The Media Research Center, which does an excellent job tracking liberal bias among journalists, is out with its Best Notable Quotables of 2006, a compilation of the most outrageous and/or humorous news media quotes from December 2005 through November 2006. The following are some of the Monitor’s favorites (the full, categorized list can be viewed at mediaresearch.org).

      ● "[Russia’s Vladimir Putin is] the only one of those leaders who goes in there [the G8 summit] with a commanding popularity among his own people, because he is perceived to be an effective dictator. What we have in this country is a dictator who’s ineffective."

– Newsweek contributing editor Eleanor Clift on "The McLaughlin Group," July 15.

      ● "Some people who hated Americans set out to kill a lot of us and they succeeded [on 9/11]. Americans are puzzled over why so many people in the world hate us.... We’re trying to protect ourselves with more weapons. We have to do it, I guess, but it might be better if we figured out how to behave as a nation in a way that wouldn’t make so many people in the world want to kill us."

– CBS’s Andy Rooney on "60 Minutes," September 10.

      ● "You can see it in the crowds. The thrill, the hope. How they surge toward him. You’re looking at an American political phenomenon. In state after state, in the furious final days of this crucial campaign, Illinois Senator Barack Obama has been the Democrat’s not-so-secret get-out-the-vote weapon. He inspires the party faithful, and many others, like no one else on the scene today... And the question you can sense on everyone’s mind, as they listen so intently to him, is he the one? Is Barack Obama the man, the black man, who could lead the Democrats back to the White House and maybe even unite the country?… Everywhere he goes, people want him to run for President, especially in Iowa, cradle of presidential contenders. Around here, they’re even naming babies after him."

– Co-anchor Terry Moran profiling Obama on ABC’s "Nightline," November 6.

●Katie Couric: "A passionate student of history, Condi Rice believes turmoil often precedes periods of peace and stability. And she rejects the notion that the U.S. is a bully, imposing its values on the world."
      Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: "What’s wrong with assistance so that people can have their full and complete right to the very liberties and freedoms that we enjoy?"
      Couric to Rice: "To quote my daughter, ‘Who made us the boss of them?’"
– CBS’s "60 Minutes," September 24.

      ● Ex-CBS anchor Dan Rather: "We had a lot, a lot, of corroboration of what we broadcast about President Bush’s military record. It wasn’t just the documents. But it’s a very old technique used, that when those who don’t like what you’re reporting believe it can be hurtful, then they look for the weakest spot and attack it, which is fair enough. It’s a diversionary technique."
      CNN’s Larry King: "You’re saying that was a fair report, I mean that was – you believe that report to this day?"
      Rather: "Do I believe the truth of the story? Absolutely."
      – Discussing Rather’s 2004 "60 Minutes" story that relied on forged documents to challenge Bush’s National Guard record, CNN’s "Larry King Live," July 12.

      "It wasn’t supposed to be this way. You weren’t supposed to be graduating into an America fighting a misbegotten war in a foreign land. You weren’t supposed to be graduating into a world where we are still fighting for fundamental human rights, whether it’s the rights of immigrants to start a new life, or the rights of gays to marry, or the rights of women to choose. You weren’t supposed to be graduating into a world where oil still drove policy and environmentalists have to fight relentlessly for every gain. You weren’t. But you are. And for that, I’m sorry."
      – From New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.’s May 21 graduation address at the State University of New York at New Paltz, shown on C-SPAN May 27.