At the end of the year, the center - with help from a panel of outside judges - chooses the "best" notable quotables. This year's crop tellingly reveals the media's contemporary spirit and obsessions - which revolve, as usual, around sycophancy for the Clintons and contempt for all things Republican.

Actually, the winners more or less explain themselves. Happy New Year!

Aiding & Abetting in an Election Theft Award

"Here we will have possibly a bunch of tax dodgers deciding the election."- Time's Margaret Carlson on Florida absentee ballots from military personnel, on MSNBC's Imus in the Morning. Florida does not have an income tax. (Carlson later apologized.)

I Am Woman Award (for Hillary Rodham Worshipping)

"I'm endlessly fascinated by her . . . She's so smart. Virtually every time I've seen her perform, she has knocked my socks off."- CBS News reporter Lesley Stahl on Hillary Clinton, as quoted by Gail Shister in the Philadelphia Inquirer

Carve Clinton Into Mt. Rushmore Award

"You're going to miss that guy. Don't tell me you're not gonna miss that guy. This is a master. He may be a rogue, but he is an artful and pleasant rogue and done a hell of a job as president. I'm gonna miss the guy . . . He should've been the vice presidential candidate."- Geraldo Rivera, after humming the theme from "Rocky" over footage of Clinton's pre-speech hallway walk at the Democratic convention, CNBC's Rivera Live

Media Hero Award

"As psychiatrists and Shakespeare would have it, a son comes into his own when he surpasses his father. By that measure, Gore is fully grown. Unlike the breezy George W. Bush, who was on a career respirator much of his adult life, Gore has worked up a sweat getting to where he is."- Time columnist Margaret Carlson

Flirting with Disaster Award (for Proximity to Conservatives)

"The [GOP] platform is, again, very strongly pro-life and rejects abortion rights, and the platform specifically comes out against gay unions, and against legal protections based on sexual preferences. So is this really an open, compassionate, tolerant party?"- Charles Gibson to Lynne Cheney, ABC's Good Morning America

The Galloping Ghost of Gingrich Award (for Chiding Cheney)

"And when you talk about votes like that, that he made while in Congress, anti-affirmative action, anti-abortion, anti-gun control, anti-equal rights, how does George Bush portray him as a compassionate conservative?"- Today co-host Matt Lauer to Tim Russert

If He Didn't Sink, Send Him Back to the Clink Award (for Portraying a Cuban Paradise Awaiting Elian)

". . . there is no question that Castro feels a very deep and abiding connection to those Cubans who are still in Cuba. And, I recognize this might be controversial, but there's little doubt in my mind that Fidel Castro was sincere when he said, 'listen, we really want this child back here.'"- Dan Rather, live on CBS the morning of the Elian raid

Semper Fidel Award

"What is deprogramming? What is reeducation? The young man [Elian] will go back into the, into the school system in Cuba. The school system in Cuba teaches that Communism is the way to succeed in life and it is the best system. Is that deprogramming or is that national heritage? That's certainly what he'll be learning. He'll also be living in a different kind of society, a society that many people here in Cuba like. The CIA, in fact, says that if the borders were open that most, 90 percent of the population here in Cuba would stay in Cuba because they like it."- NBC News reporter Jim Avila from Cuba

Bring Back the Iron Curtain Award

"To be a poor child in Cuba may in many instances be better than being a poor child in Miami and I'm not going to condemn their lifestyle so gratuitously."- Newsweek's Eleanor Clift on the McLaughlin Group.

Damn Those Conservatives Award

"What a f - - - ing idiot."- CBS' Early Show host Bryant Gumbel, caught on camera after he threw the show to a weather segment seconds after wrapping up a hostile interview with Robert Knight of the Family Research Council.

Quote of the Year

"Yup, I gotta confess, that now-famous picture of a U.S. marshal in Miami pointing an automatic weapon toward Donato Dalrymple and ordering him in the name of the U.S. government to turn over Elian Gonzalez warmed my heart. They should put that picture up in every visa line in every U.S. consulate around the world, with a caption that reads: 'America is a country where the rule of law rules. This picture illustrates what happens to those who defy the rule of law and how far our government and people will go to preserve it. Come all ye who understand that.'"- Thomas Friedman, in his New York Times column.