backtop

A bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, 
quotes in the liberal media.

Newt's Infuriating Conservatives? Hey, He's Not So Bad After All

"But in fairness, what is wrong with Newt Gingrich reaching out to some other groups, extending himself? I mean, can't you catch more flies with honey? Isn't there something about that? And perhaps the rigidity of some of the conservative Republicans and their almost religious adherence to the Contract with America, didn't that ultimately backfire on them?"
-- NBC's Katie Couric to Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), April 2 Today.

Sam Donaldson: "One mark of leadership is to tell people what they need to hear and I think Newt Gingrich was exactly right [to propose delaying tax cuts]."
George Will: "Oh, he'll be glad to hear this. Another endorsement."
Donaldson: "Well, happy to be of service. But Newt Gingrich learned the lesson...could I make my point? Newt Gingrich learned his lesson in shutting down the government, to the great unhappiness of the electorate and it rebounded against the Republican Party."
-- Exchange on ABC's This Week, March 23.

"I have a lot of sympathy for Newt Gingrich on this one, because he doesn't have the votes for a radical right agenda, and he is trying, he's saying, the public told us, be cooperative. That's what he's trying to do, and the right wing is trashing him just like the left wing is trashing Clinton for being cooperative."
-- New York Daily News reporter Steven Roberts on CNN's Late Edition, March 9.

As If Newt's Morally Better Than Chinese Butchers!

"It'll be interesting when he sits down with Jiang Zemin, the President of China, and starts lecturing him about the rule of law though, I think. I'd like to be a fly on the wall in that session."
-- New York Times columnist and former reporter Thomas Friedman disdaining Gingrich on PBS's Washington Week in Review, March 21.

If We Kill Them Before They're Born, Then Conservatives Can't Hurt Them

"The right wing has lied repeatedly in an effort to move public opinion on this issue....Lie No. 1: Conservatives care about life. The renowned quipmeister, Rep. Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat, once said, 'Conservatives' interest in life begins at conception and ends at birth.' Truer words were never spoken. If they did care about taking care of babies and protecting the helpless, they would not be so driven to cut government programs that help the poor, nor so concerned about paying a few dollars less of their own money in taxes."
-- NBC Radio/Westwood One reporter and PBS To the Contrary host Bonnie Erbe on pro-choice lies on partial-birth abortion in her syndicated column, March 29 Washington Times.

Pedophilia: Also Conservatives' Fault

"The problem has been made only worse by the passage of Proposition 187. It specifically says that no public funds can be used to provide social services to anyone who's in this country illegally. That means that even if social workers for the city or the state wanted to help the boys of Balboa Park they couldn't. It would be against the law. Proposition 187 is now being challenged in court, but its message is clear."
-- John Quinones in March 19 Prime Time Live story on pedophiles preying on Mexican boys in San Diego.

Throwing Beanballs at Bunning

"Bunning says he wants to be in the Senate because that would put him in a better position to clean up the environment and educate children. He says he sees no contradiction between this aim and the fact he's voted to eliminate the Education Department and cut funding for the EPA."
-- CNN anchor Bernard Shaw on Rep. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) running for Senate, March 25 Inside Politics.

Cuba Has What Lithuania Lost

"Communist Demise Causes Poverty, Starvation and Loss of Children to Poles Living in Lithuania." -- Headline over transcript of April 1 World Report story, on CNN's Web site. "Under Cuba's communist form of government, a Cuban family's basic necessities, housing, education, health care, and transportation, are provided by the state for free or at very little cost."
-- CBS This Morning co-host Jane Robelot, March 24.

ABC Aired Stories from Known Wacko

"I must tell you that in the latter days of his career at ABC News he [Pierre Salinger] was not allowed on World News Tonight because of the feeling there that his reporting was almost completely unreliable. He had all kinds of wacked-out stuff about the Pan Am Flight 103 that they wouldn't let near the air. And every now and again he'd get on the morning news somehow, by sweet-talking a producer or someone and there'd always be a tremendous to-do after that about how in the world that ever happened. And I must tell you that he simply wasn't regarded in his latter years as somebody you could count on."
-- Former ABC News reporter Brit Hume, March 16 Fox News Sunday.

Senate Moderates Good, House Conservatives Kooky

"There's a good Senate investigation which is serious. This is kind of a kooky investigation. We shouldn't waste eleven million dollars. That's hard-earned tax money."
-- Al Hunt's Outrage of the Week on Rep. Dan Burton's investigation of Democratic fundraising practices on CNN's Capital Gang, March 22.

Reporters Wished They'd Robbed Capitalist Pig Banks

Patricia Hearst: "I had absolutely become a fantasy figure. I have had more people come up and especially, shockingly enough, journalists who grew up in the '60s who felt that they had not fulfilled part of their political obligations. That they hadn't been active enough on campus. That they kind of wish they'd done this sort of thing themselves. And they wanted to hear me say how cool it all was. And they were incredibly disappointed to find out that..."
NBC reporter Dennis Murphy: "That 'Right On Patty' was not 'Right On Patty?'"
Hearst: "Yeah. Just none of this had happened the way they thought it was."
-- March 21 Dateline NBC profile in which the newspaper heiress noted the disappointment of reporters when told she did not believe in the leftist aims of the Symbionese Liberation Army when she robbed banks after her 1974 kidnapping.

Democrats Are Far-Right?

"The problem started on his watch, though, and that is the Republican Party got in disarray because they're enthralled to the far right. And yet the polls show that that's not the way the people feel so they don't know what to do."
-- 20/20 host Hugh Downs on Ronald Reagan, March 31 Politically Incorrect.

vs.

"I think it might be important to point out that this country is a one-party country. Half of that party is called Republican and half is called Democrat, it really doesn't make any difference. All the really good ideas belong to the Libertarians and we're gonna wake up to that sometime."
-- Downs, minutes later.

Walter Cronkite: Proving Trilateral Commission Paranoids Correct

"If we are to avoid that catastrophe [a nuclear World War III], a system of world order -- preferably a system of world government -- is mandatory. The proud nations someday will see the light and, for the common good and their own survival, yield up their precious sovereignty, just as America's thirteen colonies did two centuries ago. When we finally come to our senses and establish a world executive and parliament of nations, thanks to the Nuremburg precedent we will already have in place the fundamentals for the third branch of government, the judiciary."
-- Walter Cronkite in his book A Reporter's Life.

L. Brent Bozell III, Publisher
Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham, Editors
Geoffrey Dickens, Gene Eliasen, James Forbes, Steve Kaminski, Clay Waters; Media Analysts
Kathleen Ruff, Marketing Director
Carey Evans, Circulation Manager
Brian Schmisek, Intern