Notable Quotables: CNN Lobbies on Behalf of Planned Parenthood

Now online: the August 17 edition of Notable Quotables, MRC’s bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous quotes in the liberal media. This week, with the nation’s largest abortion provider under fire for allegedly selling baby body parts for profit, CNN’s on-air hosts lecture Republicans on the need to maintain the flow of taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood. “You shouldn’t rush to defund,” CNN’s Chris Cuomo told one GOP congesswoman.

And, Bloomberg’s John Heilemann and Mark Halperin declare Hillary Clinton’s “fiery” and “passionate” defense of the abortion industry the “best day I’ve seen her have as a candidate in this cycle.” Highlights are posted below; the entire issue is posted online with 20 quotes, six with video, at www.MRC.org.

 

CNN Anchors Lobby on Behalf of Planned Parenthood

“Why do you want to defund Planned Parenthood?....Why not try to fix the organization, from your perspective, and allow all of these women to get the services that they have relied on at these 800 clinics, Planned Parenthood clinics, around the country?”
— CNN’s Wolf Blitzer to GOP presidential candidate Rand Paul on Wolf, July 30.

“Those videos have been maligned by both sides as being selectively edited and showing something that is legal and a ongoing practice....What is done in terms of using tissue for research and being reimbursed is something that you’ve long been aware of, Congressman, has long been legal, and is certainly not cause for outrage — or at least hasn’t been until now....You shouldn’t rush to defund, should you?”
— CNN New Day co-anchor Chris Cuomo to Rep. Diane Black (R-TN), August 3.

Hillary’s Abortion Defense = Her “Best Day” as a Candidate

Bloomberg host John Heilemann: “You saw her today give a very fiery, very passionate, and I thought very authentic attack on Marco Rubio specifically, and on the Republicans more generally, on women’s issues, coming out of the debate....”
Bloomberg host Mark Halperin: “In talking about reproductive freedom, in talking about Marco Rubio and his position about no exceptions for rape and incest for abortion, she was passionate and herself....Best day I’ve seen her have as a candidate in this cycle.”
— Discussion on PBS’s Charlie Rose, August 10.

Hillary’s E-Mail Scandal: We’ll Never Satisfy the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

Correspondent Pete Williams: “What we’re told, repeatedly, is that the FBI is not investigating people — it’s investigating how the system worked, and did classified information wrongly get onto the server.”
Anchor Andrea Mitchell: “Anne Gearan [of the Washington Post], there’s going to be a cloud of suspicion, though, by those who just want to see conspiracy theories. There’s almost no way she can clear this up to the satisfaction of critics on the other side in terms of the politics of this.”
— MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, August 12.

Bernie Sanders’s “Wonderful and Refreshing” Socialist Agenda

“Meanwhile, they have Bernie Sanders out there, you know, stating a case. And many of them probably don’t agree with everything he has to say, but it’s just so wonderful and refreshing to have somebody saying some of these things.”
— Boston Globe national political reporter Annie Linskey on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, August 12.

Biden’s Blunders = “Political Charm”

“[Vice President Joe] Biden is an experienced campaigner. If he runs, it would be his third attempt at the White House....But he’s also had his fair share of stumbles — from back rubs to BFD’s, Biden is a gaffe-making machine. But those ‘Oh, that Joe’ moments are part of his political charm.”
— ABC reporter Mary Bruce on Good Morning America, August 2.

At Least He’s Keeping an Open Mind

“I think Donald Trump is the loudest voice of intolerance, division and hatred right now in America.”
— Univision and Fusion news anchor Jorge Ramos on CNN’s Reliable Sources, August 9.

Republicans Deserve Any Damage Caused by Their “Trumpenstein” Monster

“I used to be really sick of Trump....But I’ve completely changed. Now, I’m real interested in hearing what he has to say, because my basic attitude is, [it] couldn’t happen to a nicer political party. They’re getting what they deserve. They have created ‘Trumpenstein.’ It’s their own Frankenstein monster. And this is what happens when you do what they’ve done for the last five to 10 years — it’s their just desserts as a political party.”
— Longtime Newsweek senior editor Jonathan Alter, now a Bloomberg columnist and MSNBC contributor, on MSNBC’s PoliticsNation, August 11.

So Much Easier If Conservative Talk Radio Would Just Go Away

“The unanimity among establishment Republicans — many of them conservatives by the definition of anyone but purists — that right-wing media has become a big problem for the party, and their readiness to talk about it, was something of a surprise to this reporter of three decades’ experience in Washington. Of the establishment Republicans among several dozen conservatives interviewed, nearly all were flummoxed about how to moderate the party. Most expressed despair. The common hope was that the ultimate 2016 nominee could and would speak truth to power — the power, that is, of conservative media and their allies in the well-heeled advocacy groups.”
— New York Times national reporter Jackie Calmes in her July 27 paper for Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, “‘They Don’t Give a Damn About Governing’ — Conservative Media’s Influence on the Republican Party.”

Mourning the Departure of Jon Stewart, “Invaluable Patriot”

“Four nights a week for sixteen years, Jon Stewart, the host and impresario of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, has taken to the air to expose our civic bizarreries. He has been heroic and persistent. Blasted into orbit by a trumped-up (if you will) impeachment and a stolen Presidential election, and then rocketing through the war in Iraq and right up to the current electoral circus, with its commodious clown car teeming with would-be Commanders-in-Chief, Stewart has lasered away the layers of hypocrisy in politics and in the media. On any given night, a quick montage of absurdist video clips culled from cable or network news followed by Stewart’s vaudeville reactions can be ten times as deflating to the self-regard of the powerful as any solemn editorial — and twice as illuminating as the purportedly non-fake news that provides his fuel....Stewart set out to be a working comedian, and he ended up an invaluable patriot.”
— New Yorker editor David Remnick writing in the August 10 issue.

To read the entire August 17 edition of Notable Quotables, please visit www.MRC.org.