Media Millionaires for
Smaller Paychecks Award
(for Demanding the Tax Cut Be Repealed)

First Place

Runners-up:

“Can we afford an invasion of Iraq and also maintain the Bush tax cut?”
– Russert’s question to Democratic Senator Joe Biden, who voted against the Bush tax cut, August 4.

“Should the Democrats be in favor of freezing the Bush tax cut?...Would it be better to freeze, postpone, the Bush tax cut?...Why not freeze the tax cut rather than spend the Social Security surplus?...Democrats are reluctant to say, ‘We have to freeze the tax cut,’ because you’re afraid it’s politically unpopular....As part of a budget summit, would you be in favor of freezing the Bush tax cut?...But, Congressman Davis, you did come to office with a $5.6 trillion surplus, and it’s gone, and a third of that can be directly attributed to the tax cut.”
– Russert’s questions to Reps. Nita Lowey (D-NY) and Tom Davis (R-VA), September 1.

“Can we afford a war in Afghanistan or in Iraq and the Bush tax cut? Back in 2001 on this program you said we should repeal the Bush tax cut. Do you believe that is now necessary in order to have the money to fight wars?”
– Russert to Senator Hillary Clinton, September 15.

“Since Inauguration Day, the Dow Jones is down 26 percent. The unemployment rate is up 33 percent. The budget had a $281 billion surplus. We now have a $157 billion deficit and there’s been a net loss of two million jobs. You were prescient, prophetic about the Bush tax cut. Why did you change your view and vote for it?”
– Russert to Senate candidate Lindsey Graham (R-SC), reminding him how in 2000 he’d sided with John McCain against Bush’s tax cut, on October 13. [66]

“Karl Rove declared war on the estate tax....You know, the tax only one-half of one percent of Americans pay? Falsely cloaking themselves in concern for family businesses already protected, the Bush administration refused all compromise, like raising the already generous exemption to $7 million. What will fathers say to the age-old question now: ‘What did you do during the war, Daddy?’ Fight to destroy al Qaeda and avenge the deaths of three thousand U.S. citizens? Or wage war to protect America’s luckiest and wealthiest?”
– Time columnist and reporter Margaret Carlson’s “Outrage of the Week” on CNN’s Capital Gang, June 15. [60]

Blame America First Award

First Place

“I think very definitely that foreign policy could have caused what has happened [last September 11th]....It certainly should be apparent now – it should be, for goodness sakes understood now, but it is not – that the problem is this great division between the rich and the poor in the world. We represent the rich....Most of these other nations of Africa, Asia and South America and Central America are very, very poor....This is a revolution in effect around the world. A revolution is in place today. We are suffering from a revolution of the poor and have-nots against the rich and haves and that’s us.”
– Former CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite on CNN’s Larry King Live, September 9. [77 points]

Runners-up:

Tom Brokaw: “That brings us to America’s growing Arab and Muslim communities. For many, this has been the year – as one observer put it – that the American dream for them descended into nightmares.”
Jim Avila: “This is Jenin Ahman, an American of Palestinian descent, born 42 years ago in suburban Chicago, now worried everything she learned as an American about justice and civil rights collapsed along with New York’s Twin Towers.”
– NBC Nightly News, September 11. [30]

“The U.S. has to distinguish itself from what I call the ‘thugocracies’ that rule places, and until recently ruled Afghanistan, that certainly rules Iraq. And to establish moral leadership the U.S. has to establish that it is governed by the rule of law and that it is willing to submit to the rule of law around the world. However, it’s a very tricky issue at a time when the U.S. continues to hold citizens of other countries without access to counsel, without access to evidence held against them, in military tribunals, in Guantanamo Bay.”
– Nightline reporter Michel Martin on the roundtable portion of ABC’s This Week, July 7. [29]

Bill Moyers (Subsidized) Sanctimony Award

First Place

Runners-up:

“It concerns me more that Kenneth Lay is meeting secretly with the Vice President than it concerned me that President Clinton was meeting secretly with Monica Lewinsky.”
– Bill Moyers’ comment to feminist author Katie Roiphe on PBS’s Now, February 8. [49]

“Next week, over 100 heads of state will meet in Johannesburg, South Africa. Their goal is to search for ways to save the Earth’s life support system – our water, air and soil. Ten years ago they gathered in Rio de Janeiro for the same purpose, but United Nations studies reveal the Earth’s environment is still in decline. So the leaders of every major industrial country will be in Johannesburg next week, except for George W. Bush. That makes his core constituents quite happy: Representatives of the religious right, conservative activists and big companies like ExxonMobil wrote the President this week praising him for not going to the summit. They also asked him to make sure American officials...keep the issue of global warming off the table. It’s all part of a pattern. The Bush administration is carrying on what the Los Angeles Times this week called ‘the most concerted exploitation of the public’s land, air and water since fundamental protection laws went into effect three decades ago.’”
– Moyers on Now with Bill Moyers, August 23. [42]

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