January 1, 2002

10:06 AM

The Best Notable Quotables of 2001 Awards by Media ResearchCovers a wide range of categories from 'Selected Not Elected Award for Claiming Bush Is an Illegitimate President' to 'Good Morning Morons Award.' There are certainly some classics included. (more inside)
posted by RobertLoch (26 comments total)

This is my personal favourite:

Bill Maher, host of ABC’s Politically Incorrect: "I do think, if it turns out that this beautiful young girl is gone, I think, and he [Condit] is responsible in some way, you have to look to Ken Starr for a little bit of guilt."
Larry King: "Why?"
Maher: "Because, you know, Ken Starr made it so that you, in the old days, you had an affair with somebody, and you know, okay, you had an affair. The press didn’t report it. They didn’t make a political criminal case of it. Now, it’s almost like you have to get rid of them."
– Exchange on CNN’s Larry King Live, July 27. [52 points]
posted by RobertLoch at 10:07 AM on January 1, 2002

This isn't bad either:

We have been the cowards. Lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away, that’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, not cowardly."– ABC’s Bill Maher on Politically Incorrect, Sept. 17. [52]
posted by RobertLoch at 10:27 AM on January 1, 2002

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."

that flushing sound you hear is my opinion of Dan Rather swirling down the toilet.
posted by mcsweetie at 10:52 AM on January 1, 2002

This may seem a stupid question, but I'm not American and don't follow American media - is Media Research a right wing group?
posted by andrew cooke at 10:53 AM on January 1, 2002

OK, answer to my own question. Sorry for the blip - it just all seemed a bit odd.
posted by andrew cooke at 10:55 AM on January 1, 2002

"Media Research" is a moronic right wing yahoo organization with no credibility whatsoever. The linked article is a typical trick: throw some outrageous nonsense in a pot with intelligent comments that require cranial activity to parse, and assume that your slope-browed knuckle-dragging audience will be too stupid to know the difference. It usually works.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 10:56 AM on January 1, 2002

slope-browed knuckle-dragging audience? er. pass the aloe please, I appear to have been burned!
posted by mcsweetie at 10:59 AM on January 1, 2002

Now can we have the same thing, only with talk radio quotes?
posted by tpoh.org at 11:04 AM on January 1, 2002

"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."

What's wrong with that? The radical anti-abortionists have proven they're no strangers to bombs and murder.

Oh, wait, it's the MRC. Never mind.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:13 AM on January 1, 2002

it’s important I not have an opinion on that as I sit here in my capacity right now....for me to take a position this was right or wrong, I mean, that’s perhaps for me in my private life, perhaps it’s for me dealing with my loved ones, perhaps it’s for my minister at church. But as a journalist I feel strongly that’s something that I should not be taking a position on. I’m supposed to figure out what is and what is not, not what ought to be."

I think that the reason that the MRC is calling this bad reporting is that they think Westin, as president of ABC, is not expressing his opinion because he doesn't want to alienate any potential viewers. But of course, the percentage of people who would express the sentiment that bombing the Pentagon is not a bad thing, AND who would ever watch ABC news regularly, is so small as to be negligible. Westin wouldn't be blind to this, and in fact I'm sure he realized that nothing demographically negative could come about as a result of expressing such a seemingly obvious and consented opinion, which is what leads me to believe that the only reason he would have remained neutral on the issue is that he actually believed what he said; that his platform as a journalist is for dissemination rather than demagoguery.

He stayed within his job description. That's good. There needs to be more of that in the media. Strange times indeed, when the decision to remain impartial and objective is held up as an example of bad reporting. Is it that a good journalist is now one who gives us our opinions in addition to merely relaying information, which I guess we're supposed to believe any idiot could do? Man, that would suck ASS.
posted by Hildago at 12:41 PM on January 1, 2002

It only took a few quotes before I realized the blatant right-wing slant of the Web site. Tacky and tactless.
posted by Down10 at 1:26 PM on January 1, 2002

To balance this we need to include some quotes from "Fairness and Accuracy In the Media" (FAIR). That way the lefty/loonie brigade will also be represented (as opposed to just the right wing/loony brigade that we've just heard from).
posted by hadashi at 2:00 PM on January 1, 2002

OK, try The P.U.-Litzer Prizes For 2001 for a little balance.

AMERICA UNITED EXCEPT FOR THOSE DECADENT TRAITORS AWARD -- Andrew Sullivan of The New Republic and Sunday Times of London

Columnist Sullivan, as if trying to prove that a gay rights advocate can be as hysterically right-wing as a Falwell, wrote in mid-September: "The middle part of the country -- the great red zone that voted for Bush -- is clearly ready for war. The decadent left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead -- and may well mount a fifth column."
posted by ferris at 2:05 PM on January 1, 2002

If they were going to cherry-pick they should cherry-pick stuff that is actually supportive of their argument, rather than merely revealing of their own biases. Maher is not a journalist, but a comedian first and foremost, and both those quotes were not without irony. I imagine their inclusion here is only for those people who are frightened of the magic box in their living room that spouts ABC, because if you've ever seen him, you'd know that. The Dan Rather quote is nebulous, it being about one's impression of a person (Clinton in this case, if it wasn't clear), and overlooking the simple fact that being a politician means "lying about any number of things" if you expect to get anywhere. If Bush were asked "Where do you plan to bomb the Taliban next?" he certainly wouldn't be expected to answer honestly. Rather was sort of dragged into saying that by O'Reilly but should have known better. As for the Westin business, of course the Pentagon would be a "legitimate" target, but that's not the right question to ask. The attacks itself were not legitimate military attacks, the targets notwithstanding. It's sort of a nonsensical question.

That said, I agree more with the Sullivan quote above than one might think. You just have to recognize that these are partisan exercises.
posted by dhartung at 2:07 PM on January 1, 2002

Eleanor Clift resembles Kato Kaelin.
posted by juniper at 3:49 PM on January 1, 2002

If Bush were asked "Where do you plan to bomb the Taliban next?" he certainly wouldn't be expected to answer honestly. Rather was sort of dragged into saying that by O'Reilly but should have known better

What ever happened to "don't ask me leading questions" or the ubiqitious "no coment?" Experienced media figures should know better in both roles and its a sad testament to american media that they don't. Even the lowest law school drop out knows the appropirate answer to, "So after you dumped the body what did you get for Christmas from your mother?"

TV journalism is a wasteland because its talking heads are just that. They're not really journalists or any more informed than your average NYTimes subscriber. The same goes for most politicians. If anything is wrong here its the fact that people consider Rather or Geraldo or whoever an authority on anything.

BTW, this article sucks. They quoted Roger Ebert - a movie reviewer, that pretty much says it all.
posted by skallas at 4:19 PM on January 1, 2002

Of course, the best quotes come out of their hero, George W.

"It's important for us to explain to our nation that life is important. It's not only life of babies, but it's life of children living in, you know, the dark dungeons of the Internet."
posted by ferris at 6:31 PM on January 1, 2002

...we need to include some quotes from "Fairness and Accuracy In the Media" (FAIR)...

"The Most Biased Name in News:
Fox News Channel's extraordinary right-wing tilt"

also...

The Daily Howler
posted by BarneyFifesBullet at 8:26 PM on January 1, 2002

I Nominate :

"The Bush administration idea of diversity, is
that cabinet members come from different oil
companies."
(speaker not known)
posted by IXOYE at 4:17 AM on January 2, 2002

From the site ferris linked :

"But all in all, it's been a fabulous year for Laura and me." - Dec. 21, 2001.

I had to laugh, to keep from crying. Of course, there is the possibility that the quote is taken out of context. I suspect not.

Your president really is a worthless cretin, isn't he? Poor America.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:30 AM on January 2, 2002

The right wing MRC is brought to you today by the Heritage Society and one of it's wealthiest members, Richard Mellon Scaife. Can we get a round of applause for the money=free speech supporters?
The more money you've got, the more speech you can buy. Poor people's opinions don't count anyway. If they (poor people) counted then the value of wealth would be diminished and we might start living in a democracy and according to the dictates of the Christian Church founder who said we are all of equal value. Can't have that now, can we?
posted by nofundy at 5:29 AM on January 2, 2002

I'm so glad that someone is still compiling Dubya's gaffes. By contrast:

"The Complete Bushisms. Updated frequently. By Jacob Weisberg and Bryan Curtis. [LAST] Updated Friday, August 24, 2001, at 10:30 PM PT."
posted by Carol Anne at 5:42 AM on January 2, 2002

Whoa! Trickery! Hoax!

This site almost got me. I wised up when I got to the "Next Page" and recognized the site for what it really is.

Nice try, "RobertLoch", but this is MetaFilter, not National Review...
posted by OldGuard at 6:33 AM on January 2, 2002

i think my biggest beef is with calling it "The Best Notable Quotables of 2001" but having a quote from Nov. 15 being too late for the ballot. leaves out an awful lot.
posted by tolkhan at 9:17 AM on January 2, 2002

Oldguard, I am under the impression that MetaFilter is non-denominational in the political sense. It is my hope that people would post from all points on the political spectrum. There are plenty of places on the web where I can read only opinions that I agree with. Here, I get to sample a little bit of everything that's out there.
posted by Faze at 11:10 AM on January 2, 2002

Faze, you are right to a point. My comment wasn't very clear - it was a reaction to my perception that someone was trying to pass off partisan propaganda as legitimate journalism and objective news.

Commentary is fine as long as it is advertised as such (or at least not camouflaged). If RobertLoch had described the site a little better, I wouldn't have felt like someone had tried a bait-and-switch on us/me.

In all fairness, he may not have realized how he came off to the subscribers, but the hint of disingenuousness was there whether he realized it or not.
posted by OldGuard at 12:44 PM on January 2, 2002