The conservative Media Research Center of Alexandria, Va., has a lot of fun each year by asking some people in newspapers, broadcast and other public affairs areas to judge some “notable quotables” of the year, harpooning some ridiculous comments by giving them special public attention.
(The Free Press editorial page is among 48 invited Media Research Center “judges.”)
We thought you would like to read some of the “winners.”
For example, the “Master of His Domain Award for Obama Puffery” went to a quote by Time magazine’s Joe Klein in a May 4 cover story. He wrote:
“The legislative achievements have been stupendous — the $789 billion stimulus bill, the budget plan that is still being hammered out (and may, ultimately, include the next landmark safety-net program, universal health insurance). There has also been a cascade of new policies to address the financial crisis — massive interventions in the housing and the credit markets, a market-based plan to buy the auto industry and a strict new regulatory regime proposed for Wall Street. Obama has also completely overhauled foreign policy, from Cuba to Afghanistan. ‘In a way, Obama’s 100 days is even more dramatic than Roosevelt’s,’ says Elaine Kamarck of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, ‘Roosevelt only had to deal with a domestic crisis. Obama has had to overhaul foreign policy as well, including two wars. And that’s really the secret of why it has seemed so spectacular.’ “
The “winner” for condemning “those conservatives” went to an Ed Schultz MSNBC broadcast last Sept. 23. He said:
“The Republicans lie! They want to see you dead! They’d rather make money off your dead corpse! They kind of like it when that woman has cancer and they don’t have anything for her.”
Then the Media Research Center’s “Spread the Wealth Award for Socialist Sermonizing” went to Terry Moran’s ABC interview with President Obama on Feb. 10. Mr. Moran asked:
“Why not just nationalize the banks? … People are angry. There’s so much taxpayer money going into the banks. Why shouldn’t the government — why shouldn’t you just fire executives who wrecked these banks in the first place and tanked the world’s financial system in the process?”
Then there’s the Media Research Center’s “Let Us Fluff Your Pillow Award for Obsequious Obama Interviews.” It went to Katie Couric of CBS for an exchange with President Obama on July 22:
“You’re so confident, Mr. President, and so focused. Has your confidence ever shaken? Do you ever wake up and say, ‘ …This is hard. … I’m not going to get the things done I want to get done, and it’s just too politicized to really get accomplished the big things I want to accomplish’?”
Well, you get the idea. These and other “categories” were cited, with “winners” and several “runners-up” in various categories.
Politics is “funny business.” So is some “reporting.” Isn’t it amazing that we the American people seem to understand as many of the controversial issues as we do?