“Unprovoked Naked Aggression”
“The United States is hosting a Middle East summit meeting aimed at kick-starting the peace process. Forty countries, maybe more, are expected to attend, including Syria, Saudi Arabia. But the only country currently at war in the Middle East is us, the United States, prosecuting two separate wars there, count them two, one of them an unprovoked act of naked aggression. That would be the war in Iraq....Don’t kid yourself, part of the reason for this is his [Bush’s] legacy, try to burnish it up a little bit. It ain’t in real good shape.”
— CNN’s Jack Cafferty on The Situation Room, Nov. 26. (With WMV Video [1]/MP3 audio [2])
CNN Leaps to Hillary’s Defense
“Is John McCain done as a result of this?...This could be real bad for John McCain....How big a mistake is this?...He could be in trouble for this from women, especially the ones that’ve been talking to me today in our newsroom who heard this and were offended....Most people who’ve seen it are looking at it as a real mistake on his part....Is his campaign dead in the water?”
— Anchor Rick Sanchez leading off CNN’s Out in the Open Nov. 14, insisting it was wrong for McCain to fail to scold a voter who called Hillary Clinton a “bitch.”
“The Senator should have distanced himself not only from the statement made against Senator Clinton, but against the use of the word itself. And at no time does it seem that he does that, and that’s the reason we did the story.”
— Sanchez defending his coverage in a soundbite shown on CNN’s The Situation Room, November 15.
vs.
“That little incident was pretty badly hyped by Rick Sanchez. Senator McCain did not embrace the ‘B’ word that this woman in the audience used.”
— The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz, who hosts CNN’s Reliable Sources show about the news media, on the November 15 Situation Room.
Karl Rove, McCarthyite Felon
“Time’s editors apparently felt the cost/benefit analysis wouldn’t be in their favor if they embraced the man who has done more than anyone to keep the spirit of Joe McCarthy alive and well in American politics....’Time thought this wouldn’t be like hiring George Stephanopoulos,’ my source explained. ‘They think Karl is essentially like an unindicted coconspirator in a whole string of felonies.’”
— Radar Online’s media critic Charles Kaiser in a November 19 posting about why Time didn’t hire Rove.
CNN: “Swift Boating” of Kerry = “Unsubstantiated Attacks”
“[Deceased firefighter’s mother Sally Regenhard] is part of a small, determined group of firefighter families taking on the former mayor....The question now — is this another ‘Swift Boat’ situation, in which unsubstantiated attacks against John Kerry’s service in Vietnam scuttled his presidential candidacy. These families say no.”
— CNN’s Deborah Feyerick on a group of 9/11 families opposed to Rudy Giuliani, The Situation Room, Nov. 20.
Wowed by “Historic” Obama
“Now to Barack Obama. When I spent the day with him in Iowa over the weekend, you could sense the excitement he nearly always generates....Whatever he’s eating, it is working for Obama, as he is hitting his stride on the stump....Here as elsewhere, the crowd listens closely to Barack Obama’s real argument, that he is tomorrow, a fresh face who represents a real change from our bitter polarized politics....When you talk to Iowa voters who come to hear Obama, you get the sense they know they might be part of something big here, something historic.”
— ABC’s Terry Moran on Nightline, November 26. (With Real Player Video [3])
No Suppressing “Brilliant” Bill
“It was inevitable, really, that the ‘Bill Factor’ would come into play. Is it a new strategy, or just the chivalry of a former president and spouse who can’t help himself?...Her husband’s support could muddle her so far successful image of independent strength....Obviously, he is a brilliant strategist for her campaign, but everybody knows that Bill Clinton can’t always be scripted.”
— ABC’s Claire Shipman on Bill Clinton defending Hillary Clinton, November 13 Good Morning America.
The “Death of the Republic”
“I will not pay my income tax if we go to war with Iran. I realize this is a desperate and perhaps futile gesture. But an attack on Iran — which appears increasingly likely before the coming presidential election — will unleash a regional conflict of catastrophic proportions. This war, and especially Iranian retaliatory strikes on American targets, will be used to silence domestic dissent and abolish what is left of our civil liberties. It will solidify the slow-motion coup d’état that has been under way since the 9/11 attacks. It could mean the death of the Republic.”
— Former New York Times Middle East bureau chief Chris Hedges, writing in the far-left The Nation, Dec. 10 issue.
Billionaire Buffett = “Robin Hood”
Co-host Diane Sawyer: “A billionaire has taken your side over taxes and fairness. The country’s second wealthiest man Warren Buffett, was on Capitol Hill yesterday. And he wants to know why he pays a smaller percentage in taxes than his receptionist....”
Correspondent Bianna Golodryga: “He crunched the numbers. Buffett pays 18 percent to the feds. His receptionist, like the rest of his staff, pays nearly twice that, 33 percent. A lopsided equation that put Buffett in a Robin Hood frame of mind.”
Warren Buffett: “I see nothing wrong with those who have been blessed by this society to give a larger portion of their income to the society than somebody that’s working very, very hard just to make ends meet.”...
Golodryga: “Later this week, Congress could vote to repeal the estate tax, a post-mortem tax relief Buffett says is virtually worthless.”
— ABC’s Good Morning America, November 15.
Eager to Ban Torturous Tasers
“As we said, at least six people died after being zapped by police last week, prompting a UN committee to consider tasers as a form of torture....The UN weighing in on this and calling it a possible weapon of torture, what does that mean?...What would it take to ban tasers? ”
— Co-host Hannah Storm interviewing Amnesty International USA Executive Director Larry Cox, an opponent of using tasers, on CBS’s The Early Show November 26.
Don’t Pray to God, Pray to Gore
“Well, they need to be praying to people who will fix global warming and take care of the environment because that’s more realistic....You can pray until the cows come home, it may not rain....It’s a distraction from the fact that there is scientific evidence that we are in the midst of global warming, which is causing a lot of these droughts and fires. So let’s focus on the rationality....”
— Co-host Joy Behar on ABC’s The View November 14, talking about Georgia’s governor praying for rain.
Conservatives Burned Witches
“Go through the history of time. During the Salem witch hunt, the liberals thought there was no such thing as witches, and the conservative view was ‘They’re witches and they all have to die.’ I don’t argue with conservatives over morality. I don’t preach morality, certainly, but I won’t be told that liberal is immoral.”
— Actor George Clooney in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine’s Peter Travers, 40th anniversary issue.
Window Into Dan’s Delusions
“He’s recalling January 10, 2005, when he first received the 224-page report commissioned by CBS that excoriated his infamous 60 Minutes Wednesday segment on President Bush’s National Guard service. Of that report, [Dan] Rather says, ‘When I read through it, all I could say to myself, on each page, is, “What bullshit. What pure, unadulterated bullshit this whole thing is. What a setup. What a fix.”’ He nearly spits the word fix....Rather felt CBS was handing him over to his enemies for execution....Anger was seething just below the surface. The next night, Rather’s last as anchor of the CBS Evening News, he wore a T-shirt under his suit and tie that read F.E.A. — ‘Fuck ‘em all.’”
— New York magazine’s Joe Hagan in an article about the ex-CBS Evening News anchor’s lawsuit against CBS, December 3 issue.
“Fair” Tom Slams “Mindless” Radio
“Over the years, I always tried to be the one person wherever I was working that would give a fair representation of what was happening, and then I hoped a reasonable and intelligent analysis or insight into why it was happening. And I’ve been comforted over the years that people on the far left and people on the far right have said to me, ‘What party are you in, anyway? I have never been able to figure it out.’ [laughter] And I’d say, ‘That’s exactly the reaction I want you to have.’”
— Retired NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw on PBS’s Tavis Smiley, November 12.
“My problem with the whole spectrum [of talk radio] is there is not — you know what Rush’s, what his whole drill is. He doesn’t want to hear another point of view. Except his. That’s my issue....The problem with talk radio is they mock anyone else’s point of view, and they do it often in a mindless fashion. You know that as well as I do. Because it’s a hot button for the choir that’s listening to them, and it works for them commercially. There are very few programs like you, like yours, in which you’ll interview people across the political spectrum. It’s mostly go out there and hit the hot button all day long.”
— Brokaw on Laura Ingraham’s radio show, Nov. 26.
It Just Popped Into Her Head
“I kept trying to get her attention. When I did, I realized I didn’t have anything to say. I felt like a deer in headlights.”
— Ex-ABC News anchor Carole Simpson explaining why she told Senator Clinton “I endorse you for President of the United States” at an October 16 campaign event, as recounted by the Boston Globe’s Peter Schworm in a November 19 article.
PUBLISHER: L. Brent Bozell III
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