Nov 6, 2006

(Vol. Nineteen; No. 23)

 

Victory Lap: Puffballs for Pelosi...
Lesley Stahl: "With just 16 days to the election....Nancy Pelosi, who already made history once when she became Minority Leader, thinks she's about to do it again." Rep. Nancy Pelosi: "First of all, you have to understand, breaking the - here we call it 'the marble ceiling.' This makes glass look like nothing. This is a marble ceiling." Stahl: "And breaking it, she says, would help all women."
- From a 60 Minutes profile of Pelosi, October 22.
"She often introduces herself as a mother and grandmother, and is known for her trademark smile. But don't be fooled. At 66, she is ambitious, effective, and has made an art form of staying on message." - NBC reporter Jamie Gangel profiling Pelosi on NBC's Today, October 20.
"Pelosi's blunt style is polarizing. But she's used it to pull off something nobody thought was possible: Organizing the congressional Democrats. Under her leadership, they voted as a bloc against the Republicans almost 90 percent of the time....[to Pelosi] Do you let yourself think, for example, maybe before you go to sleep at night, 'Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi?'" - ABC's Claire Shipman on World News, October 26.	| |

...But Trashed Gingrich in '94

"Rejecting the House's gentlemanly ways, he waged such constant guerrilla war against the Democrats he was attacked for McCarthyism....It's a record filled with contradictions: The family-values candidate who divorced his ailing first wife....Gingrich himself, bombastic and ruthless, would be the most dramatic change imaginable." - Reporter Eric Engberg profiling Republican Newt Gingrich on the CBS Evening News, November 2, 1994.

Even ABC Honcho Sees the Bias
"If I were a conservative, I understand why I would feel suspicious that I was not going to get a fair break....The mindset at ABC, where you and I used to be colleagues at, at the other big news organizations, it's just too focused on being more favorable to Nancy Pelosi, say, than Newt Gingrich; being more down on the Republicans' chances than perhaps is warranted; singling out - you're seeing here a 60 Minutes piece about Nancy Pelosi. I don't remember Newt Gingrich getting a piece that favorable in 1994."	| |
- ABC Political Director Mark Halperin, co-author of The Way to Win, on FNC's The O'Reilly Factor, October 24.

Media Swoon for Liberal Obama
"Tonight, the overnight sensation surrounding a Senator with real star power may have changed everything for the Democrats in the run for the White House....Illinois Democratic Senator Barack Obama wrapped up a weeklong book tour on NBC's Meet the Press yesterday morning with remarks that rocked the political world." - NBC's Brian Williams introducing an October 23 Nightly News story on Obama's hint he may run in 2008. "Obama's personal appeal is made manifest when he steps down from the podium and is swarmed by well-wishers of all ages and hues....Obama seemed the political equivalent of a rainbow - a sudden preternatural event inspiring awe and ecstasy....There aren't very many people - ebony, ivory or other - who have Obama's distinctive portfolio of talents....Obama's candor is reminiscent of John McCain....He transcends the racial divide so effortlessly that it seems reasonable to expect that he can bridge all the other divisions - and answer all the impossible questions - plaguing American public life." - Time senior writer Joe Klein in an October 23 cover story "Why Barack Obama Could Be the Next President."
"You know you are the equivalent of a rock star in politics....Many people, afterwards [after Obama's 2004 Democratic convention speech], they weren't sure how to pronounce your name but they were moved by you. People were crying. You tapped into something. You touched people. What did you tap into that, that was missing?...If your party says to you, 'We need you,' and, and there's already a drumbeat out there, will you respond?"
- Some of co-host Meredith Vieira's questions to Democratic Senator Barack Obama on NBC's Today, October 19.

Democratic Win "A Good Thing"
ABC's Sam Donaldson: "What we'll see is subpoenas, if they [Democrats] take control, and these subpoenas will delve into every nook and cranny of the Republican administration for the last six years." ABC's Cokie Roberts: "Well, now you're doing the Republican talking points, because that is exactly what the administration is making people fear."
Donaldson: "Why do you think I'm saying it's a bad thing? I think it's probably a good thing." Roberts: "I understand you think it's a good thing, but a lot of people don't think it's a good thing." - Exchange on ABC's This Week, October 22.

Still Legitimizing Leftist Stupidity

Co-host Meredith Vieira: "Gas prices are down, but do the elections have anything to do with it? In other words, are we being manipulated?..." Co-host Matt Lauer: "The price of a gallon of gas, the average price, is way down to about $2.21 a gallon just in time for the midterm elections. Is it a coincidence? Some people say no...." - NBC's Today, October 25. "Gas prices plunge in the days before election, voters wonder, coincidence or a conspiracy?" "Still ahead, so gas prices are down, way down, but before you run out to buy a new Hummer ponder this: Doesn't it make you even a little suspicious that the cost to fill 'er up dropped almost a dollar a gallon and the elections are just two weeks away? That's coming up." "Stand by everybody we'll be back in a flash with election year prices - is it gas pump pimping?" - Fox's Geraldo Rivera plugging an upcoming story on his Geraldo at Large, October 25.

More Frothing at the Mouth
"We now face what our ancestors faced at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering: A government more dangerous to our liberty than is the enemy it claims to protect us from....We have never before codified the poisoning of habeas corpus, that wellspring of protection from which all essential liberties flow. You, sir, have now befouled that spring. You, sir, have now given us chaos and called it order. You, sir, have now imposed subjugation and called it freedom....These things you have done, Mr. Bush - they would constitute the beginning of the end of America."	| |
- Keith Olbermann in a "Special Comment" on the setting up of military trials for terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, MSNBC's Countdown, October 18.
"The dictionary definition of the word 'terrorize' is simple and not open to misinterpretation: 'To fill or overpower with terror; terrify. To coerce by intimidation or fear.'...By this definition, the leading terrorist group in this world right now is al-Qaeda. But the leading terrorist group in this country right now is the Republican Party....It may be the oldest trick in the political book: Scare people into believing they are in danger and that only you can save them. Lyndon Johnson used it to bury Barry Goldwater. Joe McCarthy leaped from obscurity on its back. And now the legacy has come to President George Bush."	| |
- MSNBC's Keith Olbermann making another "Special Comment" on Countdown, October 23.

Exposing North Korean Horrors
Diane Sawyer: "It is a world away from the unruly individualism of any American school." Class of teens in uniforms: "Good morning." Sawyer to class: "Good morning." Sawyer voiceover: "Ask them about their country, and they can't say enough." North Korean girl, in English: "We are the happiest children in the world." Sawyer to class: "What do you know about America?"	| |
Sawyer voiceover: "We show them an American magazine. They tell us, they know nothing about American movies, American movie stars....and then, it becomes clear that they have seen some movies from a strange place...." Sawyer to class: "You know The Sound of Music?" Voices: "Yes." Sawyer, singing with the class: "Do, a deer, a female deer. Re, a drop of golden sun...." Charles Gibson: "A fascinating glimpse of North Korea." - Sawyer reporting from North Korea for ABC's World News with Charles Gibson, October 19.

Protesting CNN's Anti-U.S. Skew
Lynne Cheney: "I'm hear to talk about my book. But if you want to talk about distortion....what is CNN doing running terrorist tape of terrorist shooting Americans? I mean, I thought Duncan Hunter asked you a very good question and you didn't answer it. Do you want us to win?" Host Wolf Blitzer: "The answer, of course, is we want the United States to win...."	| |
Cheney: "Then why are you running, why are you running terrorist propaganda?" Blitzer: "With all due respect, with all due respect, this is not terrorist propaganda....This is, this is reporting the news which is what we do. We're not partisan." - CNN's The Situation Room, October 27, referring to how on October 18 CNN touted "exclusive" video of U.S. troops being shot in Iraq, a tape created and provided to CNN by an insurgent group, the Islamic Army of Iraq.

Rosie: Patriot Act Like Apartheid

"The blacks in South Africa, who were trying to fight for their own civil rights, were called terrorists and the government was allowed to arrest them at will and interrogate them, no matter what they did, just on the suspicion. Very similar today to what we have in the United States, thanks to the Patriot Act." - Co-host Rosie O'Donnell on ABC's The View October 24, talking with left-wing activist and actor Tim Robbins about his role in Catch a Fire, a movie set in South Africa during the apartheid era.