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Obviously Not the Media’s Choice |
Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift: "This [McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin]
is not a serious choice. It makes it look like a made for TV movie. If the media
reaction is anything, it’s been literally laughter in many places across news-"
Host John McLaughlin: "Where is that? See that?"
Clift: "In very, very many newsrooms."
— Exchange on The McLaughlin Group, August 31.
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"It’s hard to
know how many women will flock to the GOP ticket because of Palin. She is a
far-right conservative who supported Pat Buchanan over George W. Bush in 2000.
She thinks global warming is a hoax and backs the teaching of creationism in
public schools. Women are not likely to be impressed by her opposition to
abortion even in the case of rape and incest."
— Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter in a "Web exclusive" posted on his
magazine’s Web site, August 29.
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Are You Even More Unbeatable? |
"What do you think of Senator McCain’s vice presidential choice?...Does the fact
that he chose as his Vice President someone who has less experience than you
take that weapon out of his arsenal?"
— CBS’s Steve Kroft to Obama on 60 Minutes, August 31. |
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Obama "Looks Like John Adams" |
"[McCain has] done it [picked Sarah Palin] at great cost, because the whole
Republican convention...was going to be the slogan, ‘He’s not ready to lead,’
meaning Barack Obama. Well, Sarah Palin makes Barack Obama look like John Adams.
I mean, it’s just, it’s no contest."
— Newsweek’s Howard Fineman on MSNBC’s Countdown, August 29. |
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What’s the GOP’s Nastiest Smear? |
"What of the attacks has busted through to you? What makes you angriest at John
McCain, the Republicans? What’s being said about your husband that you want to
shout from the mountain tops is not true?"
— NBC’s Brian Williams to Michelle Obama in a taped interview shown on the
August 27 Nightly News."Many of the attacks that have come from
John McCain’s campaign have been, quite frankly, condescending. Are you
surprised by that? Does it anger you?"
— CBS’s Harry Smith to Democratic candidate Barack Obama on The Early Show,
August 22. |
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Impressing His Biggest Fans |
"I’m just not so sure I’ve ever witnessed anything like this in all of the
politics that I’ve covered, which goes back quite a few years already. This
place rumbled. And there were certain points during the speech when the
stadium was just so alive, and the ground was almost quaking."
— CBS’s Harry Smith on The Early Show, August 29, the morning
after Barack Obama’s convention address."In many ways it was less a
speech than a symphony. It moved quickly, it had high tempo, at times
inspiring, then it became more intimate, slower, all along sort of
interweaving a main theme about America’s promise, echoes of Lincoln, of
King, even of Reagan and of Kennedy....It was a masterpiece."
— CNN analyst David Gergen during live coverage following Obama’s
convention speech, August 28.
Keith Olbermann: "For 42 minutes, not a sour note and spellbinding
throughout in a way usually reserved for the creations of fiction. An
extraordinary political statement. Almost a fully realized, tough, crisp,
insistent speech in tone and in the sense of cutting through the
clutter....I’d love to find something to criticize about it. You got
anything?"
Chris Matthews: "No. You know I’ve been criticized for saying he
inspires me, and to hell with my critics!...You know in the Bible they talk
about Jesus serving the good wine last, I think the Democrats did the same."
— MSNBC live convention coverage, August 28.
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"[Obama] had to do two things. He had to be tough and he had to be
detailed. We know he is eloquent. He can’t write an ineloquent check, this
man."
— Newsweek editor Jon Meacham on PBS’s Charlie Rose
following Obama’s speech, August 28. |
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George’s Impartial Analysis |
George Stephanopoulos: "A night of perfect political choreography. The
only problem Barack Obama has right now, and it’s a high-class problem, as Bill
Clinton used to say, is can he top what happened tonight?"
Host Terry Moran: "An extraordinary series of speeches [by Bill Clinton
and Joe Biden]."
— ABC’s Nightline on August 27."I think every night in this
convention has built on the one that came before....The speeches have gotten
better every night."
— Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America, August 28. |
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An Inspiring "Night for the Ages" |
"An incredible night: A return and a roar from the lion of the Democrats....You
can almost still feel and hear the echo of the roar that went up last night when
Senator Edward Kennedy returned to the convention....People were overwhelmed,
simply overwhelmed. They knew it was a night to remember for all ages."
— ABC’s Diane Sawyer on the first night of the Democratic convention, August
26 Good Morning America.Co-host Maggie Rodriguez: "I think
all of us on this shift stayed up a little bit later than we should, watching
what I think couldn’t have been a more compelling first night of that
convention."
Co-host Julie Chen: "Yeah, Michelle Obama, so impressive, so, just
inspiring to watch her speak."
— CBS’s The Early Show, August 26. |
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Antsy for More Attacks on GOP |
"There is one big missing piece tonight, I think, which is why the American
people should throw the bums out. We haven’t heard one word about that. We have
the most unpopular President in American history, and he’s barely been mentioned
tonight. I just think that is an extraordinary gap."
— CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin after the conclusion of the first night of the
Democratic convention, August 25."You can say Barack Obama really needs
something from Hillary Clinton. He needs her to wake up this hall after a speech
that was not only not red meat by former Governor [Mark] Warner, but more like
tofu with sprouts."
— CBS’s Jeff Greenfield during live coverage, August 26.
"I am waiting for someone to take the podium and say the word ‘torture.’ I’m
waiting for someone to take the podium, say the word ‘Iraq.’ I’m waiting for
someone to take, to take the podium and talk about domestic surveillance and to
talk about all the reasons that Democrats want to get rid of George Bush."
— Washington Post columnist and MSNBC on-air regular Eugene Robinson
during live coverage, August 26.
Co-anchor Chris Matthews: "Keith, I am amazed why they don’t have more
fun with the man who calls himself Dick Cheney. Why [not] more references? Why
no, why don’t they talk about these villains, as they see them? Why don’t they
talk about Bush, who they see as a villain."
Co-anchor Keith Olbermann: "I know it works for me."
— MSNBC live convention coverage, August 26. |
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Brian vs. the Glass Ceiling |
"I assume she’s going to talk about that glass ceiling, i.e., a woman
President of these United States, which begs the question as we listen to
her tonight, if not her, who? And when?"
— Brian Williams previewing Hillary Clinton’s convention speech with
NBC’s Chuck Todd, August 26 Nightly News. |
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Obama = "a Fiscal Conservative" |
"Obama’s aides optimistically insist he will reduce it [the deficit], thanks to
his tax increases on the affluent and his plan to wind down the Iraq war.
Relative to McCain, whose promised spending cuts are extremely vague, Obama does
indeed look like a fiscal conservative."
— Staff writer David Leonhardt in an August 24 New York Times Magazine
article on Obama’s economic ideas. |
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Harry Hails "Legendary" Liberal |
"Helen Thomas has been covering the White
House for-ever, almost 50 years now. We’re going to talk to Rory Kennedy,
director of a new documentary about the legendary journalist....Where she sits
and what she does day after day after day, I’m not sure we value enough."
— CBS’s Harry Smith on The Early Show, August 14. |
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Admiring a "Profound" Attack |
"What I liked about the performance by Barack Obama was this: He finally took on
John McCain on the issue of our time, which is Russia, of course, and its
invasion of Georgia. And he used the word ‘bluster’ twice. Now, there are a lot
of neo-conservatives out there that just love the old black and white Manichaean
Cold War feeling again. They’d like to get rid of color television, in fact.
Let’s go back to the ‘50s and let’s fight with the Russians again....Here’s a
guy, Barack Obama who’s not supposed to have a strong suit, in the area of
foreign policy, calling it what it is: bluster. It’s just words, just
sword-rattling, and he called it today. I thought that was profound."
— MSNBC’s Chris Matthews anchoring live coverage of Barack Obama’s
introduction of Joe Biden as his running mate, August 23.
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"Tired of Being Called a Traitor" |
"The Republican Party is corrupt through and through.... They’re too adept at
thievery, at moving the Constitution into places it never meant to go. I think
that they have an extraordinary ability to divide rather than unite. And I think
that I am tired of being called a traitor because I like my flag and I like and
I support the troops."
— Actor Richard Dreyfuss on MSNBC News Live, August 27.
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Mocking Obama’s Media Groupies |
"I think there is a problem, though, with the media gushing over him [Barack
Obama] too much. I don’t think he thinks that he’s all that, but the media does.
I mean, the coverage after, that I was watching, from MSNBC, I mean these guys
were ready to have sex with him."
— HBO’s Bill Maher on Real Time, August 29.
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PUBLISHER: L. Brent Bozell III
EDITORS: Brent H. Baker, Rich Noyes, Tim Graham
MEDIA ANALYSTS: Geoffrey Dickens, Brad Wilmouth, Scott Whitlock, Matthew Balan, Kyle Drennen,
and Justin McCarthy
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE: Michelle Humphrey
INTERNS: Lyndsi Thomas
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