The winning quotes in the MRC's " Best Notable Quotables of 2010: The Twenty-Third Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting ." As announced in a CyberAlert Special last Monday, the awards issue was posted, with videos, on Monday, December 20, but following tradition, today, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday - the last weekdays of the year - MRC.org's BiasAlert and corresponding CyberAlert e-mail newsletter will run the winning quotes followed on succeeding days by the runners-up. The page linked above also has links for the text of the entire issue in MS Word, OpenOffice Writer or WordPerfect formats. You can... continue reading
"This is such a weak field," Fox News analyst Juan Williams, recently ousted from NPR for not fully toting the far-left line, declared during a Fox News Sunday discussion of potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates, prompting an appalled Bill Kristol to mock: "Yeah, President Obama had done so much when he ran for President. I mean, all of these guys are better qualified than Barack Obama." Williams got in the last words of the December 26 segment, using them to deride Sarah Palin compared to Barack Obama: There is nobody out there except for Sarah Palin who could absolutely dominate... continue reading
On Friday's Inside Washington on PBS's Washington, DC station, during a discussion of President Obama's failure to secure passage of the Dream Act in the Senate, after panel member Evan Thomas of Newsweek asserted that "stupid politics" was behind the bill's defeat, host Gordon Peterson, an anchor at ABC's Washington, DC affiliate, WJLA-TV, brought up a quip by humorist Jimmy Tingle that "if they all looked like Norwegians, there'd be no problem." After introducing the segment with a clip of President Obama speaking favorably of the proposed law that would allow the children of illegal immigrants to obtain legal status... continue reading
On Friday's Political Capital show, Bloomberg's Margaret Carlson lavished praise on President Obama has having "negotiating skills" like the recently deceased diplomat Richard Holbrooke - known for facilitating a ceasefire in Bosnia in the mid-1990s - as host Al Hunt asked Carlson and the National Review's Kate O'Beirne to describe what Christmas gifts they would figuratively give to various public figures. Carlson: "I'm going to give him an inscribed copy of the late, great Richard Holbrooke's memoir, in honor of Obama's negotiating skills in this lame duck session. All he had to do was give up tax cuts - for... continue reading
Appearing on Thursday's Good Morning America to discuss the recent legislative activity in Congress, ABC's Cokie Roberts managed to avoid using the word "illegal" as she recounted the failure by Senate Democrats to pass the Dream Act to provide a mechanism for the children of illegal immigrants to obtain citizenship. Framing the Senate vote as a "disappointment" for Obama, she went on to contend that the loss "certainly bodes badly for immigration." After agreeing with host George Stephanopoulos that President Obama should be "pretty pleased" because of the "incredible" lame duck session, she continued: The disappointment, as [President Obama] said... continue reading
"There weren't a lot of hard questions in this news conference," FNC's Bret Baier observed on Special Report in the understatement of the night. Indeed, in the first question posed at the late Wednesday afternoon session, Caren Bohan of Reuters reflected the collective glow of the White House press corp basking in Barack Obama's glory: You racked up a lot of wins in the last few weeks that a lot of people thought would be difficult to come by. Are you ready to call yourself the "comeback kid"? (Katie Couric gushed on the CBS Evening News over how "the President... continue reading
On Wednesday's GMA, ABC's Jake Tapper spun President Obama's victories during the lame duck Congress as a post-midterm "shellacking" of Republicans: "The President and Democrats...have passed a tax compromise package; repealed 'don't ask, don't tell;' and they stand on the verge of getting the START...treaty ratified. To hear ... Senator Lindsey Graham tell it, it's his side that was shellacked ." Anchor George Stephanopoulos trumpeted the "White House winning streak" at the top of the 7 am Eastern hour, and continued that Obama was "poised for a major victory: passage of a nuclear arms treaty, just days after repeal of... continue reading
CNN's Eliot Spitzer misleadingly claimed on Tuesday's Parker Spitzer that " President Obama has done everything to push the agenda for choice in schools " [audio available here ]. In reality, the President's record shows that he has actually worked against school choice, particularly in the District of Columbia. Spitzer and co-host Kathleen Parker brought on Stephen A. Smith, an African-American talk radio host, during the lead segment of the 8 pm Eastern hour to discuss his view that the black community should "play hard to get" with the Democratic Party, as the on-screen graphic summed it. Midway through the... continue reading
During her 1PM ET hour show on MSNBC on Tuesday, host Andrea Mitchell sympathized with exiting Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, remarking that the California Democrat having to hand over the gavel to John Boehner in January has "got to be painful," but that Pelosi is "doing it with class." Mitchell made the comments after talking to Politico's congressional bureau chief Martin Kady about a recent interview Pelosi conducted with the political website. Mitchell cited excerpts: "Pelosi says quote, 'I'm obviously devastated by the loss we had' but she also says she 'feels serene' and is already working on... continue reading
In a report at the top of the 8AM ET hour of Tuesday's CBS Early Show, senior White House correspondent Bill Plante ridiculed Sarah Palin for daring to criticize First Lady Michelle Obama's weight loss campaign: "Palin has never been at a loss for an opinion on anything, including taking a pot shot at the First Lady's campaign to eat healthy." Fill-in news reader Betty Nguyen introduced Plante's report by declaring: "And there's a war over dessert. Yes, a food fight has broken out between the First Lady and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin." Throughout the segment, the headline on... continue reading