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The Best Notable Quotables of 2001:
The Fourteenth Annual Awards for the
Year’s Worst Reporting
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Poisoning
the Planet Award for Portraying Bush as Destroyer of the Earth
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First
Place
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"Remember when
Ronald Reagan tried to save a few pennies on the school lunch
program by classifying ketchup as a vegetable? Last week the
Bush administration went further, axing a regulation that forced
the meat industry to test hamburgers served in school for
salmonella. Imagine, Mad Cow Disease among children, K through
12. The day it hit the papers the proposal was quickly
withdrawn. [If] the Bush administration keeps trying to kill
health and safety regulations at this pace, soon we won’t be
able to eat, drink or breathe."
– "Outrage of the Week" from Time magazine’s
Margaret Carlson, April 7 Capital Gang on CNN. [69
points]
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Runners-up: |
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"Around the
world, the anger runs as deep as the flood waters being blamed
on the global warming the Kyoto treaty was supposed to fight.
President Bush says he’s putting American economic interests
first in rejecting Kyoto, and in Britain, where they’re having
their wettest winter ever, they sadly agree....Others point to
severe weather conditions around the planet – flooding for the
second consecutive year in Mozambique, drought and famine in the
Sudan – and they say the U.S. is substantially to blame. With
only about four percent of the world’s population, the United
States famously produces about twenty-five percent of the world’s
harmful greenhouse gas pollution."
– Mark Phillips on the March 29 CBS Evening News.
[36]
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"Fairly or
unfairly, critics of President Bush’s environmental policy
believe the only green policy he’s displayed is the color of
big business money. Today the President made moves to change
that image, upholding a new rule on industries pumping lead into
the environment. So, is the Bush push really getting the lead
out, or just blowing smoke?"
– Dan Rather on the April 17 CBS Evening News. [36]
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"President Bush
insisted today that he was not caving in to big money
contributors, big-time lobbyists, and overall industry pressure
when he broke a campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide
emissions from power plants. But the air was thick today with
accusations from people who believe that’s exactly what
happened."
– Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, March 14. [29]
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President Bush:
"I think the message is getting out. There are some issues,
like the environment, some accuse me of not being
environmentally sensitive, which is ridiculous."
Matt Lauer: "So you can look me in the eye and say
that you are a President committed to cleaning up the
environment?"
– Exchange on NBC’s Today, April 25. [27]
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Picking the Lockbox Award
for Denouncing Bush’s Tax Cut
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First
Place |
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"Adios, surplus.
When retired boomers dine on dog food, will they say thanks for
that $600?"
– Newsweek’s "Conventional Wisdom" box,
assigning President Bush a "down" arrow, Sept. 3
issue. [52 points] |
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Runners-up: |
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"Democrats,
collaborating on a smaller tax cut proposal, have vowed to fight
the Bush plan, targeting it as a budget buster that caters to
the rich....On the Republican side, Mr. Bush faces a different
problem. Already they’re talking up adding more tax cuts to
his plan. And then, there’s the lobbyists who wonder why Mr.
Bush gave nothing to corporate America. Critics charge the bill
could eventually top $3 trillion....Bob McIntyre of Citizens for
Tax Justice can’t forget the last time Congress went on a tax
cut spree in 1981. America is still paying the bill."
– CBS White House correspondent John Roberts in a February
5 CBS Evening News story which cited a critic but not a
supporter of Reagan’s tax cuts. [36 points]
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"On
Capitol Hill, the Republican-controlled House voted mostly along
party lines tonight to pass President Bush’s federal budget
blueprint. This includes his big tax cut plan, partly
bankrolled, critics say, through cuts in many federal aid
programs for children and education."
– Dan Rather on the March 28 CBS Evening News. [33]
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"President Bush
tonight outlines his cut-federal-programs-to-get-a-tax-cut plan
to Congress and the nation. Democrats will then deliver their
televised response, which basically says Mr. Bush’s ideas are
risky business, endangering among other things, Social Security
and Medicare."
– Dan Rather, February 27 CBS Evening News. [33]]
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"The Bushes held
their first state dinner. POTUS served buffalo meat, wore cowboy
boots and welcomed Clint Eastwood. Meanwhile, the rest of
America priced horse meat."
– Summary of previous week’s events according to Newsweek’s
"Conventional Wisdom" in the magazine’s September 17
issue. [29]
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"That’s what’s
pernicious here, is seizing on this as a way to get a tax
cut...he could create something self-fulfilling, talk down the
economy because he wants to use that as a tool to get a tax cut
that we don’t really need and is a bad idea."
– Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas on
Inside Washington, December 23, 2000. [26]
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Carve Clinton Into Mount
Rushmore Award
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First
Place |
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"Throughout the eight years
he was in office, President Clinton warned us that the next
great menace was international terrorism....He also brought
unprecedented prosperity to our nation, and because of that,
President [Bush] can use the surplus Mr. Clinton left behind to
pay for many of the nation’s needs in this time of
crisis....This lecture series is about the human spirit. To me
and millions of others, President Clinton has always personified
that. He is the man from Hope, and that is what he has given us,
hope. We miss him. Thank you, Mr. President."
– Former UPI White House reporter Helen Thomas introducing
Clinton at Oct. 9 Greater Washington Society of Association
Executives lecture shown on C-SPAN. [80 points]
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Runners-up:
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"Now, the return
of the Prodigal Son. The, you know, the man who left office
disgraced, burdened down by at least three major scandals that I
can think of, got a hero’s welcome today, and I couldn’t be
happier....After impeachment, after Pardongate, after the fake
stories about their pilfering of the White House, Bill Clinton’s
appearance today in Harlem must have been the feel-good event of
the season for the former President, and he soaked up the
sunshine and love."
– Geraldo Rivera discussing Bill Clinton’s "heroic
re-emergence" at the opening of his new Harlem offices, on
CNBC’s Rivera Live, July 30. [40]
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"Elvis, the
first rock star. Clinton, the first rock star
President....Clinton had a talent for convincing anyone
listening to him that he was speaking only to them, just as
Elvis convinced someone in the 100th row that he was singing
only to them. Presley drew on black culture for inspiration.
Clinton draws on black culture for solace."
– CNN political analyst Bill Schneider, prompted by the
August "convergence" days apart of Bill Clinton’s
birthday and the day Elvis died, August 16 Inside Politics.
[31] |
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"In every family
there are people and situations you would just as soon keep from
others. So, when you express shock and outrage at Bill and
Hillary’s brothers’ involvement in the pardon controversy,
consider what your own relatives might do if you possessed the
power of the presidency."
– Carole Simpson, anchor of ABC’s World News
Tonight/Sunday, in her ABCNews.com "On My Mind"
commentary, February 24. [29]
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