Matt’s Plea: Run, Al, Run!
Matt Lauer: “From your point of view, if you were to run for President you could take this issue [global warming] to the next level, even during just a campaign. And if you were fortunate enough to win the presidency, you’d sit in the most powerful office in the free world with a real chance to make — you could be in a position to save the planet, without putting too much emphasis on it. Wouldn’t that be enough of a reason to run for President for you?”
Former Vice President Al Gore: “Well, I appreciate the impulse behind the question. I am not planning to run....”
Lauer: “But as someone who feels as passionately about the subject as you do, and your documentary is evidence of that, why pass up the opportunity to have that world stage again?”
— Exchange on NBC’s Today, December 6. (With WMV video [1]/MP3 audio [2])
Share Your Wisdom, O Hillary
“I want to get to ‘Hillary ’08,’ but I want to start with It Takes a Village ’07. Because this book came out ten years ago and a lot has happened in the past ten years that makes it, I think, even more imperative, that we will need a village to raise healthy, secure children. We’ve had the war in Iraq, 9/11, the impact of the Internet. What is the most important thing we can do, as a nation, to guarantee that our children are safe and secure?”
— Meredith Vieira’s first question to Senator Hillary Clinton on NBC’s Today, December 18.
Clinton Years = “Good Old Days”
“Who is the most likely Democratic nominee for President? Any way you slice it, Hillary Clinton is the one to beat. Right now, she is a stronger candidate in a stronger position than any primary contender since Texas Governor George W. Bush cornered the Republican market in 1999....Hillary hopes to capitalize on the nostalgia that many Americans have for the Clinton years, the good old days.”
— Fill-in host Andrea Mitchell on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show, December 3.
“In the boom of the Clinton years — and I’m talking a chron-ological, not a political distinction — the rising tide of that bull market truly did lift all boats, or at least a whole lot more of them....Working Americans now pay more of their pension and health care costs, and food, fuel, and service costs have risen faster than most salaries. That means even those who do get small bonuses still struggle.”
— NBC’s Mike Taibbi on the December 16 Nightly News.
Babs Touts “Fascinating” Pelosi
“We picked our most fascinating person on Election Day this past November. Next month, Congress will get a Speaker of the House unlike any before. Our most fascinating person of 2006: Mother of five and Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi....In January, Nancy Pelosi will become the most powerful woman in America. She will assume office as the first-ever female Speaker of the House, two heartbeats from the presidency.”
— ABC’s Barbara Walters announcing her #1 choice during her December 12 prime time special, The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2006. In her 1994 special, Walters made no mention of incoming House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
“Liberal” Label Just GOP Mud
“Only weeks ago, Republicans were doing their best in the heat of the campaign to paint Pelosi, 66, as a conservative’s nightmare — a San Francisco liberal out of touch with the American mainstream....The impending inauguration kicks off the contest over who will define Nancy Pelosi: Republicans who see her as a reckless liberal, or Pelosi herself, who wants to be seen as an American Everywoman, leading her party on a steady course to the center.”
— Los Angeles Times reporter Faye Fiore, December 11.
George’s Solution = Tax Hikes
“You also have said that we have to have bold ideas for energy independence, and your theme is ‘courage to change.’ Just about every expert on energy says the best way to become energy independent is to raise the price of oil and gas, to have a serious energy tax. Why not call for it?...Couldn’t we become independent much more quickly if we had the kind of energy tax you see in Europe?”
— ABC’s George Stephanopoulos to Democratic presidential candidate Tom Vilsack on This Week, December 3.
Big Government to the Rescue
“By most estimates, more than half of all Americans who work in the private sector do not get a single day of paid sick leave. Not a single day. Well, all of that could change now that the Democrats are about to take control of Congress....Next month, Senator Ted Kennedy will reintroduce a bill that would require companies with 15 or more employees to provide full-time workers seven days of paid sick leave a year....Interesting to note, 139 countries provide paid sick leave for workers. The U.S. is the only industrialized nation that does not pay.”
— CNN’s Alina Cho on American Morning, December 11.
“Family-Friendly” Socialism
“It’s a busy household...but because this is France, lawyer Anne Horn and her family get help from the French government’s very family-friendly policies....163 countries around the globe offer at least some subsidy to new mothers. In America, federal law entitles some working mothers to twelve weeks unpaid leave. The rest get nothing.”
— CBS’s Sheila MacVicar on the Dec. 9 Evening News.
NBC Mantra: “Will Bush Listen?”
NBC’s Ann Curry: “With just one day to go until the bipartisan Iraq Study Group comes out with a report that everyone’s waiting for there is a question that is being asked, will the President listen?...”
David Gregory: “The President appeared to dismiss the forthcoming suggestion from the high profile Baker-Hamilton commission for a substantial drawdown of U.S. troops.... Does that mean the President is unwilling to listen?”
— Story on NBC’s Today, December 5.
“What about this question that David poses in his piece, it’s posed on the cover of the news magazines this week. Will the President listen? You know him? Does he listen?”
“But it’s clear that there’s gotta be a change of course, and there are a lot of people weighing in with advice on how that course should be changed. Does he listen?”
— Co-host Matt Lauer to ex-White House Chief of Staff Andy Card on the same program a few minutes later.
Upset with Democratic Cowards
“[Outgoing Congresswoman Cynthia] McKinney isn’t the only person who thinks President Bush may have done things that rise to the levels of high crimes and misdemeanors. And yet, the incoming House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has said that impeachment of the President is, quote, ‘off the table.’ It’s all kind of strange. The incoming House Judiciary Chairman, John Conyers, had earlier sponsored a bill to investigate grounds for possible impeachment. Now, Conyers has backed off and agreed with Pelosi to rule out impeachment....Here’s the question this hour: ‘Is it wrong for the incoming Congress to simply rule out the impeachment of President Bush?’”
— Jack Cafferty on CNN’s Situation Room, December 11.
Ten More Killed by Bush’s Blunder
“On this, the same day the Iraq Study Group released its report, ten more Americans paid the ultimate price for President Bush’s execution of the war.”
— MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on Countdown, Dec. 6.
Bush Cooked Up Iraq Kool-Aid
“Critics calling Mr. Bush ‘the cowboy’ for stubbornly leading the charge, and Mr. Blair ‘the poodle’ for obediently following. But three years since the U.S. invasion, the two are still adamant their Iraq mission is sound. President Bush didn’t just drink the Kool-Aid, he made it. But perhaps now it’s a little less sweet.”
— CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux, American Morning, Dec. 8. (With WMV video [3]/MP3 audio [4])
Newt, the Manchurian Candidate
“Newt Gingrich sees in terrorism, not something to be exterminated, but something to be exploited. It is his golden opportunity, isn’t it? ‘Rallying a nation,’ you might say, ‘to hysteria, to sweep us up into the White House with powers that will make martial law seem like anarchy.’ That, of course, is from the original version of the movie The Manchurian Candidate — the chilling words of Angela Lansbury’s character....What a dark place your world must be, Mr. Gingrich, where the way to save America is to destroy America.”
— Keith Olbermann on MSNBC’s Countdown, November 30, in a “Special Comment” about Gingrich’s ideas to stop terrorists from exploiting the Internet.
Dead Dictator Double Standard
“Augusto Pinochet, 91, Dictator Who Ruled by Terror in Chile, Dies”
— New York Times headline, December 11.
“Kim Il Sung, Enigmatic ‘Great Leader’ of North Korea for 5 Decades, Dies at 82.”
— New York Times headline, July 10, 1994.
Christmas: Tearing America Apart
“Do you worry at all that non-believers may feel excluded and diminished at a time when we’re so divided about so much?”
— Katie Couric to The Nativity Story’s Catherine Hardwicke and Mike Rich in a December 4 CBS Evening News story about Hollywood movies based on Biblical themes.
Evil Rove Will Stop at Nothing
Co-host Joy Behar: “Is there such a thing as a man-made stroke? In other words, did someone do this to him?...”
Co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck: “Why is everything coming from the liberal perspective a conspiracy?...”
Behar: “I know what this [Republican] party is capable of.”
— Discussing the illness of Democratic Senator Tim Johnson on ABC’s The View, December 14. (With WMV video [5]/MP3 audio [6])
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