“HOIST BY THEIR OWN PETARD,” an editorial in the December 31, 2005 New York Post. Originally posted here.

For 18 years, the Media Research Center has been compiling its list of "notable quotables." The quotes, from prominent members of the mainstream news media, provide a clear window into the leftist mindset that pervades most of America's large news organizations. At year's end, the center (aided by a panel of judges) chooses the "best" examples. As usual, this year's crop tellingly reveals the media's perennial contempt for all things conservative. Actually, the winners more or less explain themselves. (The full set of winners and finalists can be found at the center's Web site, mrc.org.) Happy New Year!

Madness of King George Award

"It's like [President Bush] stuck a broomstick in [FDR's] wheelchair wheels."
-- Newsweek's Jon Meacham, on MSNBC, discussing Bush's criticism of Franklin Roosevelt's Yalta deal with Stalin on post-WWII Europe


The Kanye West Award

"The dilatory performance of George Bush during the past week [after Hurricane Katrina] has been outrageous. . . .The churchgoing cultural populism of George Bush has given the United States an administration that worries about the House of Saud and the welfare of oil companies while the poor drown in their attics and their sons and daughters die in foreign deserts."
-- Former New York Times editor Howell Raines, writing in the Los Angeles Times


Captain Dan the Forgery Man Award

"My principal problem was that I stuck by the [Memogate] story, I stuck by our people too long. I'm guilty of that. I believed in the story, and the facts of the story were correct. One supporting pillar of the story, albeit an important one, one supporting pillar was called into question. To this day, no one has proven whether it was purported to be or not. You know, I didn't give up on my people, our people. I didn't, and I won't. . . .The story was accurate."
-- Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather, interviewed by Marvin Kalb on C-SPAN


Crazy Chris Award for Left-Wing Lunacy

"Are you considering running for Congress, Cindy?. . .I have to tell you, you sound more informed that most U.S. Congresspeople, so maybe you should run."
-- MSNBC's Chris Matthews to antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan on Hardball


Barbra Streisand Celebrity Vacuity Award

"I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family, it says they're looting. See a white family, it says they're looking for food. . . . A lot of the people who could help are at war right now fighting another way, and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us. . . .George Bush doesn't care about black people."
-- Rapper Kanye West during NBC's Concert for Hurricane Relief


Media Millionaire for Smaller Paychecks Award

"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. . . .I'm not kidding."
-- National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg, on Inside Washington


Politics of Meaninglessness Award

"It's been 11 days since two African-American teenagers were killed, electrocuted during a police chase, which prompted all of this."
-- CNN anchor Carol Lin on the French riots. The two teens were French citizens of Tunisian origin, not Americans


What Liberal Media? Award

"I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee. We have an ideological press that's interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that's interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people."
-- Former PBS host Bill Moyers, quoted by the Associated Press


Oh, That Liberal Media Award

Newsweek's Evan Thomas: "Is this attack [on public broadcasting's budget] going to make NPR a little less liberal?"
NPR's Nina Totenberg: "I don't think we're liberal to begin with, and I think if you would listen, Evan, you would know that."
Thomas: "I do listen to you, and you're not that liberal, but you're a little bit liberal."
-- Exchange on Inside Washington


'Baghdad Bob' Was Right Award

"I think there's going to be a bloodbath on Sunday. . . .All over the place, especially in Baghdad and a few other cities."
-- Fox News Channel's Steve Harrigan, just back from Iraq, two days before Iraq's largely peaceful election


Quote of the Year

CBS "Memogate" producer Mary Mapes: "I'm perfectly willing to believe those documents are forgeries if there's proof I haven't seen."
ABC's Brian Ross: "But isn't it the other way around? Don't you have to prove they're authentic?"
Mapes: "Well, I think that's what critics of the story would say. . . .I think they have not been proved to be false yet."
Ross: "Have they proved to be authentic, though? Isn't that really what journalists do?"
Mapes: "No, I don't think that's the standard."
-- Exchange on Good Morning America