Sports fans checking in on coverage of Team USA at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia might want to brace themselves for unexpected outbursts of liberal preaching from reporters covering the games.
Over the years the MRC has documented lefty reporters and writers using the games to celebrate socialist policies, bash expressions of patriotism and even work in jabs against Republicans. In the spirit of the games, the most outrageous journalists are competing with each other in three events for the Gold, Silver and Bronze medals. Today's competition: The “We'll Find a Way to Ridicule Republicans Even in Our Olympic Coverage” Event. Click the Read More button to see who takes home the gold!
Day one results here.
Day two results here.
The “We’ll Find a Way to Ridicule Republicans Even in Our Olympic Coverage” Event
We Interrupt Your Sports Report to Remind You People Hate the Bush Administration (runner-up)
“At the last minute Secretary of State Colin Powell canceled his trip to Athens. He had planned to attend tomorrow’s closing ceremony. Just hours before that happened Greek activists hung a huge banner on the Acropolis. It said, ‘Powell Killer Go Home.’”
— NBC’s Lester Holt on Today, August 8, 2004.
“It’s a big day for the Romneys as the family horse Rafalca makes its Olympic debut. Ann Romney cheering on the horse she co-owns in London, but where’s her husband Mitt? He’s back here in the United States, preparing to pick a vice president, and possibly trying to avoid charges that a sport involving horse ballet might not make him the most relatable candidate for the average voter.”
— CNN host Carol Costello on CNN Newsroom, August 2, 2012.
“Just in time for another Olympics, and another debate about the permeable boundary between Olympic sport and international politics, the Holocaust Museum is reprising its 1996 exhibition devoted to the infamous Games of ’36....It’s impossible to walk through the current exhibition without feeling a repetition syndrome. Just as Jim Crow laws blunted the force of moral outrage against the Nazis, the specter of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo has blunted the force of arguments about Chinese political repression.”
— Washington Post arts critic Philip Kennicott in May 10, 2008 article “Playing With Fire: U.S. Holocaust Museum Revisits Fascist Iconography of 1936 Games and Beyond.”
“Finally tonight, the Winter Games. Count me among those who don’t like ‘em and won’t watch ‘em. In fact, I figure when Thomas Paine said, ‘These are the times that try men’s souls,’ he must have been talking about the start of another Winter Olympics. Because they’re so trying, maybe over the next three weeks we should all try, too. Like, try not to be incredulous when someone attempts to link these games to those of the ancient Greeks who never heard of skating or skiing. So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world’s greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention.”
— Former CBS and NBC morning host Bryant Gumbel on his HBO program Real Sports, February 7, 2006.
