It was a challenging task but an esteemed panel of NewsBusters editors led by MRC President L.Brent Bozell and MRC’s Vice President for Research and Publications Brent Baker boiled down all the biased outbursts from lefty hack hosts, anchors, reporters and pundits in 2023 and on December 18 announced The Brian Stelter Memorial Award for Quote of the Year.
Of course, every year there is way too much bias for just one category. So Baker led a panel of NewsBusters editors to break down the Worst of 2023 into eight additional categories (The Craziest Analysis Award; The Damn Those Conservatives Award; The Joy of Hate Award for Joy Reid Rants; The Jihadist Journalism Award for Helping Hamas; The Damning Florida’s Dictator Award; The Praising and Protecting Old Joe Award; The Cursing the Conservative Court Award and the Celebrity Freak-Outs Award).
Today we present the WORST OF 2023: The Damn Those Conservatives Award.
Without further ado here is the winner (followed by the top runners-up):
WINNER
“He’s [Donald Trump] basically portraying a future for America, if he is put back in the White House, in which we don’t have another election after that….Because the elections are all rigged, that the democratic process can’t be trusted, that Congress should just work for him, the Justice Department should just work for him. That’s a strong man form of government….He wants to put MSNBC on trial for treason so that he can execute us….If they’re going to elevate somebody like that to represent their party in a general election….the Republican Party will have to reckon with that for — till the end of time in terms of what they did to this country.”
— MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on ABC’s The View, October 18.
The following are the runners-up:
RUNNERS-UP
“Republican-controlled legislatures approved nearly total abortion bans in 14 states. These states are now unsafe for women….You support sterilization of women by denying them the health care they need. How depraved are you?... These are real stories, horror stories that Republicans have inflicted on women across the country because of their antiquated, unrealistic, highly judgmental and ill-informed view….Look at the Republican Party….it’s just inhumane….on so many levels. Whether it’s pushing an unhealthy gun culture where everyone should have an AK-47, lying to migrants and shipping them off on planes and tricking them and dumping them places, or forcing children who were raped to carry babies to term. They are leading a sick, inhumane political party at very best.”
— Co-host Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, June 23.
When a guy [Speaker of the House Mike Johnson] gets this nod and says that God ordained it, I’m like ‘Well, boss, whose God is that?’...The whole point here is that we separate church and state, that we believe in the peaceful transfer of power and the reason this guy is Speaker is none of us have the time to read his resume and realize he’s David Duke-lite.”
— Former CNN+ host Scott Galloway on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, October 27.
“If Trump-aligned Republicans win control of the presidency and both houses of Congress next year, you could say they would end American democracy as we know it. But it’s simpler and probably more effective to just say they would end America as we know it — and therefore must be stopped.”
— Former Washington Post reporter Perry Bacon in a November 28 column.
