Stevlic is an unemployed Tea Party advocate and a Democrat's nightmare."
Steve Stevlic: "They're running up deficits and spending money that we don't have, spending our children's and their children's money, and people are reacting to that."
Reynolds: "Where would we be today were it not for the stimulus or the bailouts of the banks and the auto industry?"
- CBS Evening News, October 7.
"Fair" for Obama to Smear Business Group Without Evidence
"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce gets money from those very sources and uses it to elect people in Congress who will support that enterprise of shifting jobs overseas, cost cutting, eliminating the American workforce, basically. They have a grudge here which is pretty American, which is, 'You are screwing me. I'd like to know who's paying for this.' That's fair."
- MSNBC's Chris Matthews justifying the White House attack, October 11 Hardball.
Host Bob Schieffer: "This part about foreign money - that appears to be peanuts, Mr. Axelrod. I mean, do you have any evidence that it's anything other than peanuts?"
White House advisor David Axelrod: "Well, do you have any evidence that it's not, Bob?..."
Schieffer: "If the only charge three weeks into the election that the Democrats can make is that somehow, this may or may not be foreign money coming into the campaign - is that the best you can do?"
- CBS's Face the Nation, October 10.
Tea Party: Violent, Racist or "Incredibly Stupid"?
Host Larry O'Donnell: "One of the central questions about the Tea Party, and one of the accusations that flies around, is that this is a racist group - predominantly racist group, partially racist group, or more racist than your average collection on a subway car in New York City. You've been in and among them. What's the answer to the Tea Party racist question?"
Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi: "My answer is it's not so much about hating black people for these people. I think it's more about believing in this preposterous fantasy that white people are some kind of oppressed minority in the age of Obama. And I don't know whether that's racism, but it is just incredibly stupid."
- Exchange on MSNBC's The Last Word, September 29.
Conservatives Must "Take Responsibility" for Islamophobia
ABC's Christiane Amanpour: "So, Gary Bauer, as you know, a series of politicians have used the Islamic center [near Ground Zero], have used sort of Islamophobia and scare tactics in their campaigns."
Former GOP presidential candidate Gary Bauer: "Christiane, that's a loaded question. Really? People are using a fear of Muslims for their political purposes?"
Amanpour: "People are talking, the same kind of thing, yes, yes, that's what he believes....But my question is do you take any - after some of the loaded things that have been said, and we can play you any number of tapes, Mr. Bauer. Do you take any responsibility at all for, for instance, what happened in Murfreesboro [Tennessee, where a mosque was vandalized]?"
Bauer: "Are you serious? Absolutely not. I have never encouraged violence. I condemn violence."
Amanpour: "You don't think the rhetoric lays the groundwork for others?"
- Exchange during ABC's This Week October 3 townhall discussion on the question, "Should Americans Fear Islam?" [Audio/video (1:04): Windows Media [4] | MP3 audio [5]]
Linking GOP Candidate's Comment to Brutal Attack
"This statement comes from, at a time when New Yorkers just learn about this horrendous attack by this gang on these young gay men in the Bronx, where they were tortured and sodomized....You don't feel like you've added any fuel to the fire of gay hatred by saying what you said?"
- CBS's Harry Smith to New York gubernatorial nominee Carl Paladino on the October 11 Early Show, talking about a series of attacks which occurred several hours prior to Paladino's statement that homosexuality is not "an equally valid or successful option" as heterosexuality.
Oozing Over "Vintage Obama" Moment
"The moment was vintage Obama - emphasizing his zest for inquiry, his personal involvement, his willingness to make the tough call, his search for middle ground. If an Obama brand exists, it is his image as a probing, cerebral President conducting an exhaustive analysis of the issues so that the best ideas can emerge, and triumph."
- Washington Post writers Michael Leahy and Juliet Eilperin in an October 12 story [6] about the President's pre-oil spill endorsement of offshore drilling.
Giddy Over Kagan: "Kid's Got Real Pop On Her Fastball"
Anchor Diane Sawyer: "How was Justice Kagan on her first day?
Correspondent Terry Moran: "Well, the one word that leapt to my mind was 'ready.' Within minutes of the start of these arguments in this bankruptcy case, she was jumping into the fray of oral arguments. She was confident and well prepared and fluent and probing. At one point she asked a question of one of the lawyers that frankly seemed to stump them a little bit. A quiet kind of came over the courtroom as he gathered his thoughts. And you could almost sense or imagine some of the other justices and veteran court watchers kind of looking down the bench at Justice Kagan like a major league scout might say, 'you know, that kid's got some real pop on her fastball.'"
- ABC's World News, October 4.
20 Years Later, Nostalgia for East German "Good Life"
"No one here is whitewashing the disappointment, the sense even now, two decades later, of feeling treated as immigrants in their own country, of the deeply insulting perception that their values - forged in a socialist state - were expunged and delegitimized....'Yes, it was a dictatorship, a state of injustice, no freedom, but there were 17 million different lives,' said Ms. [Birgit] Kummer, who forged a successful career as a reporter for the Thuringer Allgemeine daily newspaper. 'For many, it was a good life,' she said. 'You can't just forget that.'"
- New York Times correspondent Michael Slackman in a September 30 article [7] about the 20th anniversary of the reunification of East and West Germany.
No Hike in Social Security = "Cheap Whiskey" for Seniors
"Seniors prepared to cut back on everything from food to charitable donations to whiskey as word spread Monday that they will have to wait until at least 2012 to see their Social Security checks increase....'I think it's disgusting,' said Paul McNeil, 69, a retired state worker from Warwick, R.I., who said his food and utility costs have gone up, but his income has not....Dorcas Eppright will give less to charity. Jack Dawson will buy cheap whiskey instead of his beloved Canadian Club."
- AP writer Matt Sedensky in an October 11 dispatch [8].
Wishing All Weapons Were Inflatable Pool Toys
"You might say the Russian Army is blowing up its own weapons. Russia's military is investing in a new breed of inflatable decoy tanks, trucks and missile launchers made to appear real so they can even fool radar installations and spy satellites. Wish all weapons were like that."
- NBC's Ann Curry reading a brief news headline on Today, October 12. [Audio/video (0:22): Windows Media [9] | MP3 audio [10]]
Welcome to Parker Spitzer's America
"Sarah Palin's an idiot. Come on. This is a remarkably, stunningly, jaw-droppingly incompetent and mean woman."
- TV and movie producer Aaron Sorkin on CNN's new 8pm ET Parker Spitzer, October 4. [Audio/video (0:23): Windows Media [11] | MP3 audio [12]]
Co-host Eliot Spitzer: "Tonight's person of interest, one guy Kathleen [Parker] and I agreed we couldn't wait to get on the show was Bernard Henri-Levy. He has no equivalent in America, the philosopher as rock star....
Bernard Henri-Levy: "America is more lovable than ever but becoming a little crazy. This Tea Party story look from outside is really crazy. It is not even ideology. It is pure hatred sometimes and it makes for someone like me who love this is country, it is a little frightening."
- CNN's Parker Spitzer, October 7.
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