Today’s installment of the Media Research Center’s “Best Notable Quotables of 2013,” as selected by our 42 expert judges, the “Obama's Orderlies Award,” for championing ObamaCare.
Back in 2010, this award was “won” by then-MSNBC star Keith Olbermann, who on January 5 of that year lambasted conservatives for daring to oppose Obama's big government solution: “What would you do, sir, if terrorists were killing 45,000 people every year in this country? Well, the current health care system, the insurance companies, and those who support them are doing just that....Remind me again, who are the terrorists?”
This year, as ObamaCare began to unravel, the media cheerleaders were still out in force. (Winners and videos after the jump.)
First place went to Ed Schultz, for his hilariously sycophantic trumpeting of HealthCare.gov on September 30, just hours before the Web site crashed and exposed the flaws in our brilliant central planners’ schemes:
“This is the Web site folks, HealthCare.gov. If you go to this Web site, you will find out how easy it is to read, how easy it is to navigate all the information, all the basic questions, and all the direction you need to take to get involved, to get health care. This is a great guide, if I may say, for any of you out there who feel so confused by all of these right-wing commercials that are just permeating through your television screen.”
Second-place went to MSNBC's Krystal Ball, for her September 24 condemnation of conservatives for supposedly exhorting young people to die for the cause of opposing Obama:
“The GOP is saying to young people, ‘We would like to have the government stick an unnecessary transvaginal probe in you if you want an abortion, but when it comes to health insurance, don’t take any government help. Don’t go to the state or federal government-operated insurance exchanges to buy private insurance. Stay away. Stay uninsured. Skip that pap smear. Skip that tetanus shot. Skip that prenatal care. Skip that cholesterol test. And if you die an agonizing and unnecessary death, one that could have been prevented by the health insurance reform that bears the President’s name, at least you know your death will have not been in vain. You will have died to serve the noble and patriotic cause not of conservatism, but of hurting this President and denying him a victory.’...That is not conservative. It is a national disgrace.”
Next up, ABC correspondent Jim Avila, for a piece on the October 29 edition of World News that attempted to justify the President’s “if you like your policy, you can keep your policy” lie. Avila rationalized Obama as trying to safeguard Americans from “dangerous” insurance:
Correspondent Jim Avila: “Why is this happening? Because insurance companies, which offered cheap insurance like Julie’s, left out basics now required by ObamaCare, like hospital coverage, maternity, mental health or prescription drugs and are now forced to cancel those plans and replace them....Julie tells us that she doesn’t have hospital care on this cheap insurance plan. Is that dangerous?”
Consumers Union’s Lynn Quincy: “Absolutely. That’s an enormous hole in her coverage.”
Finally, CBS’s Bob Schieffer drew the judges’ notice for equating the push to block ObamaCare with the zealotry of Japanese soldiers who kept fighting World War II for years past the Emperor’s surrender:
CBS’s Bob Schieffer: “They’re going to pass this [measure to defund ObamaCare] in the House, I would assume, and it’s going to go nowhere in the Senate. When the Wall Street Journal compares them to, you know, those Japanese suicide pilots in World War II, I wonder if it isn’t — I think that’s apt. But even more apt, you remember — way on into the 1950s when they’d go into the jungles of the Philippines and they’d find these Japanese soldiers that thought World War II was still going on?”
Co-host Gayle King: “Good analogy.”
Schieffer: “I mean, you know, the war over ObamaCare is over. You know?...I think in the long run this is going to hurt the Republicans.”
Tomorrow, the "Audacity of Dopes Award," for the wackiest analysis of the year (a very crowded category, to be sure). The full report, with 15 categories plus the judges’ selection of Quote of the Year, is available at: www.MRC.org.
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