Sneak Peek: MRC's Notable Quotables Newsletter

As a Sunday afternoon treat, here’s a sneak peek at the May 17 edition of MRC’s Notable Quotables newsletter, our bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media. The entire edition will be posted, with five video clips, at www.MRC.org on Monday morning.

Shortsighted Voters Fail to Grasp Obama’s Historic Greatness

“Big problems. Big achievements. Big costs. Historians say President Obama’s legislative record during a crisis-ridden presidency already puts him in a league with such consequential presidents as Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt. But polls show voters aren’t totally on board with his achievements, at least not yet, and the White House acknowledges that his victories have carried huge financial and political costs. ‘There are always costs in doing big things,’ Obama told USA Today.”
— Opening of May 12 USA Today cover story by Susan Page and Mimi Hall, “Will doing ‘big things’ wind up costing Obama?” The accompanying picture showed a portrait of Abraham Lincoln peering down at President Obama.



Media Panic: Is Elena Kagan Liberal Enough?

“When she worked for the Clinton administration, Ms. Kagan asked the President to support a ban on all abortions of viable fetuses except when the mother’s health was at risk. And some analysts have used that example to show that she may actually shift the Court to the right, compared with Justice Stevens.”
— CBS’s Maggie Rodriguez to Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) on the May 11 Early Show.

“The selection of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to be the nation’s 112th justice extends a quarter-century pattern in which Republican presidents generally install strong conservatives on the Supreme Court while Democratic presidents pick candidates who often disappoint their liberal base. Ms. Kagan is certainly too liberal for conservatives, who quickly criticized her nomination on Monday as a radical threat. But much like every other Democratic nominee since the 1960s, she does not fit the profile sought by the left, which hungers for a full-throated counterweight to the Court’s conservative leader, Justice Antonin Scalia.”
— New York Times reporter Peter Baker in a May 11 front-page “news analysis.”



The “Optimistic” Terrorist Wannabe

“Why did someone, with apparently so much to live for, simply decide to throw it all away? Faisal Shahzad seemed to be living the American dream. Wife, two kids, nice house in the suburbs, an immigrant from Pakistan bettering himself through education and hard work....Even his signature seems to suggest optimism — it appears a heart is dotting the ‘i’ in Faisal....”
— ABC’s Chris Cuomo on the attempted Times Square bomber, May 4 World News.

Times Square Bombing = Wall Street’s Fault?

“Did the Economy Make Him Do It?”
“Times Square bombing suspect hit a rough patch during the recession, losing his Connecticut house to foreclosure and selling furniture and used clothes, according to several media outlets.”
— Headline and subheadline on Newsweek’s web site, May 6.

Real Problem Isn’t Terrorist Bombers, It’s Bigoted Americans

“I mean the thing is that — and I get frustrated and there was part of me that was hoping this was not going to be anybody with ties to any kind of Islamic country, because there are a lot of people who want to use this terrorist intent to justify writing off people who believe in a certain way, or come from certain countries, or whose skin color is a certain way. I mean, they use it as justification for really outdated bigotry.”
— MSNBC daytime anchor Contessa Brewer appearing as a guest on Stephanie Miller’s radio show, May 4. [MP3 audio (0:37)]



Barack Obama: The Secretariat of After Dinner Comedy

Host Joe Scarborough: “The President so easily outperformed Jay Leno, it wasn’t even close. It was like Secretariat against my 17-year-old dog....”
Time editor Richard Stengel: “I think that’s one of the things that undermined Jay’s routine is that it’s like coming after the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show.”
— Discussing the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, MSNBC’s Morning Joe, May 2.