Best of NQ 2000 Contents
  Aiding & Abetting in an Election Theft Award
  Kiss Me, Too, Al Award
  Kosher Kiss-Up Award
  I Am Woman Award
  Carve Clinton Into Mount Rushmore Award
  Media Hero Award
  The Real Reagan Legacy Award
  Flirting with Disaster Award
  The Galloping Ghost of Gingrich Award
  W is for Woeful Award
  If He Didn't Sink, Send Him Back to the Clink Award
  Little Havana Banana Republic Award
  Semper Fidel Award
  Bring Back the Iron Curtain Award
  Damn Those Conservatives Award
  Good Morning Morons Award
  Politics of Meaninglessness Award
  Too Late for the Ballot
  Quote of the Year
  2000 Award Judges
  Press Coverage

Publications & Analysis
  30-Day Archive
  CyberAlerts
  Media Reality Check
  Notable Quotables
Media Bias Videos
Bozell Columns
  News
  Entertainment
MRC Divisions
  News
  Free Market Project
  CNSNews.com
MRC Information
  About the MRC
  MRC in the News
  Support the MRC
  MRC Bookstore
  What Others Say
  Home
  Site Search
  Links
  Media Addresses
Contact the MRC
Planned Giving


RealPlayer

Free RealPlayer plug-in required to watch video clips.


Get Acrobat

Free Adobe Acrobat Reader software required to view PDF files.


 

top

The Best Notable Quotables of 2000:

The Thirteenth Annual Awards for the
Year’s Worst Reporting



Good Morning Morons Award

First Place

Bryant Gumbel "In a macro-political sense, do you think the Gore preoccupation with morality is a frightening turn for the party?"
-- Bryant Gumbel to Hugh Hefner, host of a fundraiser moved to another location, August 15 The Early Show during the Democratic convention. [72 points]
Runners-up:


Bryant Gumbel


"I ask the question because this ticket has put a premium on what’s called ‘family values,’ which for a long time, as you know, was a code word for intolerance. Need people be concerned about a hard turn to the social right in the Democratic Party?"
-- Gumbel asking Hadassah Lieberman if she agrees with her husband’s Hollywood critiques, August 16 Early Show during the Democratic convention. [70]

Matt Lauer

 

 

 

 


Matt Lauer: "Let’s say I come down to your dealership, I buy a car tomorrow, I get my voucher, I go out and get my gun and then in a week or so I decide that I don’t want it, what’s to stop me from selling it to anyone I want to sell it to?...."
"And so if then the person that buys that gun from me goes out and commits a crime with it, or God forbid takes a life with it, how are you going to feel at your auto dealership?"
Tennessee car dealer Greg Lambert, who gave free gun to car buyers: "I’m not responsible for the actions of other people...what we need is crime control, not gun control."
Lauer: "Yeah, but why not take away the possibility? If you give someone a CD player, they can’t go out and kill someone with it....From what I understand, Mr. Lambert, you’re taking the promotion a little bit further. Even children who come to your dealership are going to get a free water pistol, and some people say that’s just going too far."
-- August 25 Today interview. [46]

Matt Lauer

"Americans are working more and getting less vacation time than people in any other industrialized nation....I feel strange saying, I never stopped to think about the fact there is no official U.S. policy on vacation time."
-- Today co-host Matt Lauer to Escape magazine’s Joe Robinson, a proponent of mandated vacation, June 12. [32]

 

Politics of Meaninglessness Award (for the Silliest Analysis)

First Place

Lesley Stahl

"I had my opinions surgically removed when I became a network correspondent."
-- CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl denying liberal bias, Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor, January 25. [53 points]

 

Runners-up:
Geraldo Rivera "I have an analogy. This came to me the night I saw this. The death penalty is like Viagra in middle-aged men. Texas uses the death penalty to remember what it was like in those good old cowboy days. If you want to send me your hate mail, go ahead, ‘cause that’s the way I see it. This thing is insane!"
-- Geraldo Rivera wrapping up the June 26 Rivera Live on CNBC. [50]

Evan Thomas



"The larger point here is how awful SUVs are. It amazes me that no one contemplates getting rid of them, in a serious way, getting rid of the things. They’re gas guzzlers in a big way that are going to hurt us -- our long-term dependence on foreign energy. They’re very unsafe. They roll over. If you’re in a small car, they’ll crunch you. Everything about them is bad, yet Americans gleefully buy them and nobody talks about banning them."
-- Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas on Inside Washington, September 9. [31]
Dan Rather
"You may want to note that Cheney is referring to Clinton Gore, not Clinton and Gore, in effect making Clinton Al Gore’s first name: Clinton Gore."
-- Dan Rather during Dick Cheney’s acceptance speech after Cheney said "We’re all a little weary of the Clinton-Gore routine...it is time for them to go," August 2 CBS News Republican convention coverage. [30

Larry King

"We begin by going right to the hotel that houses the winner of the Iowa poll tonight. Governor George W. Bush of Texas, and with him is his lovely wife Laura. George is on the right. Laura is on the left."
-- Larry King hosting his CNN show, January 24. [28]


 

Too Late for the Ballot, But
Year End"Best of NQ" Worthy:
Post-Election Bias Admitted

Don Imus


Don Imus: "What if Gore had won and Bush, what if the roles were reversed? How would, I wouldn’t want to include you in this, but how would the liberal weenies of the news media be treating this if the roles were reversed?"
Howard Fineman, Newsweek Washington bureau reporter and MSNBC analyst: "Oh, my God. Are you kidding? That George Bush was a crybaby, that he was the spoiled son of a failed President. You know, you could just hear, the personal attacks on Bush would be just absolutely vicious."
-- Radio’s Imus in the Morning simulcast on MSNBC, November 28.

 

 


 

View the 8-page printed version of this newsletter in
Adobe Acrobat PDF


[Free RealPlayer plug-in required to watch video clips]


[Free Adobe Acrobat Reader software required to view PDF version.]

 

 


Home | News Division | Bozell Columns | CyberAlerts 
Media Reality Check | Notable Quotables | Contact the MRC | Subscribe

Founded in 1987, the MRC is a 501(c) (3) non-profit research and education foundation
 that does not support or oppose any political party or candidate for office.

Privacy Statement

Media Research Center
325 S. Patrick Street
Alexandria, VA 22314