Now online: the October 6 edition of Notable Quotables, MRC’s bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous quotes in the liberal media. This week, NBC’s Chuck Todd tags the very liberal Eric Holder as “non-political,” even as his own network can’t decide if the President’s assertion that intelligence agencies failed to warn about ISIS was a “candid” admission or shifting the blame away from the White House.
Also, journalists keep elevating the Clinton clan to the ranks of “political royalty,” and Rosie O’Donnell suggests Big Oil and NFL referees are the real forces behind America’s war against ISIS. Highlights are posted after the jump; the entire issue is posted online, with 21 quotes (two with video) at www.MRC.org.
Farewell to the “Non-Political” Eric Holder
“He’s a very non-political person. And I think people used to mistakenly think that this guy was this long-time political operative who happened to be an Attorney General. That’s not him at all. In fact, that used to get him in some hot water with some of the President’s own political aides who sometimes felt that Eric Holder wasn’t thinking about the politics of an issue....He’d get criticized, say from Republicans on Capitol Hill, because they thought, ‘Oh, he’s being too much — too political.’ The guy wasn’t political at all, and in many ways just ended up being the point person to attract a lot of attacks.”
— NBC Meet the Press host Chuck Todd on MSNBC’s NewsNation September 25.
A “Candid” Admission, or Obama’s Own Failure?
“This seemed to be a very candid interview. The President blamed the former U.S.-backed Iraqi government for allowing ISIS to flourish, and said American intelligence didn’t fully appreciate the threat....On Sunday, President Obama told 60 Minutes U.S. intelligence failed to see it coming....It’s a major intelligence failure....”
— Chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel on NBC’s Today, September 29.
vs.
Correspondent Andrea Mitchell: “The ISIS threat was not a secret, say intelligence leaders, to anyone watching or listening, despite what the President told 60 Minutes....So is this an intelligence failure, or is this a failure of policymakers all the way up to the President of the United States?”
NBC terrorism expert Michael Leiter: “Those warnings were clear and loud, at least over the past two years, in my view.”
— NBC Nightly News, September 29.
Correction: What We Wrote About Bush Was Baseless Left-Wing Spin
“An article on Sept. 11 about President Obama’s speech to the nation describing his plans for a military campaign against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, gave an incorrect comparison between efforts by the President to seek allies’ support for his plans and President George W. Bush’s efforts on such backing for the Iraq war. The approach Mr. Obama is taking is similar to the one Mr. Bush took; it is not the case that, ‘Unlike Mr. Bush in the Iraq war, Mr. Obama has sought to surround the United States with partners.’”
— Correction printed in the September 23 edition of the New York Times.
Obviously, Worrying About ISIS Is Just a Right-Wing Scam
“I’ll admit that it bothers me deeply to hear people worry aloud about ISIS coming to get them personally....I know the political hucksters love pushing the fear button. They exalt in the word ‘homeland,’ that ominous term, cooked up by the neo-cons to drive us off to the stupidest war decision in history....But that talk was for a purpose of getting us into a stupid war. What’s the purpose now? Why push the Armageddon button now? Could it be that scaring people is one way to justify just about anything right-wing, anything that exploits military force, anything that turns the United States into a relentless military presence, a machine really, in the Middle East, an endless adversary and killer of Arabs and other Muslims.”
— Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball, September 17.
Slobbering Over the “Royal” Clintons
— Politico Magazine’s Adam Lerner in a September 22 feature, “What Should Chelsea Clinton Name Her Baby?”
“The announcement came via Twitter just after midnight on Saturday morning, in a tweet from Chelsea Clinton announcing the birth of the newest member of a family of political royalty.”
— White House correspondent Bill Plante on CBS This Morning, September 29.
Co-anchor Don Lemon: “This is kind of our version — any time a politician’s daughter has a child, this is our version of a royal baby, correct?”
CNN host Fareed Zakaria: “Well, particularly the Clintons, it does feel like that.”
— Exchange on CNN Tonight, September 23.
“Just moments ago, Chelsea Clinton and her new baby girl Charlotte, left the hospital....This is sort of like, you know, kind of reminds of the whole Kate and William moment. I mean, isn’t it even the same dress?”
— Anchor Erin Burnett on CNN’s OutFront, September 29.
Lucky Reagan Only Faced an Evil Empire with 10,000 Nukes
“These days there is a lot of ‘if-only-Obama-could-lead-like-Reagan’ talk by conservatives. I’ll leave it to historians to figure out years from now who was the better president. But what I’d argue is this: In several critical areas, Reagan had a much easier world to lead in than Obama does now.”
— Thomas Friedman in his September 28 New York Times column.
Blame ISIS War on Greedy Oil Companies and NFL Refs
“Even though it doesn’t say so on the news, we went to war yesterday in America against another country in the Mideast. And to me, no matter what, that’s wrong. You don’t fight violence with violence....I can’t get out of my head the fact that Syria has a lot of oil. A lot of oil. Not a lot of oil in Rwanda or the Congo — atrocities there all the time....I do think there’s a financial agenda attached to it.”
— Co-host Rosie O’Donnell on ABC’s The View, September 24, talking about Obama’s airstrikes against ISIS.
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg: “[Kansas City] Chiefs player Husain Abdullah, a devout Muslim, was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct for bowing in prayer after a big play. Now, players like Tim Tebow, you know, do the whole thing and the [makes sign of the cross]. You know? And so why don’t other people get penalized? Is this — are we feeding into Muslim fear?”
Co-host Rosie O’Donnell: “Yes. I think as a nation we are. I think that, you know, it propels us to war. You have to rally the country in order to bomb a country that did nothing to you.”
— ABC’s The View, September 30.
To read the entire September 22 edition of Notable Quotables, please visit www.MRC.org.
