Every year at this time the conservative Media Research Center compiles the most outrageously biased and stupefyingly dumb remarks made by media people during the previous 12 months. Even the quickest perusal of these gems should forever still any doubts about the media’s inherent liberal bias and stupefying shallowness.
Here are just a few of the Monitor’s personal favorites (for all of the quotes, see “The Best Notable Quotables of 2001” on the center’s website, www.mrc.org):
“Nineteen days after the presidential election, Florida’s Republican secretary of state is about to announce the winner – as she sees it and decrees it – of the state’s potentially decisive 25 electoral votes….
“The believed certification – as the Republican secretary of state sees it – is coming just hours after a court ordered deadline for counties to submit their hand count and recount totals….
“The reason we’re on the air right across-the-board nationally is because Florida’s secretary of state – a Republican, as we’ve mentioned before – campaigned actively for George Bush, well-connected to Governor Bush’s brother Jeb Bush in Florida, but a woman who has consistently said, ‘I’m trying to do my job, right down to the letter of the law, as best I can’…She will certify – as she sees it – who gets Florida’s 25 electoral votes….
“What’s happening here is the certification – as the Florida secretary of state sees it and decrees it – is being signed…. After this, it will be, at least in the opinion of the secretary of state, that the results will be final….” [All italics in this entry added for emphasis.]
– Dan Rather, during a CBS News Special Report on the Nov. 26 official certification of Florida’s vote.
Bill O’Reilly: “I want to ask you flat out, do you think President Clinton’s an honest man?”
Dan Rather: “Yes, I think he’s an honest man.”
O’Reilly: “Do you, really?”
Rather: “I do.”
O’Reilly: “Even though he lied to [PBS newsman] Jim Lehrer’s face about the Lewinsky case?”
Rather: “Who among us has not lied about something?”
O’Reilly: “Well, I didn’t lie to anyone’s face on national television. I don’t think you have, have you?”
Rather: “I don’t think I ever have. I hope I never have. But, look, it’s one thing … ”
O’Reilly: “How can you say he’s an honest guy then?”
Rather: “Well, because I think he is. I think at core he’s an honest person. I know that you have a different view. I know that you consider it sort of astonishing anybody would say so, but I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things.”
– Exchange on Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor, May 15.
“Since September 11, the word ‘terrorist’ has come to mean someone who is radical, Islamic and foreign. But many believe we have as much to fear from a home-grown group of anti-abortion crusaders.”
– Reporter Jami Floyd on ABC’s 20/20, Nov. 28
“Throughout his eight years in office, President Clinton warned us that the next great menace was international terrorism….He also brought unprecedented prosperity to our nation….This lecture series is about the human spirit. To me and millions of others, President Clinton has always personified that. He is the man from Hope, and that is what he has given us, hope. We miss him. Thank you, Mr. President.”
– Former UPI White House reporter Helen Thomas introducing Clinton at Oct. 9 Greater Washington Society of Association Executives lecture
“There is no liberal bias in the press in the whole. In fact, if there is a bias, it’s on the other side. It’s hard to find a person, really, truly, of the liberal persuasion who are [sic] making any important decisions in any important media institutions in this country now….”
– Time magazine’s Jack White, Sept. 1, Inside Washington.
Jason Maoz can be reached at [email protected]