To commemorate the Media Research Center’s 20th anniversary this month, we’ve just published a special expanded edition of our ‘Notable Quotables’ newsletter with more than 100 of the most outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes we’ve uncovered over the past 20 years.
Yesterday, I wrote about the liberal media’s softness when it came to totalitarian communism. Today’s installment: The liberal media vs. Ronald Reagan and the GOP. TV reporters regularly condemned Reagan for his supposedly ruinous conservative policies, but it’s still astonishing to hear then-ABC reporter Richard Threlkeld castigate the Gipper on his last day as President, January 20, 1989.
Video (0:52): Windows (1.47 MB), plus MP3 audio (232 kB).
The background: On January 16, 1989, an Hispanic Miami police officer shot and killed a young black man as he fled from police on a motorcycle. The incident touched off three nights of rioting that left one person dead and perhaps $1 million in property damage, according to a Washington Post report from the time.
Despite this being a localized incident, Threlkeld decided to make the riots a symptom of what he claimed was Reagan’s “neglect” of inner cities for the Inauguration Day edition of ABC’s World News Tonight:
“After eight years of what many saw as the Reagan Administration’s benign neglect of the poor and studied indifference to civil rights, a lot of those who lived through this week in Overtown [rioting in a section of Miami] seemed to think the best thing about George Bush is that he is not Ronald Reagan,” Thelkeld intoned. “There is an Overtown in every big city in America. Pockets of misery made even meaner and more desperate the past eight years.”
Five and a half years later, when voters finally ended 40 years of Democratic control of Congress, then-ABC anchor Peter Jennings reflected the same attitude in a November 14, 1994 radio commentary smugly chastising “angry” voters:
“Some thoughts on those angry voters. Ask parents of any two- year-old and they can tell you about those temper tantrums: the stomping feet, the rolling eyes, the screaming. It’s clear that the anger controls the child and not the other way around. It’s the job of the parent to teach the child to control the anger and channel it in a positive way. Imagine a nation full of uncontrolled two-year-old rage. The voters had a temper tantrum last week...Parenting and governing don’t have to be dirty words: the nation can’t be run by an angry two-year-old.”
Some of the other quotes that show the media’s disdain for Reagan and conservatism:
“The amazing thing is most people seem content to believe that almost everybody had a good time in the ‘80s , a real shot at the dream. But the fact is, they didn’t. Did we wear blinders? Did we think the ‘80s left behind just the homeless? The fact is that almost nine in ten Americans actually saw their lifestyle decline.”
— NBC reporter Keith Morrison, February 7, 1992 Nightly News. Census Bureau data shows median family income increased in all income classes from 1981 to 1989.
“In the plague years of the 1980s — that low decade of denial, indifference, hostility, opportunism and idiocy — government fiddled and medicine diddled, and the media were silent or hysterical. A gerontocratic Ronald Reagan took this [AIDS] plague less seriously than Gerald Ford had taken swine flu. After all, he didn’t need the ghettos and he didn’t want the gays.”
— CBS’s John Leonard on Sunday Morning, September 5, 1993. [Video (0:31): Windows (978 kB), plus MP3 audio (114 kB).]“The new Republican majority in Congress took a big step today on its legislative agenda to demolish or damage government aid programs, many of them designed to help children and the poor.”
— Dan Rather, March 16, 1995 CBS Evening News.“When NBC Nightly News continues: In Washington, if they cut food stamps, who doesn’t eat?
— Tom Brokaw, March 22, 1995.
“Next week on ABC’s World News Tonight, a series of reports about our environment which will tell you precisely what the new Congress has in mind: the most frontal assault on the environment in 25 years. Is this what the country wants?”
— Peter Jennings in an ABC promo during the July 9, 1995 This Week with David Brinkley.“In light of the new welfare reform bill, do you think the children need more prayers than ever before?”
— Bryant Gumbel to Children’s Defense Fund leader Marian Wright Edelman, September 23, 1996 Today.CBS’s Morley Safer: “You talk about a vision, and it’s some kind of abstract, vague idea. Did his [Ronald Reagan’s] vision include extraordinary deficits? Did his vision include cutting of the budgets for education and a back of the hand in terms of public education?”
Larry King: “History will not be kind to him?”
Safer: “No, I don’t think history particularly will be kind....I don’t think history has any reason to be kind to him.”
— CNN’s Larry King Live, June 14, 2004.
Tomorrow’s edition: The media’s love affair with Bill and Hillary Clinton. To read the full issue, and watch any of the 50 video clips that accompany the issue, please visit www.MRC.org.
—Rich Noyes is Research Director at the Media Research Center.
Editor at Large
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Peter Jennings...Parenting
October 23, 2007 - 10:11 ET by MidAmericaPeter Jennings...Parenting and governing don’t have to be dirty words: the nation can’t be run by an angry two-year-old.”
In that comment is a display of the condescension and arrogance of the elite media towards the 'average person'.
The elites view parenting and governing as synonymous and sees anyone who doesn't submit to their superior judgment and guidance as undisciplined juveniles.
Reagan? No.. it was Clinton that killed millions
October 23, 2007 - 10:37 ET by Gary HallRich - what a revealing package you've put together.
One of your quotes today, "A gerontocratic Ronald Reagan took this [AIDS] plague less seriously than Gerald Ford had taken swine flu," draws a stark comparison with the MSM's, lack of outrage (and blame) directed at Bill Clinton, who, if one wears that MSM hat for a minute and reflects; finds he was perhaps responsible for much of the HIV/Aids pandemic which went out of control in Africa and Asia during the 90's with little notice and no action from the Clinton WH. The “far left media.” FLM, which deeply cared about the issue, did notice and spent the Clinton era sitting in an almost silent state of disbelief and outrage Perhaps none described the complacency of Bill Clinton better than David Corn (then the Washington editor of "The Nation.") 07.22.02 Too little, too late - How many times is Bill Clinton going to apologize to Africa? The Bi-Line:
May I suggest that every single mainstream journalist should be tied to a chair and force fed that article.
It’s difficult to imagine how the liberal view, on this issue and dozens of others, never made it to the mainstream, other than the obvious understanding of the MSM’s obligatory mandate of protecting Bill Clinton, above all else – simply because he’s one of them, a Democrat. If Reagan had been president during the 90's, and had followed Clinton's lack of lead on this issue, the MSM would never stop blaming him (yea, I know, they are anyway –but) for the tens of millions who contracted HIV in Africa and of course, for the millions who died from HIV/Aids in Africa and the millions who died in genocide and civil war in Rwanda and the DR Congo, next door, during that “Clinton era of peace and prosperity.”
All good points, Gary, and I
October 23, 2007 - 12:16 ET by Rich NoyesAll good points, Gary, and I decided to add the video/audio of CBS's Leonard spinning that Reagan was a cruel man who wanted gays to die of AIDS. You may remember that it was also CBS that put together a TV miniseries "The Reagans" perpetuating the same notion, but the outcry pushed it over to their corporate cousin Showtime (no advertisers to worry about).
Thanks Rich.. "The Clinton's - "Genocide Everwhere.."
October 23, 2007 - 16:55 ET by Gary HallThanks Rich.. and of course I remember "The Reagan's."
I'm still patiently waiting for the mini-series, The Clinton's -Genocide Everywhere, Corporate and Campaign Fraud rules the day, 9/11 is in Final Planning Stages, but Illicit Sexual Affairs rule the Night," to come out.
down down the memory hole
October 23, 2007 - 10:44 ET by candanceShucks, and here for a second I almost believed their revisionist history that Reagan was a loveable grandfather type whom they all respected. Too bad none of the evidence is on their side.....
card holding member of the vast right-wing conspiracy
Lies
October 23, 2007 - 12:16 ET by mattm"The Reagan Administration’s benign neglect of the poor and studied indifference to civil rights..."
The percentage of poor went DOWN in the period from 1981-1989. Inflation went from over 13% to under 5% and was continuing on a downward trend until now it's almost 0. (Which the Lib are now claiming is a bad thing)
Every economic indicator was a negative after Carter and was a positive after Reagan.
On civil rights: Reagan appointed the first female supreme court justice and supported a "colorblind society" which was exactly what MLK wanted. He opposed quotas and head-counting because he is FOR civil rights.
This is how the Dems get elected - they lie and their co-conspirators in the MSM help them do it.