On the night of New Year's Eve, CNN produced a clip show called "All the Best, All the Worst of 2010" with some CNN personalities, a few other journalists, and some comedians. With its quick cuts and splashy color, it may have looked more like VH-1 than CNN, but it produced the same conventional liberal "wisdom." This gave Kathleen Parker yet another opportunity to dismiss Sarah Palin as not a serious political figure:
TOM FOREMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Best pounding of the pundits.
SARAH PALIN: Whoo, Nevada.
FOREMAN: Sarah Palin.
JULIA REED, NEWSWEEK: A borderline lunatic.
JULIE CHEN, CBS: Love her or hate her, she's definitely entertaining.
FOREMAN: The hockey mom gone rogue proved all the predictions of her political demise dead wrong, surging in prominence in Republican and Tea Party circles, giving us a new book, a new word of the year, refudiate, and even a new reality show.
RICH EISEN, NFL NETWORK: I think Sarah Palin would say she's not doing a reality show, she's -- she's showing you the peaks and valleys in the -- the -- the indigenous life of -- of Alaska. And by that I mean her husband, I think.
KATHLEEN PARKER: I think she is a brilliant politician. I think she has an instinct for the zeitgeist and for what people need to hear. But I don't see her as a serious political figure.
CNN's judgment was traditionally liberal:
FOREMAN: Best tongue in cheek, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear. Best never-say-die spirit -- the write-in candidacy and endless vote count for Senator Lisa Murkowski.
EISEN: Every year, you've just got to wonder which state is going to be the one that still counts deep into November. And Alaska, you're it this year. Congratulations.
FOREMAN: Best non-political political story -- Chelsea Clinton's wedding to whoever that guy is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please welcome.
FOREMAN: Best double play -- the two President Bushes throwing a pitch at the World Series. Worst lack of diversity -- Elena Kagan was confirmed. And that means the entire Supreme Court attended Yale or Harvard Law School.
CNN also replayed its dismay for America's "Islamophobia" in 2010:
FOREMAN: Worst community relations -- the war over the proposed Muslim center and mosque near Ground Zero.
ANDERSON COOPER: You know, the questions about what it means to be an American and who is an American and what -- what is America.
SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think it showed so many people in the world at large that we're intolerant. And is that the message that -- that should -- do we want people to think that Americans are intolerant?
FOREMAN: Worst interloper -- the Florida pastor who tossed gasoline onto the barbeque by threatening to burn the Koran.
JACK GRAY, CNN PRODUCER: I thought it was reprehensible and disgusting. And no one should be allowed on television with -- with that mustache and those mutton chops. He should have been voted off the island.
This clip show somehow entirely skipped over America's radical Islamists and their foiled attempts to murder Americans in 2010. The CNN crew was harsh about President Obama's political failures:
FOREMAN: President Obama spent pretty much the whole year on the griddle. As the heat went up, his approval ratings went down, and just as a majority of voters once seemed to think he could do no wrong, this year some acted as if he could do no right. It was enough to make even the presidential seal come unglued.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We cannot sustain - oops. Was that my - oh, goodness.
COOPER: The president's seal falling off the podium. Yes. I don't know. Maybe, you know, we've spent some money on other stuff, we can't afford glue anymore.
ELIOT SPITZER: It's been a horrendous year. He hasn't convinced anybody that he has moved us or even knows how to move us in a direction that is appropriate.
BARATUNDE THURSTON, THE ONION: Unable to satisfy his own constituents from the left and certainly unable to find common ground with those on the right.
RICH EISEN: I'd say President Obama had a bad season.
JULIA REED: Bad year for Barack Obama. You know, certainly a terrible year for Barack Obama.
But shortly thereafter, the sympathetic tone bubbled up:
FOREMAN: Unemployment problems coast to coast created a terrible environment for the president. So did the continuing mortgage crisis, the soaring deficit.
THURSTON: It's a tough job. The worst job in the world.
JULIE CHEN: What, this is the first term for him? Any person going into that position, I don't think, could have done much better.
PETE DOMINICK, COMEDIAN: Americans, we're not a - we're not a patient bunch.
FOREMAN: Worst moment, that CNBC town hall meeting when he was confronted by a voter.
VELMA HART, LOST HER JOB: I'm exhausted. I - I'm exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for. And I'm waiting, sir. I - I'm waiting. I - I don't feel it yet.
FOREMAN: She later lost her job.
JULIE CHEN: What could any of us say if we were in his shoes at that moment?
KATHLEEN PARKER: Obama, I think, was shocked. You could tell he was taken completely by surprise.
JULIA REED: Even the people that liked this guy, they - they're having to work on it. You know, I mean, I don't want to sound like I think Obama's a bad guy, because I don't. I just - I'm just puzzled increasingly by him and his style of governing.
SUNNY HOSTIN: I think he, you know, came in on this change, yes, we can, yes, we can, yes, we can, and now it looks like, well, no, we can't. No, we can't, no, you can't.
FOREMAN: The news was certainly not all bad for the president.
BARATUNDE THURSTON: It's easy to forget health care legislation, record- setting financial reform from an historic presidential perspective. He's got to be pretty happy with those results.
OBAMA: For the first time in six years, Ford, GM and Chrysler are all operating at a profit.
FOREMAN: The bulls pushed the markets up.
PETE DOMINICK: If you really want to make a lot of money, you have to come to New York and work on Wall Street, because their salaries are the highest they have ever been.
ANDERSON COOPER: His supporters will say there are things he accomplished, but, obviously, you know, as he himself said, he took a shellacking in the midterm elections.
JULIE CHEN: What do we want him to do? Lose his cool and pull his hair out and scream and shout and -- and kick? I mean, not very presidential.
JACK GRAY: This year he had problems with not just conservatives, but liberals.
FOREMAN: Best or worst political schizophrenia, depending on how you look at it, the independent voters who pushed Barack Obama into office, and this year pushed away from him just as hard.
The biggest cliche came as CNN's year-end analysts were asked about their wishes for the New Year. CBS's Julie Chen simply said "Stop the hate. Stop the bullying. And just give peace a chance."
