FNC's morning anchors highlighted a few of the MRC's "Best Notable Quotables of 2007" on the Monday edition of "Fox and Friends." Included were a quote of MSNBC's Chris Matthews comparing Bill Clinton's speaking ability to that of "Jesus at the temple" when the former President spoke at Coretta King's funeral, and a quote of comedian Bill Maher commenting that if [Vice President Cheney] died, "more people would live." FNC co-anchor Alisyn Camerota joked that Matthews has a "man crush" on former President Clinton: "I think he has a man crush on Bill Clinton. He's using such rhapsodic language. I believe he has a crush on Bill."

Possibly inspired by the New York Post's Monday editorial page listing of some of the MRC's featured quotes, co-host Steve Doocy opened the segment recounting that many shows have a "best of" list at the end of the year, as he brought up the MRC's "Best Notable Quotables of 2007." Doocy:

At the end of the year, people always have, news outfits always have these "best of" lists and stuff like that. Over at the Media Research Center, what they did was they took a look at some of the outrageous things that people in the public eye said in the past year. And we're going to play this little game. Who do you think said this? We're going to do a quote, and then you try to figure out who said it.

 Update: Video of Huckabee's Press Conference.

Was it a change of heart or manipulating the media?  My personal opinion is of the latter, and I've gathered several reactions from other bloggers that seem to agree.  The way the media is reporting it right now, Mike just made a stupid mistake and it is backfiring already.

 Here is what happened via the Caucus:

Mike Huckabee is holding a press conference right now in which he was supposed to unveil a new negative ad against arch rival Mitt Romney.

But Mr. Huckabee came to the press conference and announced he’d had a change of heart and would not be broadcasting the ad after all.

But wait! It gets better.

He then broadcast it for a room crammed with reporters, photographers and television cameras.

The Associated Press's Mark Sherman, as noted by Jim Taranto at Best of the Web, "reports on a pending Supreme Court case in a way that seems to give both sides their due, but in substance does not."

Here are the first three paragraphs of Sherman's report (bolds are mine):

The dispute over Indiana's voter ID law that is headed to the Supreme Court in January is as much a partisan political drama as a legal tussle.

On one side are mainly Republican backers of the law, including the Bush administration, who say state-produced photo identification is a prudent measure intended to cut down on vote fraud. Yet there have been no Indiana prosecutions of in-person voter fraud — the kind the law is supposed to prevent.

On the other side are mainly Democratic opponents who call voter ID a modern-day poll tax that will disproportionately affect poor, minority and elderly voters — who tend to back Democrats. Yet, a federal judge found that opponents of the law were unable to produce evidence of a single, individual Indiana resident who had been barred from voting because of the law.

Some journalists are so confident that we're already cooked by global warming that they're scolding ignorant Americans in advance for all the now-unpreventable doom that's coming our way. Newsweek's Sharon Begley rings in the new year by shaking her head at the Stupid, Soon to Be Overheated Majority and how we'll have to adapt to being cooked:

As scientists and policy types figure out what changes will be necessary to cope with global warming, it's obvious that massive sea walls will be required to hold back rising oceans, that enormous new reservoirs will be needed to cope with the alternating droughts and deluges that many regions will suffer and that a crash program to develop heat- and drought-resistant crops would be a good idea if people are to keep eating....

On Sunday’s The Chris Matthews Show, the host used one of Mike Huckabee’s Iowa photo-ops as an excuse to launch into an elitist attack on Republicans and hunters. “Who made killing small animals the test of Republican manhood?” Matthews challenged at the top of his show. Over a clip of a vintage Looney Tunes cartoon, Matthews further upped the ante: “Who declared war on Bugs Bunny?!”

Later with his panel, an appalled Matthews noted how Huckabee “told a reporter that he loved to bag squirrels because he fried ’em up and ate ’em with biscuits and a Coca-Cola. What have we come to!”

Noticing how NBC News chief foreign correspondent Andrea Mitchell was squirming, Matthews asked her, “Are you upset by this Andrea? You must be!”

“Absolutely,” Mitchell confirmed, adding a unique sexist angle: “You don’t see any women out there with a gun.”

Here's some truly delicious irony: it took a British newspaper to name General David Petraeus "Person of the Year."

As NewsBusters reported earlier in December, Time magazine shunned the General for Russian President Vladimir Putin. In fact, Petraeus didn't even come in second.

I guess the Sunday Telegraph isn't constrained by Bush Derangement Syndrome like most American media as reported Monday (emphasis added, h/t NB reader birdimus):

This is the time of year for lighthearted fluff for most news agencies and it is usually a welcome respite from hard news as we all get ready to celebrate the arrival of "Baby New Year." The year-end list is a staple of that happy, fluff and we get them up the wazoo, for sure. The list of "overused words" is one of those that we see every year, as well, and Reuters gives us a list by which they hope we wring out a few overused words and phrases as we ring in 2008. But, I am a bit dismayed over the choice of two of the words and phrases they want us to forget. The first is "post 9/11"and the other one is "surge." The choice of words and phrases in the case of these particular two seems to be made not only with a left leaning bias, but with a bias that leads to the sort of dangerous ignorance that caused 9/11 and the surge in the first place. The ignorance of head-in-the-sand, looking the other way that allowed Islamofascism so so easily sneak up on all of us is rampant with the inclusion of these two in this list.

Starter: Got any new year's resolutions for anyone in the media?

A subscription-only editorial in the Wall Street Journal on Monday propagated a carefully-worded whopper, but at least made a small change to the paper's insufferable 23-year "There Shall Be Open Borders" mantra (bolds are mine):

A recent paper by the Immigration Policy Center, an advocacy group, notes that "Numerous studies by independent researchers and government commissions over the past 100 years repeatedly and consistently have found that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or be behind bars than the native born." Today, immigrants on balance are five times less likely to be in prison than someone born here.

None of this is to argue that illegal immigration doesn't have costs, especially in border communities and states with large public benefits. In the post-9/11 environment, knowing who's in the country is more important than ever. That's an argument for better regulating cross-border labor flows, not ending them.

The Immigration Policy Center's use of 100 years averages things out quite a bit, doesn't it?

See article here: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3486144,00.html 

In his review of television for the year 2007, Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales bitterly recounted Fox's allegedly political censorship of actress Sally Field at the Emmy Awards, when she said if mothers ran the world, there would be no "goddamned wars." Shales complained that the lack of profanity "befouled" the airwaves:

The Emmy Awards were marred by a dark and perhaps portentous moment that also involved an unexpected -- and in this case, totally unwarranted -- silence. Sally Field was accepting a prize and talking about mothers and war when suddenly the Fox censor chose to delete some of her words before they could go out to America on the time-delayed telecast. Fox used the absurd FCC crackdown on "obscenity" as its excuse, but the action smacked of political censorship and seriously befouled the American airwaves.

Savage has expanded his lawsuit against CAIR.  I am not particularly a Savage fan, but I do find this lawsuit very interesting. The link I provide opens near the comments portion of the article, so you have to scroll up to read it.

See here:  http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/019380.php#comments

As part of a series promoting excerpts of leading conservative books, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on Sunday ran an excerpt Brent Bozell sent from the MRC book "Whitewash" by Bozell and Tim Graham. These paragraphs explained some of the publicity surrounding Hillary's 2003 memoir:

Time magazine excerpted the book, and senior editor Nancy Gibbs interviewed Senator Clinton with kid gloves. When Hillary said the Bush administration was conspiring to defund the federal government's "ability to do anything other than fund defense," Gibbs followed up: "Would you call Bush a radical?" Hillary replied, incredibly, that the Bushies "are certainly more radical than Ronald Reagan." Gibbs also asked about the VRWC--but her question presumed that the charge was true from the beginning! "Is the 'vast right-wing conspiracy' bigger than you thought when you brought the term into our vocabulary?"

As shown in this video, Chris Wallace and FOX News Sunday decided to misrepresent the words said by Fred Thompson by partially quoting them out of context.  Notice in the quote below of FOX, the use of the multiple dots.  This kind of covers people in misquoting folks in a legal manner. 

 "I like to say that I'm only consumed by very, very few things and politics is not one of them....I'm not sure in the world we live in today it's a terribly good thing that a President has too much fire in his belly."

However it is obvious how mis-leading it is when his actual quote is put into context.  USA Today started this mis-quote meme as Newsbuster's Tom Blumer points out very well.

On a lazy December 30th Sunday afternoon, I flipped on the television, on which the previous evening I had left the History Channel (they were then doing a military analysis of the Bible, which was at once interesting and uninfuriating).

This time the tubes warmed to display a replay of Clear and Present Danger, the film based upon the Tom Clancy novel.  Co-hosting the rerun were the Channel's in-house liberal historian, Steve Gillon, and guest liberal political commentator Neal Gabler (though of course neither was identified in any sort of ideological way).

As a conservative,I have tuned in on the debates over the past few months and especially talk radio.Conservitave information needs to get out to the masses.Michael Savage is his own voice.Some like him,some don't.He takes what is known by millions of Hannity and Limbaugh listeners and turns up the heat.No democratic candidate would dare appear on the savage nation and also,the GOP has declined to appear.Why?After Michael has invited the GOP front runners to appear on the savage nation many times.Just makes me question why? Gullianni,Thompson,Rommni and the others have talked extensively to Hannity and Michael Medved.Scared are they? Who knows.

 Update:  So I'm wrong...Lets get those boycotts rollin!

URGENT MESSAGE! CALL OFF THE BOYCOTTS!

Rumors went out that Ron Paul was being excluded from a FOX Debate and his fans freaked out, as they have become famous for doing. They called for boycotts and protests, etc. Turns out that he was never even excluded from any debate, and that the debate in question didn't even exist. Oops! Panic buttons off.

Is America ready to be led by a New Age pundit? There's been much scrutiny of the respective religions of Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. But do we need to reconsider Maureen Dowd's fitness for op-ed office in light of her revelation that she has apparently embraced New Age spirituality, even undergoing a New Age "exorcism" complete with swinging crystal?

I kept waiting for Dowd to say it was all a joke -- but she never did. Her column of today, "Am I a Karma Karma Karma Karma Karma Chameleon?", describes her experience, conducted by one Faith Green: "a pretty, curvy 31-year-old green-eyed blonde, [who] says she has studied tribal shamanism, rolfing, Pilates, tango, movement and stretching."

In a year when a charlatan -- one that has done absolutely zip, zero, zilch to solve the various wars raging across the globe, several involving his native country -- can win a Nobel Peace Prize, nothing should come as a shock.

Yet, when a major American newspaper offers the illegal immigrant as its person of the year, one has to wonder whether or not the sun really has begun rising in the west, and if Keith Olbermann isn't sticking his foot in his mouth every time he opens it.

To drive home the point, consider the following published in Saturday's Dallas Morning News (emphasis added throughout, h/t NBer motherbelt):

Erick at Red State reports that USA Today reporter Jill Lawrence distorted what she reported Saturday on a statement made by Fred Thompson to a Burlington, Iowa audience.

Here, per Erick, is how Thompson actually responded to the question, "Do you want to be President?" --

The first place, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. I wouldn’t be doing this. I grew up in very modest circumstances. I left government and I and my family have made sacrifices to be sitting here today. I haven’t had any income for a long time because I figured to be clean, you’ve got to cut everything off. I was doing speaking engagements and I had a contract to do a tv show. I had a contract with ABC radio…and so forth. A man would have to be a total fool to do all those things and to be leaving his family which is not a joyful thing if he didn’t want to do it.

I am not consumed by personal ambition. I will not be devastated if I don’t do it. I want the people to have the best president they can have.

But here is what Lawrence posted:

Bill Theobald of Gannett News Service has been following Republican Fred Thompson around Iowa. In a dispatch today from Burlington, Bill quotes the former Tennessee senator as saying he doesn't like modern campaigning, isn't that interested in running for president and "will not be devastated" if he doesn't win.

This makes it appear as if Thompson is just going through the motions, doesn't it?

Sunday thread for political shows, football games and whatever else...

The New York Times confirmed the buzz that it's hiring conservative William Kristol as a weekly op-ed page columnist. (As opposed to the early liberal gnashing of teeth.)The Times story began by noting Kristol is a "vigorous supporter of the Iraq war" and has even vigorously attacked his new newspaper home:

Mr. Kristol, 55, has been a fierce critic of The Times. In 2006, he said that the government should consider prosecuting The Times for disclosing a secret government program to track international banking transactions.

In a 2003 column on the turmoil within The Times that led to the downfall of the top two editors, he wrote [in The Weekly Standard]  that it was not "a first-rate newspaper of record," adding, "The Times is irredeemable."