Last week, the Media Research Center announced the “Best Notable Quotables of 2014,” and NewsBusters is reviewing the list as a way to reflect on the worst media bias of the year.
Today, the “Media Hero Award,” with quotes showcasing journalists' adoration for liberals past and present. (But not Barack Obama — those quotes can be found in our “Obamagasm” category, featured on Saturday.)
Winning this award was departing ABC host and anchor Barbara Walters, who on the March 19 edition of The View told law professor Anita Hill, the woman who in 1991 tried to torpedo Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court nomination with accusations of sexual harassment, that she was Walters’ “heroine.”
“I would just like to say that I’m honored to be meeting you. I watched those hearings, as did so many other people. And to so many of us, you were our heroine.”
Close behind were Walters’ ABC colleagues Diane Sawyer and David Muir, who gushed over ultra-liberal Senator Elizabeth Warren on the April 21 edition of World News, labeling her a “firebrand” fighting for the middle class:
Anchor Diane Sawyer: “Back here at home, a firebrand is back in the news with a big alert for middle class Americans, the bedrock of the nation....”
Correspondent David Muir: “It’s long been part of the American dream. Families hoping to secure their spot in America’s cherished middle class. And she is the firebrand who’s made a name fighting for them.”
Clip of Senator Elizabeth Warren: “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own.”...
Muir: “She says she’s not running for president, Diane, but she’s clearly campaigning for the middle class tonight.”
Next, longtime political writer John Heilemann, who on October 7 exhibited an over-the-top appreciation for Bill Clinton’s political skills during a segment on his new show, Bloomberg’s With All Due Respect, which he co-hosts alongside Mark Halperin:
“The hands, they’re like the paintbrushes of Picasso. He just uses them as an artistic expression mode....The thing about Clinton is, everybody thinks he’s a great improviser, and he is a great improviser. But he also hones these speeches....He’s like a great editor, in addition to being a great spontaneous orator.”
Finally, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell apparently couldn’t help herself as she interviewed Jimmy Carter for the March 23 edition of NBC’s Meet the Press, asking the failed disco-era President to reveal his “magic.”
“I just wanted to ask finally: With all your energy, what keeps you going? What is the secret, the magic of Jimmy Carter?”
Good grief! Tomorrow, the Planet in Peril Award for Climate Hysteria. You can check out the full awards issue, with 14 categories and Quote of the Year, at www.MRC.org.
