Latest Notable Quotables: Journalists 'Recoil in Horror' from Palin; 'Beloved' Bill Clinton

The Media Research Center has just released the latest edition of Notable Quotables, our bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media. [here's the link to the formatted PDF version]

Highlights from this issue include: journalists suggesting it’s somehow radical to think the Constitution “was intended to limit the federal government” or to expect the government to do nothing outside the “powers granted to them in the Constitution;” ABC News veteran Barbara Walters hoping disgraced Congressman Anthony stays in Congress and winds up like the “beloved” Bill Clinton; and top editors admitting that “not any single reporter” thinks Sarah Palin “should be President,” and how “most journalists would recoil in horror from the idea.”

A sample of the best quotes from the June 27 edition are after the jump; you can read the entire issue online at www.mrc.org.

Journalists Would “Recoil in Horror” at Palin Presidency

“You guys talk about her [Sarah Palin] a lot, we write about her a lot, yet if you talk to any single reporter at any media organization that we’re aware of, I don’t think that anyone thinks she can be President or should be President.”
— The Politico’s executive editor Jim VandeHei, a former Washington Post political reporter, on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, June 14.

“If the 2012 election were held in the newsrooms of America and pitted Sarah Palin against Barack Obama, I doubt Palin would get 10 percent of the vote. However tempting the newsworthy havoc of a Palin presidency, I’m pretty sure most journalists would recoil in horror from the idea.”
— New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller in a column for the paper’s June 19 Sunday Magazine.


Anticipating a “Tough Day,” “Minefield” and “Storm” for Palin...

Co-host Matt Lauer: “Plus, what could be a tough day for potential presidential candidate Sarah Palin. We’re live in Alaska, where thousands of her e-mails as governor there will be released today....”
Co-host Ann Curry: “Sarah Palin says that she’s still thinking about making a run for President, but she’s about to face a new political minefield today....”
Reporter Michael Isikoff: “Fresh off her bus tour that attracted a crush of media attention, Sarah Palin may now be facing a storm of a different kind: the release of thousands of e-mails from Palin to more than 50 top aides and officials in Alaska....”
— NBC’s Today, June 10.


...Only to Be Disappointed: “Not a Lot of Bombshells”

Reporter Michael Isikoff: “The e-mails have lots of redactions, and so far, there are no bombshells....”
NBC’s David Gregory: “As Mike and his team are finding, not a lot of bombshells here....Might we have learned this during her run for the vice presidency when she was on the McCain ticket? Probably so.”
— Hours later on the June 10 NBC Nightly News.

Hoping Weiner Hangs on Like “Beloved” Bill Clinton

“You thought that Anthony Weiner should resign, and that seems to be what a great many people are saying. So I don’t think so. I think what he has done is unfathomable. I think the pictures are disgusting....The ethics committee can investigate him and chastise, but not necessarily throw him out. And we had a President named Bill Clinton who went through a great deal of trouble, weathered the storm and is now not only respected, but he’s beloved by many people with a very good marriage. So, I think Anthony Weiner should hang in there. He was a good Congressman, and maybe he can weather this all and be effective.”
— Barbara Walters to her co-hosts on ABC’s The View, June 9.


Weiner’s Antics Offend Culturally “Backward” Christians

“If he [Anthony Weiner] stays, they [Democrats] never get the leadership back. They never get the Speakership back, because the people in the rural areas of this country who are Christian conservative culturally — you can say backward if you want — but they don’t like this kind of stuff at all.”
— Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball, June 9.


The Constitution Doesn’t Limit Federal Power, Does It?

“The framers were not gods and were not infallible. Yes, they gave us, and the world, a blueprint for the protection of democratic freedoms — freedom of speech, assembly, religion — but they also gave us the idea that a black person was three-fifths of a human being, that women were not allowed to vote and that South Dakota should have the same number of Senators as California, which is kind of crazy....If the Constitution was intended to limit the federal government, it sure doesn’t say so.”
— Time managing editor Richard Stengel in the magazine’s July 4 edition, which featured a picture of the U.S. Constitution going through a shredder with the headline, “Does It Still Matter?”


“Are We Being Too Aggressive About Tackling Deficits?”

Moderator David Gregory: “Doris, we, we showed the pictures from Greece. We can show them again — demonstrations in the streets as a result of draconian cuts being made by the government there. The same question I asked to Senator Graham, are we being too aggressive about tackling deficits at a point when the economy still needs so much help?”
NBC historian Doris Kearns Goodwin: “Absolutely....”
— NBC’s Meet the Press, June 19.


And Jesus Said, “Let Them Pound Sand”

“The House began debating a spending bill today that cuts $833 million from the WIC nutrition program, which provides healthy food to low-income women and their children....Now what was it that Jesus said? ‘Give me your poor and needy, and I’ll go tell them to pound sand.’ That’s at least the Republican vision of Jesus.”
— Anchor Cenk Uygur during the 6pm ET hour of MSNBC News Live, June 14.


With Global Warming, a Giant Ark May Be Good Planning

Correspondent Janet Shamlian: “Johan’s ark has proven seaworthy, but how realistic is this Dutchman’s dream of doom? Because of global warming, the concept of a flood happening here is not unheard of. Al Gore predicted as much in the movie, An Inconvenient Truth.”
Clip of Al Gore from movie: “If Greenland broke up and melted, this is what would happen to the sea level in the Netherlands, absolutely devastating.”
— Story on NBC’s Today, June 22, about a man from Holland who constructed a full-size replica of Noah’s Ark.