Neal Boortz, Ann Coulter, Andrew Klavan, Erick Erickson, Congressman Steve King and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and a performance by The Outlaws band highlighted the MRC's “2011 Gala featuring the DisHonors Awards: Roasting the Most Outrageously Biased Liberal Reporting” presented on Saturday night, May 7, before an audience of more than 800 at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.
Following the presentation of the DisHonors Awards videos in five categories and a look at some “funny clips” from the news, the audience picked an anti-conservative outburst from MSNBC’s Ed Schultz as the “Quote of the Year.” Schultz screamed: “The Republicans lie! They want to see you dead! They’d rather make money off your dead corpse!”
MRC President Brent Bozell also honored leading conservative commentator and columnist Cal Thomas with the MRC’s fifth annual “William F. Buckley Award for Media Excellence.” Thomas paid tribute to Buckley for inspiring his quest to become a columnist, thanked Los Angeles Times publisher Tom Johnson for giving him the chance and credited God with providing him “the gift of writing.”
DisHonors Awards winners were selected by a distinguished panel of 14 leading media observers, including Monica Crowley, Sean Hannity, Larry Kudlow, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Kathryn Jean Lopez and Walter E. Williams.
Bozell served as Master of Ceremonies. Neal Boortz, a nationally-syndicated talk radio host, presented the first two awards; followed by novelist and screenwriter Andrew Klavan who set up the “funny clips” and announced the third DisHonors awards, before best-selling author and columnist Ann Coulter handled the fourth and fifth award categories.
In place of the journalist who won each award, a conservative accepted it in jest. Those standing in for the winners: Erick Erickson of Editor RedState.com, Jenny Beth Martin and Mark Meckler, founders of the Tea Party Patriots, Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips, Congressman Steve King, Republican of Iowa, and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli – who earned a standing ovation for his successful legal effort to block implementation of ObamaCare.
The evening began with an invocation by Bishop Harry Jackson and the Pledge of Allegiance led by Colonel Robert Rust, USA Retired.
Andrew Klavan presents Brent Baker's funny video clips.