Even
before
ABC News
tapped Diane Sawyer to take over as anchor of World News, she was a
familiar face to millions of morning TV viewers as co-host of ABC’s
Good
Morning America, part of a lengthy career she
has enjoyed at the network. Previously, Sawyer co-anchored ABC’s
Primetime
Live
and
20/20 magazine programs after leaving CBS’s
60 Minutes
back in 1989. Before
launching her national media career, Sawyer in the early 1970s worked in
the
Nixon White House’s press office, reported on local news in Kentucky,
and as a
teenager won the America’s Junior Miss pageant in 1963.
At ABC, Sawyer has repeatedly lauded high-profile liberals, including
Nancy
Pelosi (“galvanized steel with a smile”) and Hillary Clinton (“political
mastery,” “dazzling”). She even admitted to co-host Charlie Gibson that
she
dreamed about Bill Clinton one night after then eating a pepperoni
pizza. Sawyer
targeted Ken Starr, telling the independent counsel that his report on
Bill
Clinton’s affair was being criticized as “demented pornography,
pornography for
Puritans.” She derided the Bush administration’s “massive tax cuts,”
championed
campaign finance “reform,” and even asked then-candidate Barack Obama to
judge
whether America is “more racist or more sexist.”
“Like
a freight train, she’s already moved six major pieces of legislation
through the
House — everything from stem cells to minimum wage. And whatever side
you’re on,
when this new Speaker moves, she moves fast. Nancy Pelosi says power is
not
handed to you, you have to know how to win it. When she walks into a
room, she
is quiet, polite. But her fellow politicians say she’s galvanized steel
with a
smile.”
— ABC’s Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America, January 19,
2007.
Diane Sawyer: “I’m going
to tell you what she [Nancy Pelosi]
did, I’m willing to bet, no Speaker of the House has ever done in the
entire
history of the United States of America....We’re walking along with the
camera,
she looks at the carpet. It has lint on it, little scraps of paper. She
can’t
stand it. She gets down and cleans the carpet so we could walk. And she
looks up
at me and says, ‘It’s just the bonus of having a female Speaker of the
House.’”
Co-host Robin Roberts: “Yeah. Don’t think any of the guys did
that. All right,
Diane. Have a safe trip back home.”
Fill-in news anchor David Muir: “A clean rotunda on Capitol
Hill.”
Roberts: “Got to love it!”
— ABC’s Good Morning America, January 19, 2007.
“All agree she gets credit for locking up this vote, one of the biggest since Medicare in the 1960s. And she’s said to have done it with an epic blend of persuasion, muscle and will, even when half the town said it couldn’t be done....Their indefatigable, unwavering almost 70-year-old Speaker, mother of five, grandmother of seven....[to Pelosi] What do you think your dad and your mom would have said about this moment?”
— Sawyer interviewing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on World News, March 22, 2010.
“Today is the day the Senate may
pass that patients’ bill of
rights, which would guarantee your right to sue your HMO. When that
happens, one
big winner out of Washington will be one of the bill’s key Democratic
backers,
North Carolina’s newcomer John Edwards. He is said to have the combined
political skills — are you ready for this? — of Clinton and Kennedy,
Kennedy and
Clinton together, and also to have a very good shot at the White House.”
— Sawyer on Good Morning America, June 29, 2001.“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.”
— Sawyer on the first night of the Democratic convention,
August 26,
2008, Good Morning America.
You heard the President pay tribute to Senator Ted Kennedy, who devoted his career to health care reform. But there was another quiet tribute at the Senator’s grave. A note left by his son, Congressman Patrick Kennedy. It said simply: ‘Dad — the unfinished business is done.’”
— Sawyer on World News, March 23, 2010.
“[Jesse Jackson’s] made a career
of using personality,
publicity and a little moral suasion to forge unlikely alliances. His
specialties: the bold gesture, the blizzard of words, confusing natural
enemies
by engaging them in public....Today the maverick without portfolio is
still
pushing for the rights of the poor and working class, but the techniques
are
more sophisticated....Today he goes straight where the money is, trying
to
persuade Wall Street and big corporations that to free people from the
prison of
poverty serves everyone, everyone.”
— Sawyer on Good Morning America, May 3, 1999.
“As we know this morning, there is
another ground-breaking,
crossroads moment. That is for Senator Hillary Clinton, who ran her
campaign on
her own terms. This woman, as we said, forged into determination and
purpose her
whole life. As someone said, ‘No thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory;
no cross,
no crown.’”
— ABC’s Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America, June 4, 2008,
quoting a 17th
century discourse about Jesus Christ. [Audio/video (0:32):
Windows Media |
MP3 audio]
“She emerged on health care, only to
beat a very bruised retreat. She clearly
hated being thought of as just Bill Clinton’s wife. But ironically, it
would
take his scandals, finally, to free her. Finally, last November 1998,
Hillary
Clinton showed the world what she could do on the campaign trail without
him.
Political mastery, every bit as dazzling as his, the thoughtful speech,
unapologetically strong, emboldening Democrats, electing Senators. So
her
friends say she has really earned this campaign, this moment, if she
chooses,
earned it by changing herself, searching, stumbling, and at the end, by
standing, not by her man, but by herself.”
— Sawyer on Good Morning America, March 12,
1999. [Audio/video
(0:52):
Windows
Media |
MP3 audio]
“After pepperoni pizza and banana
milkshakes once, I dreamed about Bill
Clinton.”
— Sawyer talking with her Good Morning America co-host Charles
Gibson about a
study which claimed sleeping Republicans have three times as many
nightmares as
sleeping Democrats, July 10, 2001. [Audio/video (0:09):
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Media |
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audio]
“We
have seen new polls this morning about you and Senator Hillary Clinton.
Here’s
my question: Do you think that residual resistance is greater for race
or for
gender? Is the nation secretly, I guess, more racist or more sexist?”
— Sawyer to Democratic Senator Barack Obama on Good Morning
America, November
13, 2006.
“Ninety percent of Americans say
race and gender make
absolutely no difference in their vote in the polls. I asked Senator
Obama
yesterday if he believes it, and he thinks it’s case by case. Let me ask
you, do
you think that there is secret sexism, secret, secret genderism in this
country?”
— Sawyer to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd on the
November
14, 2006
Good
Morning America.
“Before we leave the topic of the President’s trip
overseas, I’ve
often thought the hardest subject for every President, what do you do
with
royalty? We’re not trained to greet royalty since 1776. The President,
as we saw
with the emperor, went the full way, lots of comment about that....
[After
snapshots of other Presidents greeting Japanese emperors] Who can blame
them for
not knowing what to do?...It’s just too confusing when you’re American.”
— ABC's Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America, November 16, 2009.“President Obama, nine months into his presidency, has won the Nobel Peace Prize. And it’s really, kind of, the Olympic gold of international diplomacy.”
— Sawyer starting off ABC’s Good Morning America, October 9, 2009. ObamaCare Opponents = Violent Thugs
“Opponents of the bill have been out today, and some of them pulled out all the stops. Protesters roaming Washington, some of them increasingly emotional, yelling slurs and epithets.”
— ABC’s Diane Sawyer on World News, March 21, 2010. Lobbying for Illegal Immigration
“A question: If a stranger walking down the street or riding the bus does not seem to be a U.S. citizen, is it alright for the police to stop and question him? Well, today the Governor of Arizona signed a law that requires police to do just that.”
— Diane Sawyer leading off ABC’s World News, April 23, 2010. “Illegals in America: The Mexican president criticizes Arizona, and a child’s fear brings a new focus to the debate....We turn next to the extraordinary day in the polarized debate about illegal immigrants in America....The complex problem reached right into a second grade classroom, where the First Lady had to respond to a child’s poignant question.”
— Sawyer on World News, May 19, 2010, talking about the young girl who told Michelle Obama: “My mom, she says that Barack Obama is taking everybody away that doesn’t have some papers.” [Audio/video (0:45): Windows Media | MP3 audio]“An update on Arizona’s controversial new anti-immigration law....”
— Sawyer on ABC’s World News, June 18, 2010. The Arizona law does not target all immigrants, just those in the country illegally.
Diane Sawyer: “It is a world
away from the unruly
individualism of any American school.”
Class of teens in uniforms: “Good morning.”
Sawyer to class: “Good morning.”
Sawyer voiceover: “Ask them about their country, and they can’t
say enough.”
North Korean girl, in English: “We are the happiest children in
the world.”
Sawyer to class: “What do you know about America?”
Sawyer voiceover: “We show them an American magazine. They tell
us, they know
nothing about American movies, American movie stars....and then, it
becomes
clear that they have seen some movies from a strange place....”
Sawyer to class: “You know
The Sound of Music?”
Voices: “Yes.”
Sawyer, singing with the class: “Do, a deer, a female deer. Re, a
drop of golden
sun....”
Charles Gibson: “A fascinating glimpse of North Korea.”
— Sawyer reporting from North Korea for ABC’s World News With
Charles Gibson,
October 19, 2006. [Audio/video (1:08):
Windows
Media
|
MP3
audio]
Co-host Diane Sawyer: “A
number of people have already said, ‘Is there anything
surprising, personal about [Iranian] President [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad
that we
didn’t know?’ Well, it turns out, someone told me he cries a lot. That
he is
dramatically sentimental and sympathetic if someone comes up and
expresses a
personal plight. So I just asked him, are you often in tears?”
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: “Yes, that’s true. Not only for Iranians, of
course, they
are very close to me and I love all Iranians. And anywhere, when I see
people
suffering, I have the same reaction....Even when I see on TV that, for
example,
some Americans, because of tornadoes or a hurricane, they have lost
their homes,
I become sad.”
— ABC’s Good Morning America, February 13, 2007.
“There may not be any other man
in history who better embodies
the saying that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom
fighter....For most
Israelis, many Jews, he was a bloody terrorist and nothing more. Yet
elsewhere
in the world, even among Arabs who questioned his leadership, he was
treated as
a hero, freedom fighter, revolutionary. A diminutive man who became a
larger
than life symbol of the Palestinian dream.”
— Sawyer reporting Yasser Arafat’s death, Good Morning America,
November 11,
2004.
“As we said, the President is
heading for a meeting with world
leaders in Russia. And Mikhail Gorbachev, the Russian leader who changed
the
world, helping end the Cold War, sat down to speak with our senior
national
correspondent Claire Shipman, who’s reporting this morning from St.
Petersburg.”
— ABC’s Diane Sawyer introducing a report on Good Morning America,
July 12,
2006.
Diane Sawyer: “He grew up a
first-rate baseball player and
lawyer, who, married once, divorced. But was mainly driven by his
burning desire
to crush Cuba’s American-supported dictator Fulgencio Batista. It began
with a
daredevil attack on the military barracks. Jail. His exile. And then a
death-defying two-year fight in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra. He
and his
small band of soldiers endured and won only because of Castro’s
invincible
certainty of their destiny.”
Newsreel announcer: “Down from the mountains, the conqueror
comes.”
Sawyer: “Pointing to those mountains, he says those days were the
happiest of
his life.”
— ABC’s Diane Sawyer during a March 3, 1993 Primetime Live interview
with
Castro. [Audio/video (0:43):
Windows
Media |
MP3
audio]
“Even critics praise Cuba’s health
care, education, scientific
research....Cubans say privately he is still a hero, even as a lot of
his people
dream of a free economy and country....And what about those recent
elections? A
lot of new young faces were brought into the Party.”
— Sawyer on same program. “From a tiny island, a larger than
life personality....Castro knew life is a
stage and played the part of the dashing revolutionary, coming to New
York,
getting rock star treatment.”
— ABC’s Diane Sawyer on the February 19, 2008 Good Morning America,
after news
Castro was dropping his title as Cuban president. [Audio/video (0:36):
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Media |
MP3
audio]
“The man himself retains an
almost mystical hold on the Soviet
people, including Mikhail Gorbachev. Back in 1917, it was Lenin who
fired up an
entire country with his bold dream of communist equality, his passion
and his
ruthlessness.”
— ABC’s Diane Sawyer on Communist leader Vladimir Lenin, during a
Primetime Live
special on the history of the Soviet Union, January 18, 1990.
“I want to ask you a question
I’ve heard being asked this
morning, which is, really, how can the U.S. tell other countries whether
they
can have nuclear weapons or not, when the U.S. has them and seven other
countries as well? Does this mean that the genie is officially out of
the
bottle, and that the U.S. is no longer in a position to dictate who gets
nuclear
weapons?”
— Sawyer to Donald Gregg, the former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea,
on ABC’s
Good Morning America, October 9, 2006.
Diane
Sawyer: “How long have you been here?...How do you make it through
15 months out
here?...How many times a month do you say, ‘I don’t know that I can do
another
month of this? A day?’”
Unidentified U.S. Army Captain: “No, I don’t. It doesn’t ever
occur to me that
way.”
— Sawyer in Afghanistan with the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division,
April 10,
2007, Good Morning America.Diane Hits White House from the Left
“Is this the last time the President is going to ask for American troops from the American people?...What about the cost of the war? What do you say to members of the Democratic Party, the President’s own party, who say we simply cannot afford this $100 billion cost?”
— ABC’s Diane Sawyer to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Good Morning America, December 1, 2009.
“Three
years ago, as everyone knows, [Dixie Chicks] lead singer Natalie Maines
said —
about the impending war in Iraq — said she was ashamed that President
Bush was
from her home state, Texas. The reaction to her words was seismic and
from some
people even vicious....[Today] they are spirited, unbowed and they are
back with
a new single called ‘Not Ready to Make Nice.’”
— Sawyer introducing a taped interview with the Dixie Chicks on ABC’s
Good
Morning America, May 23, 2006.
“There’s a definite sense this
morning on the part of the
Kerry voters that perhaps this is code, ‘moral values,’ is code for
something
else. It’s code for taking a different position about gays in America,
an
exclusionary position, a code about abortion, code about imposing
Christianity
over other faiths.”
— Diane Sawyer to Bush campaign advisor Joe
Watkins on ABC’s Good Morning
America, November 4, 2004.
Announcer: “Did Kenneth Starr
go too far?”
Diane Sawyer to Starr: “I think there were 62 mentions of the
word ‘breast,’ 23
of ‘cigar,’ 19 of ‘semen.’ This has been called demented pornography,
pornography for Puritans. Were there mistakes made in including some of
this?”
Announcer: “The tables are turned. Now it’s the prosecutor’s turn
to be grilled,
when
20/20 Wednesday continues after this from our ABC stations.”
— Plug during 20/20 interview with Ken Starr, November 25,
1998. [Audio/video
(2:35): Windows
Media |
MP3
audio]
“Did they cross the line? First with
Monica Lewinsky, when
nine federal officers took her to a room at the Ritz-Carlton and put
pressure on
her to turn on the President? [to Starr] People see a young girl who was
in
tears, who was threatened with 27 years in prison possibly, who was told
that
her mother might be prosecuted based on things she had said about her
mother,
who was to wire herself or tape the President or Vernon Jordan. And they
say
this isn’t John Gotti. This isn’t Timothy McVeigh...”
Sawyer: “Which brings us
to Linda Tripp, the woman people love
to hate, and the accusation that Ken Starr was not what he had seemed.
[to
Starr] Are you part of a right-wing conspiracy?”
Starr: “No. I don’t know that there is one.”
Sawyer: “His key witness, Linda Tripp, is now a recognized
soldier in the army
of Clinton haters — among them Tripp’s friend and svengali, Lucianne
Goldberg.
Among them, the lawyers for Paula Jones. Before he became independent
counsel,
Starr gave them advice. And among them, millionaire Richard Mellon
Scaife, who
hired people to dig up dirt on Bill Clinton and funded a chair at
Pepperdine
University for Ken Starr....”
“Driving to the White House that
day [to interview President
Clinton], for what was — for all intents and purposes, a lot of people
think —
your trial, the only trial you were going to get. Did you think to
yourself,
here is a man who has to deal with Saddam Hussein and bin Laden and
what’s going
on in Russia, and we’re putting him through this?”
— Some of Diane Sawyer’s questions to Starr on 20/20, November
25, 1998.
“I guess one of the questions is,
some, some, the White House
certainly has said, that it’s a sign that he’s out of control. At any
point have
you suggested to Judge Starr that it’s time to shut the office down or
that he
may be pressing too hard?”
— Good Morning America co-host Diane Sawyer asking Judge
Robert Bork about
special prosecutor Ken Starr and whether or his office was responsible
for leaks
while investigating Bill Clinton, February 1, 1999.
“I want to ask you about this 1991
opinion, Joe Watkins,
[Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito] was the lone dissenter. He argued
that a
woman should have to notify her husband before she gets an abortion.
Now, let me
just say Sandra Day O’Connor heard this same case and Sandra Day
O’Connor said
this reflects a repugnant view of marriage. Women do not lose their
constitutional rights because they’re married....Does this opinion give
even you
pause? And, again, Sandra Day O’Connor’s notation that it was a
repugnant view
of marriage?”
— Diane Sawyer to conservative commentator Joe Watkins on ABC’s Good
Morning
America, November 1, 2005. [Audio/video (0:30):
Windows
Media |
MP3
audio]
“The abortion debate turns
deadly. A doctor known for
performing late-term abortions gunned down at church.”
— ABC’s Diane Sawyer teasing a segment on an abortion doctor’s
murder, June 1,
2009 Good Morning America. At the time, National Right to Life
calculated
49,551,703 abortions had been performed in the U.S. since the Roe v.
Wade
decision in 1973.
“As everyone knows, George Bush
was ahead by only a few
hundred votes. At the request of Al Gore some counties were launching
hand
recounts which were gaining votes for him. So what did she [Florida
Secretary of
State Katherine Harris] do? Well, from Day One she seemed completely
inflexible,
insisting on the narrow letter of the law. She enforced strict deadlines
even
when one county asked for just two hours more, and she tried to block
the hand
recount of those punched but disputed ballots. The Bush team was
thrilled, the
Gore team was outraged.”
— ABC’s Diane Sawyer setting up a Jan. 11, 2001 Primetime
Thursday interview
with Harris.
“A political science professor at
the University of
California-San Diego says, ‘If he [Steve Forbes] didn’t have any money,
he’d be
considered a crackpot.’ The money being spent on these ads, because you
can
afford it and other candidates can’t — is that democracy?”
— Sawyer to Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes, June 1,
1999
Good
Morning America.
“Well, however brave a stand
campaign finance reform may be,
members of your own party have rejected it. What’s the matter with them?
Why
don’t they get it?”
— Sawyer to Senator John McCain on Good Morning America,
September 27, 1999.Three Cheers for "Super-Cop" Imposing Price Controls
“There is a showdown taking place back here tonight between insurance companies trying to raise premiums on hard-hit policy holders, and some state officials who are determined to stop them. Bill Weir introduces us to a woman in Maine who is acting as a super-cop, and telling the insurance companies ‘no.’...She doesn’t look like a gladiator, but everybody is watching her and the results of this case.”
— ABC’s Diane Sawyer first introducing and then wrapping up a story about Maine’s Superintendent of Insurance reducing a company’s planned rate increase, April 2, 2010 World News.
“Democrats are out there
hammering hard on what they say is
the basic inequity that cannot be disputed, based on a couple of facts
of the
President’s tax plan. For instance, they say that somebody in this
country who
is making a million dollars or more is going to benefit $29,000 from the
President’s tax plan, but if you’re making $30-$40,000 a year, which the
average
American [makes], you’re only going to get $42, and there will not be
rejoicing
in America by all of these middle-class taxpayers for $42.”
— Diane Sawyer to new Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on ABC’s Good
Morning
America, January 7, 2003.
“As you know, these are massive
tax cuts being talked about at
a time that there’s also a cost of a war, the President is talking about
prescription drug aid, and indeed this morning, the news is out that the
deficit
is rising even faster than predicted, that it could be up now in $400
billion of
deficit. Aren’t Americans going to pay a price for that?”
— ABC’s Diane Sawyer to Treasury Secretary John Snow on the March 5,
2003
Good
Morning America.
“Guns blazing this morning over a
controversial new law in
Florida, a gun law. Supporters say it gives people the right to meet
force with
force.....Is it turning Florida into the Wild West?”
— ABC’s Diane Sawyer, Good Morning America, April 27, 2005.On the violence issue, 6,500 people were killed in drug violence in 2008 alone, 95 percent of the guns used were out of the United States. What is the U.S. going to do to stop the guns from getting there?"
— Sawyer to Napolitano, April 16, 2010 Good Morning America.
“It seems to me we really don’t
believe in bad seeds anymore,
much, in this country. We think there are psychiatric reasons,
biological
reasons for a lot of behaviors. So I keep saying to him, why doesn’t the
law
begin to acknowledge that basically people are not entirely responsible
for the
things they do if they were victimized in the past?”
— Sawyer asking Professor Arthur Miller about
Lyle and Erik Menendez, brothers
who were later convicted of murdering their parents, December 15, 1994 Good
Morning America.
Diane Sawyer: “I’ve always
thought the theological, the one
theological question I’d like to ask [Pope John Paul II], and it’s a
serious
question, is ‘What do you think Jesus would think of the way you
dress?’”
Oprah Winfrey: “Ohhh! That’s a great question!”
— Exchange on Oprah, February 19, 1997.