“To
see his [Jeremiah Wright’s] career completely destroyed by three
20-second sound bites, all of the work he has done, his entire legacy
gone down the drain, has been absolutely devastating to me — to him,
sorry....We are still a racist country....I think that so many white
people who had never been inside a black church were absolutely shocked
by the tone and language that they heard [from Wright]....I think it
brought out a lot of latent racism.”
— Washington Post writer Sally Quinn on PBS’s Charlie Rose,
April 30. [76 points]
|
Runners-up:
“He
was assassinated by soundbites....His whole career was being summed up
in soundbites that added up to no more than 20 seconds, endlessly played
through the media grinder of our national press. He was angry about
that....He was like a man who goes out and picks up the morning
newspaper and gets hit by a cyclone!”
— PBS’s Bill Moyers talking about Jeremiah Wright on Comedy Central’s
The Daily Show on May 13. [49]
|
“At
issue now, a video of a sermon given by Barack Obama’s minister at the
Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago....We’re running it because —
like it or not, legitimate or not — it has become an issue....All this
seems to have nothing to do with actual issues that the country is
facing, which these candidates should be talking about and we probably
should be talking about.”
— CNN’s Anderson Cooper introducing a story about inflammatory comments
made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Anderson Cooper 360, March 13. [39]
|
“I
don’t even know how these candidates can talk about policy, because it
seems like every day someone’s asking them to apologize for the comments
of their supporters. Rush Limbaugh went nuts today on his program about
this [Jeremiah Wright] story. John McCain is talking about this
particular story. How do we get away from this?”
— MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell to The NewRepublic’s Michael
Crowley during live coverage, March 14. [27]
|
“Every
time he [Reverend Jeremiah Wright] appears, he just gives legitimacy and
a hunger by those who oppose Barack Obama to re-run those tapes, to keep
him at the center of controversy, to let this overhang and define Barack
Obama, when it has, you know — it has very, very little to do — it’s a
very marginal piece of who Barack Obama is and what he stands for. And
it takes attention away — we have huge, huge problems facing this
country....I think it’s time for him to get off the stage and frankly,
for the media, I suggest, to move on.”
— CNN’s David Gergen during live coverage following Wright’s speech to
the National Press Club, April 28. [24]
Winner
