MRC's Notable Quotables: Slashing Rick Perry, 'the Human Tornado'

Like clockwork, as soon as Rick Perry joined the GOP presidential field, the liberal media started slashing at the Texas Governor, impugning him as a “name-calling,” “human tornado,” “anti-science” racist —just “Bull Connor with a smile,” according to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. Plus, Perry’s best-in-the-nation record on job creation is really a myth — not a “Texas miracle” but a “Texas tragedy,” according to CBS News.

As for Barack Obama, CNN shows they play no favorites, holding the President’s feet to the fire in a grueling interview: “The last time you were elected, you got Sasha and Malia a cute little puppy, Bo. What are you going to get them the next time, if you’re re-elected?” These quotes, plus many more, in the latest edition of MRC’s Notable Quotables (best quotes after the jump; full issue posted here at MRC.org).

Media Slash at Rick Perry, the “Human Tornado”

“On the broadcast tonight, fighting words. Rick Perry comes out swinging and talking, and the White House tells him to watch what he says....The rest of the country is learning what Texans already know about their Governor, what he says, what he does, how he does business....Today’s debate had to do with money, name-calling, and whether or not the President of the United States loves his country.”
— NBC’s Brian Williams opening the August 16 Nightly News.

Anchor Diane Sawyer: “The human tornado from Texas, Governor Rick Perry, who electrified the Republican race, raised the decibel level today against the President, challenging to a kind of political duel on ways to jump-start jobs, fast....”
Correspondent Jake Tapper: “Democrats say that until Perry came along, they never thought they’d meet a candidate who made the other Republican candidates look responsible.”
— ABC World News, August 16.

“Unmistakably Texan, unabashedly conservative, Governor Rick Perry does not care about the overwhelming scientific evidence that global warming is largely produced by humans burning fossil fuels.”
— ABC’s Jim Avila on Good Morning America, August 18. [Watch the video on MRC-TV]


Perry’s “Texas Miracle” Really a “Texas Tragedy”

Correspondent Wyatt Andrews: “It’s his most important accomplishment, and one Texas-sized claim.”
Clip of Rick Perry: “Texas continues to lead the nation in job creation.”
Andrews: “Some call this the Texas miracle....But Perry also got lucky when high oil prices boosted energy-related jobs....Perry’s bedrock pledge to never raise taxes also had a reckoning this year when his budget faced a $27 billion shortfall. With taxes not an option, the state cut deeply into health care, and so deeply into education, some 49,000 teachers are being laid off. [to teacher Rachel Zertuche] Do you see a Texas miracle?”
Rachel Zertuche: “No. I see a Texas tragedy.”
— August 12 CBS Evening News.


Is Rick Perry Just “Bull Connor With a Smile?”

“I know you’re an objective reporter, but I smell birtherism about this guy. His attack on Obama isn’t just policy. It’s about the nature of the person who’s President....This could be Bull Connor with a smile.”
— Host Chris Matthews to Dallas Morning News senior political writer Wayne Slater, MSNBC’s Hardball, August 16.

“Do you think Rick Perry would be for that? Do you think he’d be cheering for Ike today if he brought the troops in to desegregate the schools in Little Rock? I don’t think so!...He talks about secession. He talks about states’ rights. He’s got all the idiom of the guys who hate civil rights....I compared him to Bull Connor with a smile yesterday. Maybe that was too far, but I’m still learning about this guy.”
— Matthews on the August 17 Hardball.

Smearing “Radical” Tea Party and “Queen of Rage” Bachmann

“In Iowa, where she was raised, [Representative Michele] Bachmann has become the living embodiment of the Tea Party. She and her allies have been called a maniacal gang of knife-wielding ideologues. That’s hyperbole, of course. But the principled rigidity of her position has created some challenges for her campaign....Far more damaging than the charge of double standards may be the growing realization among Americans of just how radical the Tea Party movement really is....For now, Bachmann revels in the Iowa crowds, which don’t fuss about the missing fine print behind her ideas, the perceived contradictions among them, or their radicalism.”
— Newsweek’s Lois Romano in the magazine’s August 15 cover story on Bachmann headlined “The Queen of Rage.”


ABC Already Spending New Taxes from “Mega Rich”

Anchor Diane Sawyer: “Is it time for the mega-rich to pay at least the same tax rate as their secretaries? And if they did pay their fair share, would it fix America’s schools or roads?...”
Correspondent Bianna Golodryga: “An additional one percent tax on the richest Americans is estimated to raise $100 billion in extra revenue during the next decade....And while experts agree that $100 billion over the next decade wouldn’t be enough to even make a dent in the deficit, it would go far in other ways. For example, it’s enough to build almost 7,000 new elementary schools or more than 2,000 new high schools, Diane.”
— ABC’s World News, August 15.


CNN Anchors’ Tag Team Advocacy on Tax Hikes

Co-host Ali Velshi: “Senator, we haven’t seen a tax increase in a long time. In fact, we got an extension of the Bush-era tax cut.”
Co-host Christine Romans: “We’ve been cutting taxes for 10 years.”
Velshi: “And we haven’t seen the job creation. So, where is the evidence that not cutting taxes creates jobs? We haven’t seen it.”
— Grilling Republican Senator Pat Toomey on CNN’s American Morning, August 11. [Watch the video on MRC-TV]

Only “Far Right” Blames Obama for Nation’s Woes

Host Al Hunt: “What kind of shape is Barack Obama in for the 2012 campaign in Iowa?”
Former NBC News President Michael Gartner: “I think he’s in pretty good shape. First of all, people out here have an attachment to him because he was out here. I think people have a fondness for him and I don’t think people blame him for anything that’s wrong in this country, unless — I think the far-right of the Republican Party does, but I don’t think the moderates do, and certainly the Democrats don’t.”
— An exchange on Bloomberg’s Political Capital, August 12.


Undoubtedly the Question 14 Million Unemployed People Want Answered

“The last time you were elected, you got Sasha and Malia a cute little puppy, Bo. What are you going to get them the next time, if you’re re-elected?”
— CNN’s Wolf Blitzer to President Obama in an interview shown on The Situation Room, August 16.