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The Sixteenth Annual Awards for the
Year’s Worst Reporting
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The Invisible Liberal Award for
Camouflaging Ideology
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First
Place
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 “The
rap on Dean is that he’s like Dukakis and Mondale and McGovern.
Well, McGovern was a liberal, but we had an issue and that was the
war. Dukakis was no liberal and neither was Mondale. Both of them had
several people to the left in those primaries. It was what the
Republicans did to them once they got the nomination that made them
seem to be liberals in both cases.”
– Former NBC and CNN reporter Ken Bode on the syndicated Chris
Matthews Show, August 10. [72 points] |
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Runners-up:
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“When the word gets out
that Dean isn’t liberal – and in fact is quite conservative
– on fiscal issues, he’ll pick up more McCain support....On
fiscal issues, he’s far to the right of [Ted]
Kennedy.”
– Senior Editor Jonathan Alter in an August 6 online chat
at the Newsweek Web site. [49]
“Ever since the
George McGovern disaster of 1972, the party has routinely chosen
technocratic moderates for standard-bearers.”
– Time’s Joe Klein in the magazine’s May 19
cover story, “Why They Don’t Make Democrats Like They Used
To (And How to Fix It).” [41]
Judy Woodruff:
“The rap on Dean is that the Burlington Birkenstock crowd,
people who put Dean signs in bars called the Red Square, can’t
take their man to the White House, that he’s just too far
left.”
Vermont political reporter Peter Freyne: “His entire
time in Vermont politics, going back to his days in the
legislature, as Lieutenant Governor and as Governor in the
‘90s, there was never a sentence in any newspaper in the state
of Vermont that contained the word ‘liberal’ and ‘Howard
Dean.’”
– CNN’s Inside Politics, July 11. [28]
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Media
Suck-Up Award
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First
Place |
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“You became First Lady like
no other First Lady before you. You had your own interests, you got
involved in public policy. No First Lady had done that without being
severely criticized. Did you realize what you were getting into?”
“I don’t think people realize how strong your faith is.”
– Barbara Walters to Hillary Clinton in a June 8 ABC special
promoting her book, Living History. [34 points] |
Video
Part 1
Video Part 2 |
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Runners-up:
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 “Senator Hillary Clinton is at Ground Zero this morning to attend the September 11th anniversary ceremony, and she joins us now. Good morning, Senator Clinton....You’ve fought so much for the heroes of 9/11. You have sought money for firefighters, you’ve taken the EPA to task for toning down their report on air quality at Ground Zero. Has enough been done for the heroes, the people who fought so bravely on that day?”
– CBS’s Hannah Storm to New York Senator Hillary Clinton on The Early
Show, September 11. [27]
HBO’s Bob Costas: “How, from where you sit, have you maintained your dignity, and how can you be so controlled under circumstances that would be trying for the best of us?...If you became President, what kind of First Gentleman would Bill Clinton be?...What are your best and worst qualities as a politician?”
Senator Hillary Clinton: “Probably my worst quality is that I get very passionate about what I think is right.”
– Exchange on HBO’s On the Record with Bob Costas, July 18. [26]
John Cochran: “Remember the $8 million advance Hillary Clinton’s publisher gave her? Turns out it was a bargain. She has earned every penny – and then some. Her book is a best-seller in eight countries....She has not only signed 20,000 copies of her book, she has also put her name on more legislation than any other Senator in this Congress, sponsoring or co-sponsoring 396 bills, ranging from resolutions on Girl Scouts Week to funds for rebuilding Iraq and-“
Senator Hillary Clinton: “- to help them improve our homeland defense.”
– ABC’s World News Tonight, July 31. [24]
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Pompous Peter Award for Jennings’
Arrogant Condescension
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First
Place |
 “This week we were surprised to see several hundred artists and writers walking through the streets of Baghdad to say thank you to Saddam Hussein. He had just increased their monthly financial support. Cynical, you could argue at this particular time, but the state has always supported the arts, and some of the most creative people in the Arab world have always been Iraqis. And whatever they think about Saddam Hussein in the privacy of their homes, on this occasion they were praising his defense of the homeland in the face of American threats.”
– ABC’s Peter Jennings in Baghdad, concluding the January 21 World News
Tonight. [67 points] |
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Runners-up:
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“The country has been a living archive of man’s earliest history, where real connections can be made between then and now, which is why the Pentagon is being so widely criticized for not protecting the history when it captured the capital city....The Pentagon has said, in reply, look, this is war, and stuff happens, the U.S. was fired on from the museum grounds. Not a satisfactory answer for people who say that if the U.S. managed to protect the Ministry of Oil, why not this repository of civilization? Why, they ask, is neglect forgivable?”
– Jennings on ABC’s World News Tonight, April 18. [48] |
Video
Part 1
Video
Part 2 |
“By the way, ‘No blood for oil,’ from many people who are opposed to the war is, is not complicated at all. They believe the United States wishes to occupy Iraq in the long term to have the oil. Just so we understand why they wear those little buttons, ‘No blood for oil.’”
– Jennings on World News Tonight, March 20. [33]
“Saddam Hussein may have been, or may be, a vain man, but he has allowed himself to be sculpted heavy and thin, overweight and in shape, in every imaginable costume – both national, in historic terms, in Iraqi historic terms – in contemporary, in every imaginable uniform, on every noble horse. The sculpting of Saddam Hussein, which has been a growth industry for 20 years, may well be a dying art.”
– Jennings during ABC’s live coverage at about 10:45am EDT on April 9, shortly before U.S. Marines helped cheering Iraqis topple their former dictator’s statue. [32] |
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