MRC's Notable Quotables: Can't Say If George Tilts Left or Right

Now online: the June 1 edition of Notable Quotables, MRC’s bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous quotes in the liberal media. This week, with George Stephanopoulos under fire for his donations to the Clinton Foundation, the BBC's Katty Kay declares it impossible to find "a partisan bent" in any of his work at ABC News.

And, USA Today's Susan Page cannot fathom why the scandal-plagued Hillary Clinton would duck questions, because "she can handle any question you throw at her....She does it very well." Highlights are posted below; the entire issue is posted online, with three videos and 22 quotes at www.MRC.org.

Can’t Figure Out if George Tilts Left or Right

“I don’t think you can look at George [Stephanopoulos] over the last few years and say there was a partisan bent to his interviewing, or to his anchoring, or to his reporting.”
— BBC World News America anchor Katty Kay on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, May 15.

 

Why Would Excellent Hillary Duck Any Questions?

“She can handle any question you throw at her. It’s a mystery to me why she doesn’t want to take a couple questions every day so that this is isn’t a story, and so she has a chance to respond to negative stories that are out there and to make her case. Because she does it — she does it very well.”
— USA Today’s Susan Page on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, May 19.

 

Hillary’s So “Manipulative” and “Secretive,” She Could Be Another FDR

“Franklin Roosevelt — probably the best president we ever had, certainly in the 20th century — was very secretive and manipulative, and we still thought he was a good president. So if Hillary Clinton is secretive, we know that, is that going to help us get any further here?”
— Host Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball, May 21.

 

“Neophyte” GOP vs. “3:00 in the Morning” Hillary

“She is the red phone at 3:00 in the morning candidate, and you have bunch of fresh-faced, youngish Republicans for the most part, who look like neophytes. And no matter how hawkish they are, they all sort of sound the same. They’re going to have to put themselves far to the right, in sort of neo-con territory, to distinguish themselves from her.”
— New York magazine essayist Frank Rich on CBS’s Face the Nation, May 17.

 

Angry About Media Bias — Against Socialist Bernie Sanders

“In democracy, the voters decide who wins a presidential election. But the media has great influence over which candidates get serious consideration. So when it comes to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and the 2016 race, it’s clear that he’s getting a raw deal. It’s long since time the press gave him the respect he deserves....The fact that he is utterly fearless in advocating for Scandinavian-style democratic socialism is no reason to treat him like a kook.”
— National correspondent Ryan Cooper writing in The Week, May 26.

 

Exactly How Racist Are America’s Police Departments?

“Your first day on the job, you were dealing with what was going on in Baltimore....We’ve had Ferguson, we’ve had Cleveland, we’ve had North Charleston. What’s going on in this country?...Is it individual racism, or do you think it’s institutional racism?”
— Co-host Norah O’Donnell to Attorney General Loretta Lynch on CBS This Morning, May 22.

 

Enthusing Over Barack & Bill’s Twitter Schtick

“No sitting president has done what this sitting president did today. We’ll have the story coming up....President Obama test drove his own personal Twitter account today. In his first tweet, he wrote: ‘Hello, Twitter. It’s Barack. Really! Six years in, they’re finally giving me my own account.’”
— Anchor Scott Pelley on the CBS Evening News, May 18.

 

Why Communists Beat America When It Comes to Train Tracks

“We have a country where people can complain. In communist countries like China, they just draw a straight line, whether it goes through your house or not, it’s a straight line. We have this Amtrak, I’ve been taking it for a half a century, it doesn’t go in a straight line. In this case, it tried to make a turn and turned over, because there’s so many turns on that route. How do you get rid of the turns?”
— MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews on May 13, fretting about curves in train tracks.

 

Blame Reagan for Squelching Coverage of the Homeless?

Host Tavis Smiley: “How did the issue of homelessness fall off of the radar for discussion?”
Actress Susan Sarandon: “I think that the conversation changed around the Reagan era, where everything was your fault. And so you blamed, you were blamed for not trying hard enough, you know, from drinking, for drugs, whatever....”
— May 13 edition of PBS’s Tavis Smiley.

 

Saturday Night Live’s Fake Hillary: “I’m Rooting for Her!”

The Hollywood Reporter’s Michael O’Connell: “You have a huge platform in the next year and a half being the Hillary Clinton of SNL. How are you going to approach that? Do you feel pressure?”
Actress/comedienne Kate McKinnon: “I do feel immense pressure. I’m rooting for her, obviously....I’d be so nervous to meet her. I find her so resplendent!”
— From an interview with McKinnon and five other female comics, June 5 Hollywood Reporter.

 

Giving Thanks Every Day for the Great Barack Obama

“I’ve been watching politics since Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and Obama is my favorite, favorite president. I am just thankful for every day that he’s in office. I am so proud that he represents my country and I think he represents me — I think he represents the America that I know....Every day that Barack Obama and Michelle Obama are in the White House is a day that I am thankful for.”
— Singer James Taylor, as quoted by Associated Press music editor Mesfin Fekadu in a May 14 dispatch headlined, “James Taylor says Obama is great; riding Hillary train.”

To read the entire May 18 edition of Notable Quotables, please visit www.MRC.org.