HBO’s Bill Maher “Wins” MRC’s DisHonors Awards Quote of the Year

Postulates Conspiracy Theory that Sarah Palin’s Infant Son is Actually Her Daughter’s Baby
 

ALEXANDRIA, VA – The Media Research Center (MRC) today proudly announces that HBO’s Bill Maher is the “Winner” of Quote of the Year for tastelessly suggesting that Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter Bristol was the actual birth mother of her infant son, Trig. Maher was selected by the more than 800 attendees of the MRC’s annual DisHonors Awards Gala, held last night at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Maher-- winner of the Half-Baked Alaska Award for Pummeling Palin -- beat out MSNBC’s Chris Matthews (the Media Messiah Award), CNN founder Ted Turner (the Dan Rather Memorial Award for the Stupidest Analysis) and ABC’s Bill Weir (the Obamagasm Award).

The competition at the DisHonors Awards Gala is always fierce; this year it was even more so.  But the panel of distinguished judges -- including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Larry Kudlow, Tony Blankley and the MRC’s own President Brent Bozell -- combed through thousands of lowlights to select the four DisHonorees.

After the DisHonors, there were the Honors. Fox News’ Brit Hume was presented the third annual “William F. Buckley Jr. Award for Media Excellence.”  With grace and good humor Hume accepted, stating “I guess I have two things to be thankful for tonight. One is the receipt of this award and the second is that I’m not Tim Geithner.”

Below is a full list of the 2009 awards, winners, and the quotes that earned them their respective DisHonors.

Visit www.MRC.org/Gala to access audio and video clips of the evening,

along with Quote of the year and all other award winning quotes.

2009 DisHonors Awards Quotes

The Winner

Half-Baked Alaska Award for Pummeling Palin

"I'm not that convinced that that's her baby....The daughter - who we know is fertile because she's knocked up again, or maybe for the first time...she did like take a five-month leave from high school because she had [uses fingers to indicate quote marks] 'mononucleosis' right around the time the baby was being born. And the mother, the so-called, you know, okay, maybe it is the mother, but, you know, she was back to work three days later. You don't smell something?...It's not like they're not willing to lie about everything else."
- HBO's Bill Maher on Real Time, September 5, 2008 promoting the left-wing conspiracy theory that Sarah Palin's infant son is actually her daughter Bristol's baby.

The Runners-Up

The Media Messiah Award

 Co-anchor Chris Matthews: "I have to tell you, you know, it's part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama's speech. My - I felt this thrill going up my
leg. I mean, I don't have that too often."

Co-anchor Keith Olbermann: "Steady."

Matthews: "No, seriously. It's a dramatic event. He speaks about America in a way that has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with the feeling we have about our country. And that is an objective assessment."
- Exchange during MSNBC's coverage of the Virginia, Maryland and Washington D.C. primaries, February 12, 2008.

Dan Rather Memorial Award for the Stupidest Analysis

"Not doing it [fighting global warming] will be catastrophic. We'll be eight degrees hotter in ten, not ten but in 30 or 40 years, and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals. Civilization will have broken down."
|- CNN founder Ted Turner on PBS's Charlie Rose, April 1, 2008.

The Obamagasm Award

"We know that wind can make a cold day feel colder, but can national pride make a freezing day feel warmer? It seems to be the case because regardless of the final crowd number estimates, never have so many people shivered so long with such joy. From above, even the seagulls must have been awed by the blanket of humanity."
-  ABC's Bill Weir on World News, January 20, 2009.

To schedule an interview with MRC President Brent Bozell or another MRC spokesperson, please contact Tim Scheiderer (x. 126) or Colleen O’Boyle (x. 122) at (703) 683-5004.