Posted below: the September 26 edition of Notable Quotables, MRC’s bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous quotes in the liberal media. This issue: top newspapers want reporters to go easy on Hillary Clinton in order to save the country from the “dangerous” Donald Trump, as a New York Times columnist confesses her liberal friends want the media to give Hillary “a total free pass.”
Also: CBS tweaks a video to hide Bill Clinton saying his wife has “frequently” had episodes similiar to her 9/11 collapse; CNN creates a false quote of Trump proposing “racial profiling” and then attacks him for it; and Andrea Mitchell frets that the terrorist attack in New York City will knock Hillary “off message.” The complete issue, with 24 quotes is posted below (or view the printer-friendly PDF version).
Times Readers Want Hillary to Get “a Total Free Pass”
“My friends won’t even read any — if I do interviews with Trump, they won’t read them. And basically, they would like to censor any stories about Trump and also censor any negative stories about Hillary. They think she should have a total free pass because, as she said at that fundraiser recently, I’m the only thing standing between you and the abyss.”
— New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd on NBC’s Meet the Press, Sept. 18.
Go Easy on Hillary So We Don’t Get “Dangerous” Trump
“Judging by the amount of time NBC’s Matt Lauer spent pressing Hillary Clinton on her e-mails during Wednesday’s national security presidential forum, one would think that her homebrew server was one of the most important issues facing the country this election. It is not....Imagine how history would judge today’s Americans if, looking back at this election, the record showed that voters empowered a dangerous man because of ... a minor e-mail scandal. There is no equivalence between Ms. Clinton’s wrongs and Mr. Trump’s manifest unfitness for office.”
— Washington Post editorial, September 8. (2nd ellipses in original.)
“If the moderators of the coming debates do not figure out a better way to get the candidates to speak accurately about their records and policies — especially Mr. Trump, who seems to feel he can skate by unchallenged with his own version of reality while Mrs. Clinton is grilled and entangled in the fine points of domestic and foreign policy — then they will have done the country a grave disservice....”
— New York Times editorial, September 9.
Blame Sexism for Hillary’s Hiding of Pneumonia
“If she had pneumonia and she went to the 9/11 ceremony this morning, that’s a very strong, bold thing to do, also knowing that Trump was going to be there. We should be honest about the double standards that women sometimes face with regards to their health, with the idea that women are sometimes portrayed as being weaker than men, how they have to work harder to show they’re as strong as men, especially in workplaces, especially in politics.”
— CNN’s Brian Stelter during the 7pm ET edition of CNN Newsroom on September 11, shortly after news of Clinton’s pneumonia diagnosis was revealed.
“To admit she had pneumonia would be to admit weakness in front of the American people. But a 68-year-old woman who was diagnosed with pneumonia, then stood in 90-degree heat in a bullet-proof vest and a few layers of clothes for over an hour before giving up embodies strength, not weakness. She is so dedicated to her country and her quest that even pneumonia won’t stop her. Why does Hillary Clinton have to hide the fact that she came down with a common illness in the first place?...Because she’s a woman.”
— Time writer Darlena Cunha in a September 13 “Motto” blog post at Time.com.
Vouching for the Accuracy of Hillary’s “Basket of Deplorables” Smear
— Ex-NBC Meet the Press host David Gregory, now a CNN political analyst, on CNN’s New Day, September 15.
“I’m inclined to see it as strategy and not so much as a gaffe....40 to 50 percent of Republicans, I would say, looking at the full spectrum of data, agree with beliefs that we would categorize as explicitly prejudiced. So regardless of whether or not Clinton needs to walk it back or not, I think she’s being correct and accurate.”
— Slate’s Jamelle Bouie, a CBS News political analyst, on the September 11 Face the Nation.
CBS’s Clinton-Friendly Editing Team, Part I
Host Charlie Rose: “Looking at that collapse, the video that was taken, you wonder if it’s not more serious than dehydration.”
Former President Bill Clinton: “Well, if it is, it’s a mystery to me and all of her doctors, because frequently — well, not frequently — rarely, but on more than one occasion, over the last many, many years, the same sort of thing happened to her when she got severely dehydrated.”
— Exchange shown on PBS’s Charlie Rose, September 12.
vs.
Host Charlie Rose: “Looking at that collapse, the video that was taken, you wonder if it’s not more serious than dehydration.”
Former President Bill Clinton: “Well, if it is, it’s a mystery to me and all of her doctors. Rarely, but on more than one occasion, over the last many, many years, the same sort of thing happened to her when she got severely dehydrated.”
— The same exchange as it aired on the September 12 CBS Evening News, with no indication to viewers that Clinton’s answer had been edited to remove his use of the word “frequently.”
CBS’s Clinton-Friendly Editing Team, Part II
— CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King on September 14, reading a hacked e-mail from Powell as an on-screen graphic displayed the same message, ending with ellipses at the point King stopped reading. CBS omitted the final 12 words in that e-mail: “...with a husband still dicking bimbos at home (according to the NYP).”
CNN Slams Trump for Something He Never Said
— CNN reporter Sara Murray on The Situation Room, September 19.
“Trump Says ‘Racial Profiling’ Will Stop Terror.”
— On-screen headline during a segment on CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront, September 19. In fact, Trump never used the word “racial,” and specifically cited Israel’s success at using profiling to stop Palestinian terrorism.
Anchor Carol Costello: “Yesterday, he was upset that news people used the term ‘racial profiling,’ but he was on The O’Reilly Factor last night and Donald Trump clearly meant racial profiling when he said profiling.”
Correspondent Jeff Zeleny: “He did.”
— Exchange on CNN Newsroom, September 20.
Pretending Hillary Has Clean Hands on the Birth of Birtherism
Correspondent Hallie Jackson: “In his reversal, Trump didn’t admit he was wrong, didn’t say he was sorry, and didn’t tell the truth when he said this:”
Clip of Donald Trump: “Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy.”
— September 16 NBC Nightly News.
“He [Trump] could not resist indulging in another falsehood — that his opponent, Hillary Clinton, had started the so-called birther movement. She did not.”
— New York Times political reporter Michael Barbaro in a September 17 front-page “news analysis.”
“You believe that Hillary Clinton started the birther movement?...What is the proof because we can’t find any. And fact-checkers have checked into that....The reports of people in my industry say there is no proof they can find that Hillary Clinton had anything to do with it.”
— ABC’s Martha Raddatz interviewing GOP vice presidential nominee Mike Pence on This Week, September 18.
vs.
“Two supporters of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign reportedly shared the claim that then-rival Barack Obama was not born in the United States and thus was not eligible to be president....”
— McClatchy Newspapers national editor David Goldstein in a September 16 article.
NYC Bombing = Russo-ISIS Conspiracy to Elect Trump?
“Are you concerned that this weekend’s [New York City bomb] attacks, or potential incidents in the coming weeks, might be an attempt by ISIS or ISIS sympathizers or, really, any other group, maybe the Russians, to influence the presidential race in some way, and presumably try to drive votes to Donald Trump...?”
— Bloomberg Politics reporter Jennifer Epstein to Hillary Clinton, September 19.
Ignorant Trump Didn’t Know Bomber Wasn’t “Jilted Lover”
Anchor Don Lemon: “Donald Trump saying to a crowd in Colorado Springs, saying that, to his supporters, that a bomb went off in the city....How would he act as a President of the United States, if he’s giving this information before there’s even confirmation of it?”
CNN political commentator Errol Lewis: “It’s a source of great concern. When he says we’ve got to get tough, the implication is the armed forces or the United States is under attack from some foreign source. As opposed to, it could be anything: it could be a jilted lover; it could be a property dispute; it could be, literally, anything.”
— Exchange during CNN live coverage of the New York City bombing, 11:13pm ET, September 17.
Worst Part of Bombing: It Might Help Trump
— Anchor Andrea Mitchell to NBC News correspondents Peter Alexander and Kristen Welker on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, September 19.
Trump Election Could Imperil America
“My knowledge of history tells me that when a radical authoritarian takes power in a country, the result is never [crosstalk]. I think that American democracy will be in greater danger than it’s been since 1860, if Donald Trump were elected president.”
— The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik on HBO’s Real Time, September 16.
America-Bashing Kaepernick = Martin Luther King, Jr.
“It’s really important to remember that a lot of these athletes are people, like civil rights activists that we now canonize and call heroes — MLK, Muhammad Ali, who supposedly transcended race....Colin Kaepernick may be one of those future heroes, and if we don’t give him the room to talk about these issues that need to be addressed, we are not fulfilling our obligations as the democracy that is ‘we the people.’”
— Actress Kerry Washington on HBO’s Real Time, September 16.
Rallying Around Poor, Victimized Hillary
“I’m for Hillary. I think she has been excoriated by the press and treated unfairly.”
— Actor Jeffrey Tambor in a post-Emmy interview with Inside Edition shown on September 19.
Trump = “Worst Idea that Ever Happened to America”
“Look, America is, like, the best idea the world ever came up with. But Donald Trump is potentially the worst idea that ever happened to America....I think he’s trying to hijack the idea of America. And I think it’s bigger than all of us. I think it’s — this is really dangerous.”
— U2’s Bono in an interview for PBS’s Charlie Rose shown on CBS This Morning, September 20.
