Nice Man, Retrograde Policies
Peter Jennings: "[Pope John Paul II is] an electrifying figure for Americans, whether you were Catholic or not....He was, of course, controversial here. Some American Catholics have chafed at his insistence that they follow the Church's traditional social doctrines. But every time the Gallup organization asked Americans who are those people they admire most, John Paul always made the top ten list...."
Dean Reynolds: "Abortion, birth control, women priests - the list of contested issues is long, not to mention the priest sex abuse scandal. And it's all driven a wedge between the Vatican and America, regardless of the Pope's standing in the world."
-ABC's
World News Tonight, April 1.
"There has been a great deal of loss of Catholics, Catholics leaving the Church in the U.S. and there are, many believe, Archbishop Gregory, that perhaps this particular Pope has been too conservative socially for many Catholics in the United States. Is that your sense?...In terms of questions of birth control, in terms of questions of women in the priesthood, those types of issues is what I think many Catholics have taken issue with John Paul II."
-ABC's Bob Woodruff to Atlanta's Archbishop Wilton Gregory during live coverage of the Pope's death, April 2.
"While a majority of American Catholics believe the priesthood should be open to married men and women, the Pope refused to even discuss it. Some believe his unyielding stance alienated American Catholics....Influential conservative bishops in the U.S. - most appointed by Pope John Paul II - oppose birth control, abortion, and condemn homosexuality, leaving them at odds with many in the flock. Within the hierarchy, more progressive voices have been marginalized....Pope John Paul II's legacy in the world's most powerful country may be that of a house divided, a man who changed the world, but in many ways, was unwilling to change his Church."
-NBC's Lester Holt on
Today, April 2.
Liked Pope's Anti-Capitalist Slant
"So much has been made of the Pope's anti-communism and his role in bringing down communism, yet he also had a very forceful critique, has had a very forceful critique of the excesses of capitalism, and it hasn't seemed to have taken hold in the same way."
-ABC's George Stephanopoulos to Washington's Cardinal Theodore McCarrick on
This Week, March 27.
Ruing Pro-Life "Interference"
"We're going to begin tonight with the extraordinary last-minute attempt by members of the Congress to interfere, or to intervene, in the case of Terri Schiavo, the young woman who has been in a vegetative state for seven years....[Florida Judge George Greer] didn't think much of the interference....In the last 24 hours, there has been no denying members of the Congress. After seven years, members of the House and of the Senate have decided this is urgent."
-ABC's Peter Jennings,
World News Tonight, March 18.
"The concern is that a lot of politicians on the far right might really focus on this as a right-to-life issue, and then another divisive case like this one could end up in the courts again."
-Mika Brzezinski on the
CBS Evening News, March 31.
Blasting Right-Wing "Grotesquery"
"Have not the politicians who have used this woman really accomplished what they wanted from her?...If she lives, well, good, they saved her. If she dies, the non-religious, the obstructionist judges, and any other boogeyman you want to name, killed her....You know, I've only been doing this off and on eight years with politics, but I'm just wondering as we talk about this, does anyone else besides us see the grotesquery of this sort of sickening experience?"
-Some of Keith Olbermanns questions to political analyst Craig Crawford on MSNBC's
Countdown, March 22.
ABC Pages Dr. Death
"Back to the Terri Schiavo case. So many people have had so many opinions about what has played out in recent days, but one voice we havent heard from. A man with a very interesting perspective on all of this is Dr. Jack Kevorkian. You remember him, a leading advocate of assisted suicide....When you see Congress begin to get involved, when you see this go through layer after layer in the courts, has it become something, in your mind, of a circus?"
-ABC's Charles Gibson's introduction and question to Kevorkian, imprisoned since his 1999 second-degree murder conviction, on the March 25
Good Morning America.
Real Compassion = More Socialism
"If we really believed in an unmitigated, uncurbed in any way culture of life, we would be having universal health care that paid for every conceivable medical treatment."
-NPR's Nina Totenberg on
Inside Washington, March 27.
I'm Not Biased, My Enemies Are
"One way a reporter in this country should be judged is how well he or she stands up to the pressure to intimidate. I remember the first time someone accused me of being an 'N-lover.' There was a lot of that during the '60s when I covered the civil rights movement. Then you move forward from civil rights into the Vietnam War....'We're going to hang a sign around you which calls you some bad name: anti-military, anti-American, anti-war.' Then, when Watergate came into being....was the first time I began to hear this word 'liberal' as an epithet thrown my way....People who have very strong biases of their own, they come at you with a story: 'If you won't report it the way I want it reported, then youre biased.' Now, it is true about me, for better or for worse, if you want to see my neck swell, you just try to tell me where to line up or what to think and mostly what to report."
-Dan Rather near the end of his one-hour CBS News special,
Dan Rather: A Reporter Remembers, which aired on his last night as CBS Evening News anchor, March 9.
Still Dan's Fan
"As virtually all of our world knows, Rather agreed to step down in the wake of a scandal involving a discredited
60 Minutes Wednesday story....One of the sad things about it is that it gave the right wing, which has had its sights on Rather for years now, something to cheer and dance in the streets about. Over the years, ultra-conservatives have made Rather their public enemy No. 1....He says he doesn't know how he became such a lightning rod for controversy. 'What I do know is that it's not something I worry about,' he says. 'I've never worried about it. I am independent as a reporter determinedly independent and, when I think it's necessary and advisable, I'm fiercely independent.'"
-Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales, March 9.
Ex-Reporter Sees Secular Bias
"I worked for the New York Times for 25 years. I could probably count on one hand, in the Washington bureau of the
New York Times, people who would describe themselves as people of faith....I think one of the real built-in biases in the media is towards secularism....You want diversity in the newsroom, not because of some quota, but because you have to have diversity to cover the story well and cover all aspects of a society. And you don't have religious people making the decisions about where coverage is focused. And I think thats one of the faults."
-Former
New York Times reporter Steve Roberts, now a journalism professor at George Washington University, on CNN's
Reliable Sources, March 27.
Hard to Make America Look Good
Peter Jennings: "The Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, announced the appointment of Karen Hughes to the post of Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy. Ms. Hughes, one of the President's most-trusted advisers, will be in charge of improving Americas image abroad."
Karen Hughes: "This job will be difficult. Perceptions do not change quickly or easily. This is a struggle for ideas."
Jennings: "In some parts of the world, that will be taken as an understatement."
-ABC's World News Tonight, March 14.
On the Wrong Side of History
Don Imus: "What's going on throughout the Middle East, these various demonstrations of a thirst for democracy?"
Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas: "I just love this story because it makes the press look so bad. I mean, I hope it all works out and we do get peace and freedom in the Middle East, but my short-term, narrow entertainment here is that, you know, all the chattering classes, all my friends, including me, were all saying, oh, you know, 'Iraq was a terrible thing and Bush has screwed up the Middle East and we're just creating terrorists and nothing's going to work here and it's the end of the world,' and then the next thing you know, peace and freedom and democracy are breaking out, and they can't explain it."
-Exchange on MSNBC's
Imus in the Morning, March 14.
It Means "Lying Werewolf"
"Bob Novak is at all times a mendacious lycanthrope and, if you use him as a talking-head anywhere on your network, you've sacrificed credibility for celebrity in a big way."
-Boston Globe Magazine writer Charles Pierce warning CBS not to include Novak, a Maryland Terrapins fan, in coverage of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, in a
Sports Illustrated/CNN Sports blog entry posted March 28.
A Message from Captain Nuance
"The Republican Party, the once-great Republican Party in this country has been hijacked by - the leadership class of the Republican Party is a conservative Christian loony bin who's taken over the party....Always distinguish Republican rank-and-file from Republican leadership. Most Republicans who are registered Republicans are decent, honest good people who you have a difference of opinion with. The leadership of the Republican Party are a bunch of sociopathic maniacs who have their lips super-glued to the ass of the conservative right."
-Actor Alec Baldwin during an appearance on HBO's
Real Time with Bill Maher, April 1.
