Runners-up:

"Cindy Sheehan is my hero. She is the hero of all Americans who make up the 62 percent of us who oppose this war. As an American exercising her right to free speech, she is a brave, passionate, living example of democracy....No wonder Bush is intimidated. No wonder he can’t even walk down his driveway to speak with her. He is scared shitless. Whether he acknowledges it or not — whether his aides try to insulate him from the truth or not — his hands are covered in the blood of Cindy Sheehan’s son. They are dripping with the blood of all who have died there."
— Actress Christine Lahti in an August 11 Huffington Post blog entry. [44]

Media Millionaires for Smaller Paychecks Award

NPR’s Nina Totenberg: "And let us say one other thing. For years, we have cut our taxes, cut our taxes and let the infrastructure throughout the country go, and this [Katrina damage] is just the first of a number of other crumbling things that are going to happen to us." Charles Krauthammer: "You must be kidding here." Moderator Gordon Peterson: "She’s not kidding." Totenberg: "I’m not kidding." — Exchange on Inside Washington, Sept. 3. [66 points]

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Runners-up:

Nina Totenberg: "I was very happy to see him [Bush] take responsibility and to not pretend that the buck stops someplace else. But it would have been a great opportunity to say, ‘Look, I’m for tax cuts, but we need a Katrina tax, we need to really pay, to do this and to pay for it.’" Moderator Gordon Peterson: "You want more taxes." Totenberg: "I want more taxes, yes." — Inside Washington, September 17. [54]

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"If there’s an upside to Katrina, it’s that the Republican agenda of tax cuts, Social Security privatization and slashing government programs is over. It may be too much to predict an upsurge of progressive government, but the environment and issues of poverty, race and class are back on the nation’s radar screen."
— Eleanor Clift in her weekly "Capitol Letter" column published on Newsweek’s Web site, September 9. [53]
 

Good Morning Morons Award

Matt Lauer in Baghdad: "Talk to me...about morale here. We’ve heard so much about the insurgent attacks, so much about the uncertainty as to when you folks are going to get to go home. How would you describe morale?" Chief Warrant Officer Randy Kirgiss: "In my unit morale is pretty good. Every day we go out and do our missions and people are ready to execute their missions. They’re excited to be here." Lauer: "How much does that uncertainty of [not] knowing how long you’re going to be here impact morale?"| Specialist Steven Chitterer: "Morale is always high. Soldiers know they have a mission. They like taking on new objectives and taking on the new challenges...." Lauer: "Don’t get me wrong here, I think you are probably telling me the truth, but a lot of people at home are wondering how that could be possible with the conditions you’re facing and with the attacks you’re facing. What would you say to those people who are doubtful that morale can be that high?" Captain Sherman Powell: "Sir, if I got my news from the newspapers also, I’d be pretty depressed as well." — Exchange on NBC’s Today, August 17. [87 points]

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Runners-up:

"Do I need to be concerned that I’m going to go live with a church family, are they going to proselytize me, are they going to say, ‘You better come to church with me or else, I’m, you know, you’re not going to get your breakfast this morning’?" — Co-host Harry Smith asking author/pastor Rick Warren about church families taking in those displaced by Hurricane Katrina, on CBS’s Early Show, September 6. [77]

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Co-host Matt Lauer: "Pain at the pump. Gas prices are going sky high. I paid $2.94 a gallon over the weekend to fill up the car." Co-host Katie Couric: "It’s ridiculous. I had to take out a loan to fill up my minivan. It’s crazy." — Exchange at the top of NBC’s Today, August 15. Couric makes about $15,000,000 a year. [66]

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Politics of Meaninglessness Award for the Silliest Analysis
"It’s been 11 days since two African-American teenagers were killed, electrocuted during a police chase, which prompted all of this." — Anchor Carol Lin after a Nov. 6 CNN Sunday Night story about riots in France. The two teenagers were not Americans, but French citizens of Tunisian heritage. [51]	| |

Runners-up:

"CBS News has a culture, has a history that for those of us who work here, is very real — that we see it as a sort of magical mystical kingdom of journalistic knights — and I know I can mentally hear people rolling their eyes, that’s the way we feel." — Ex-CBS News anchor Dan Rather on CNBC’s Topic [A] with Tina Brown, May 22. [38]

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"Cutting the [worldwide] military budgets back by ten percent and using that money to basically solve the real, the real serious poverty problems in the world would be a much better investment in fighting terrorism than — you don’t stop terrorism with tanks, you stop it with giving people hope so they won’t want to blow themselves up." — CNN founder Ted Turner on CBS’s Late Show with David Letterman, September 16. [28]

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"As President Bush travels to Rome this morning along with the First Lady, Condoleezza Rice and former Presidents Bush and Clinton, the question some people are asking is where’s President Carter in all this? Are the Bushes and the Carters the modern day version of the Hatfields and the McCoys?" — NBC’s Katie Couric opening the April 6 Today. [20]

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"Across the nation, gas prices went to record highs today....Will it get to the point that only the privileged can afford gas?" — John Blackstone, CBS Evening News, August 11. [19]

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