| This issue also included the
winners and runners-up for the MRC's 2008 DisHonors Awards. For a
complete run-down of our seventh annual roasting of the most
outrageously biased reporters, please visit our
DisHonors Awards home page. |
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Welcome, Pope "Rottweiler" |
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"On World News this Sunday, who is Pope Benedict? The sometimes
controversial Pope comes to America this week....Joseph Ratzinger, the so-called
‘Professor Pope,’ grew up in Nazi Germany, a studious boy who was unwillingly
drafted into the army. At the Vatican, he developed a reputation as a brilliant
theologian, and also a hard-liner, strenuously condemning divorce, homosexuality
and abortion. As Pope John Paul’s lieutenant, he earned nicknames like ‘Cardinal
No,’ and ‘God’s Rottweiler.’...Benedict has also created controversy, like in
this speech where he included a quote calling Islam evil. Afterwards, there were
riots in the Muslim world. [to biographer David Gibson] Do you think, at times,
he has something of a tin ear?"
— Anchor Dan Harris previewing the Pope’s visit on ABC’s World News,
April 13.
"Explain the difference between the private man and the public Pope that some
Americans are maybe even a little unsure or fearful of."
— Co-host Harry Smith questioning Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George on CBS’s
The Early Show, April 15.
"Since becoming Pope Benedict XVI three years ago, the man who used to be the
Vatican’s chief hard-liner has undergone an image makeover....Benedict has made
what one ambassador to the Holy See called a smooth transition from scholar to
universal pastor. It may not quite fit the miracle category, but it is
nonetheless an extraordinary transition for a man who was once known as ‘God’s
Rottweiler.’ As Pope, he has not gone out of his way to appease the more liberal
wings of the Catholic Church in the U.S., but Benedict’s chief image maker is
unfazed."
— CBS’s Allen Pizzey on The Early Show, April 14.
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"Pay Up and Be Grateful!" |
"It’s early April, which means these are the few days of the year when Americans
of almost every political stripe unite in a perennial ritual: complaining about
taxes. Count me out. I’m happy to pay my fair share to the government. It’s part
of my patriotic duty — and it’s a heckuva bargain.... There seems to be an
inconsistency about people who insist on wearing flag pins in their lapels, but
who grumble about paying taxes....Genuine patriots don’t complain about their
patriotic obligations....Pay up and be grateful!"
— Former ABC and CNN reporter Walter Rodgers writing in the Christian
Science Monitor, April 2. |
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"Bitter" Townies = Terrorists? |
CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin: "What [Senator Barack] Obama said is factually
accurate."
CNN’s Jack Cafferty: "Right."
Toobin: "It’s been true throughout history that people who have economic
problems lash out against various others. I just think it is embarrassing for
the Clinton campaign just to hang on to this as if it’s some sort of gaffe by
Obama."...
Cafferty: "They call it the Rust Belt for a reason. The great jobs and
the economic prosperity left that part of the country two or three decades ago.
The people are frustrated. The people have no economic opportunity. What happens
to folks like that in the Middle East, you ask? Well, take a look. They go to
places like al Qaeda training camps."
— Exchange on CNN’s The Situation Room, April 11, talking about
Obama’s remark about how "bitter" people in small towns "cling to guns or
religion...as a way to explain their frustrations."
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Racist Whites Will Sink Obama |
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"He is a wonderful candidate and I’d be proud to vote for him in every
regard, just about. I think he’s a terrific guy. But I have no doubt in my
mind, having lived through the David Dinkins-Rudy Giuliani bare-knuckled
campaign for the mayor of New York, that certain people....I’m talking about
white people, basically. They are gonna go into the secrecy of that polling
place, they’re gonna remember Reverend Wright, they are going to be affected
in a negative way. And I think that it will make Barack Obama’s success in
the campaign for the White House extremely difficult."
— FNC’s Geraldo Rivera talking about Barack Obama’s campaign prospects on
his Geraldo at Large, March 29. |
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Scolding the "Heartless" McCain |
"The first question is about the issue that Americans do seem to care about the
most, and that’s the economy. You’ve been very clear that because of your
principles and because of your Republican philosophy, that you think that the
government really should be limited and really should stay out, for the most
part, of bailing out both homeowners and what you call irresponsible lenders.
But my question is, in this time of uncertainty, when there are so many people
hurting, are you concerned that there are voters out there who hear that who
say, ‘John McCain is heartless when it comes to this issue?’"
— CNN’s Dana Bash interviewing Republican presidential candidate John McCain
on The Situation Room, April 1.
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The "Infamous" Charlton Heston |
"As President of the National Rifle Association, he became one of the
most-polarizing figures in American politics."
— ABC’s Dan Harris reporting on the death of actor Charlton Heston, April 6
World News."Once the quintessential big screen hero, in his later
years he drew as much attention for his controversial politics."
— Anchor Russ Mitchell on the April 6 CBS Evening News.
"In the 1950s and ’60s, the era of the movie epic — those three-hour
extravaganzas with a cast of thousands and the passionate enunciation of high
ideals — he was the epic hero....He became a villain to many in his later life,
when he took up the strident support of conservative causes, most notably that
of the National Rifle Association....Heston supported restrictions on abortion;
he campaigned for Reagan (possible bumper sticker: ‘God Likes the Gipper’) and
both Bushes; he inadvisedly posed for a photo with a white supremacist leader.
He spoke at any conservative function that would have him, and what group
wouldn’t?"
— Time magazine movie critic Richard Corliss in an April 6
appreciation posted on Time.com.
"In his later years, Heston was known for his Republican views, but when he
first became politically active, he voted Democratic — for Kennedy and then
Johnson. He was also an early supporter of civil rights, and marched on
Washington....As famous as he was for his film roles, he became infamous for his
politics, including his belief that the Bill of Rights is built upon the bedrock
of the Second Amendment."
— Former Fox News Channel entertainment reporter Bill McCuddy in a taped
report shown on FNC’s Fox & Friends Weekend, April 6. |
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Free Markets Are a "False Idol" |
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Joblessness is growing. Millions of homes are sliding into foreclosure. The
financial system continues to choke on the toxic leftovers of the mortgage
crisis. The downward spiral of the economy is challenging a notion that has
underpinned American economic policy for a quarter-century — the idea that
prosperity springs from markets left free of government interference....With
market forces now seemingly gone feral, disenchantment with regulation has given
way to demands for fresh oversight, placing Mr. [Milton] Friedman’s intellectual
legacy under fresh scrutiny."
— New York Times economics reporter Peter Goodman in an April 13 "Week
in Review" piece headlined: "The Free Market: A False Idol After All?" |
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Tough Enough for Right Wing? |
"How do we know that you’re tough enough to take the heat from the right —
from the radio address, from the right wing radio, from the right wing
columnists — if you begin to pull our troops out of Iraq and they start
screaming, ‘Who lost Iraq?’ How do we know you’re as tough as Dick Cheney to
ignore public opinion and do what you believe in? Because he’s certainly
tough enough to do it."
— MSNBC’s Chris Matthews to Democratic presidential candidate Barack
Obama on Hardball, April 2. |
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Impugning "Racist" Director |
Reporter Nick Watt: "The 17-minute movie [from Dutch director Geert
Wilders] shows terrorist attacks and quotes lines from the Koran: ‘Where ye meet
the unbelievers, smite at their necks and fight them until there is no
dissension.’... Wilders wants Holland to ban all Muslim immigration and he wants
Muslims to change their ideology, which he likens to Nazism. [to Wilders] You
believe the Western Judeo-Christian culture is superior. You believe immigration
should be stopped. I mean, you’re a racist, no?"Director Geert Wilders:
"No. I’m nothing. Once again, I am not a racist because I have nothing against
any race."
— ABC’s Good Morning America, March 29. |
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Rebuking Anti-Roe McCain |
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Co-host Joy Behar: "I said to [Senator John McCain] off the camera, I
said to him ‘Listen, how can you be against Roe v. Wade? You can not turn
on women like that.’"
Co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck: "Why is that turning on women?"
Behar: "Because it’s against women and you know it."
— Exchange on ABC’s The View, April 14. |
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The "Bear Stearns of Pedophilia" |
"I’d like to tip off law enforcement to an even larger child-abusing religious
cult. Its leader also has a compound, and this guy not only operates outside the
bounds of the law, but he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats. That’s
right, the Pope is coming to America....If you have a few hundred followers, and
you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If have a
billion, they call you ‘Pope.’ It’s like, if you can’t pay your mortgage, you’re
a deadbeat. But if you can’t pay a million mortgages, you’re Bear Stearns and we
bail you out. And that is who the Catholic Church is: the Bear Stearns of
organized pedophilia.... The Church’s attitude: ‘We’re here, we’re queer, get
used to it,’ which is fine. Far be it for me to criticize religion."
— Bill Maher on HBO’s Real Time, April 11. | |
PUBLISHER: L. Brent Bozell III
EDITORS: Brent H. Baker, Rich Noyes, Tim Graham
MEDIA ANALYSTS: Geoffrey Dickens, Brad Wilmouth, Scott Whitlock, Matthew Balan and Kyle Drennen
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE: Michelle Humphrey
INTERNS: Lyndsi Thomas
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