The Best Notable Quotables is an annual compilation of the most outrageous and/or humorous news media quotes from the MRC’s bi-monthly Notable Quotables newsletter. The Best Notable Quotables are chosen by a nationwide panel of judges – the 2001 panel consisted of 41 radio talk show hosts, magazine editors, columnists, editorial writers and media observers – and are usually published around Christmas.
This year-end “best of” edition generates a great deal of media interest. Articles on The Best Notable Quotables of 2001 appeared in Investor's Business Daily, the New York Post, Rocky Mountain News, Daily Oklahoman, Columbus Dispatch and World magazine.
The 2001 Best Notable Quotables also served as the centerpiece of the DisHonors Awards: Roasting the Most Outrageously Biased Liberal Reporters of 2001. The MRC event was held at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C. and attracted more than 800 people in January of 2002.
Swiss Press Corps Award for Remaining Neutral in War Coverage First Place
David Westin [83]
"The Pentagon as a legitimate target? I actually don’t have an opinion on that, and it’s important I not have an opinion on that as I sit here in my capacity right now....I can say the Pentagon got hit, I can say this is what their position is, this is what our position is, but for me to take a position this was right or wrong, I mean, that’s perhaps for me in my private life, perhaps it’s for me dealing with my loved ones, perhaps it’s for my minister at church. But as a journalist I feel strongly that’s something that I should not be taking a position on. I’m supposed to figure out what is and what is not, not what ought to be."
Runners-Up
Steven Jukes [67]
"We all know that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter and that Reuters upholds the principle that we do not use the word terrorist....To be frank, it adds little to call the attack on the World Trade Center a terrorist attack."
Allen Pizzey [39]
"To Western ears, calls for blood-soaked martyrdom are an alien concept, but consider the way things are for millions of Muslims of all ages: If you were born into grinding poverty where upward mobility isn’t even a dream, and have little to sustain you in life beyond religion, you too might find yourself screaming for the new Messiah with a $5 million price on his head....Everywhere you go in the world you will hear some version of the words ‘we are a freedom-loving people,’ but like beauty, freedom is a perception that lies in the eye of the beholder, and we ignore other nations’ versions at our peril. The most dangerous perception of all may be that one’s own side has an exclusive claim to either the truth or patriotism."
Dan Harris [28]
Reporter Dan Harris: "According to al-Jazeera, U.S. attacks on a village near Kandahar killed 93 civilians on Tuesday, including 18 members of one family. There has been no independent confirmation. Across the border in the Pakistani town of Quetta, five people arrived today at a hospital with injuries they say they suffered in another U.S. attack....This boy is one of the injured. His uncle says he had heard American radio broadcasts promising civilians wouldn’t be targeted, but he says his village was nowhere near any Taliban positions. Abdul Jabar is the doctor in charge."
Harris to Jabar: "How do you feel when you see these kids?"
Jabar: "I feel very sad."
Harris: "Angry?"
Jabar: "Yes. My sympathies are with the Afghanis."
Harris: "Angry at the United States?"
Jabar: "Yes."
Harris: "Everyone we spoke with at this tiny hospital said the ongoing raids have made the population here and across the border angry at the U.S. and supportive of the Taliban."
Media Hero Award
Carole Simpson [82]
"What an exhilarating moment it must have been for her – the first First Lady in history to be elected to public office. There, for all the nay-sayers to see, was the woman who had finally come into her own, free at last to be smart, outspoken, independent, and provocative, all qualities she had been forced as First Lady, to ‘hide under a bushel.’ Still she was voted one of America’s most admired women. Just wait. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet."
Runners-Up
Jonathan Alter [47]
"He’s only the most important political leader alive in the world today, historically speaking....If you look over the course of our lifetimes, who was the most, well, you go back to Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt....If I look back over my lifetime, who is the world leader who changed things the most, and I don’t actually think it is a close call."
Howard Fineman [45]
"Five months into the Great Electricity Crisis of 2001, the aura of impending disaster is receding, at least for now, from Sacramento and the rest of the Golden State. To be sure, [California Governor Gray] Davis still keeps the lights low and the air conditioning tepid in his capital offices, and when I saw him there it was like glimpsing Churchill in Whitehall during the blitz....In a way, the energy crisis is a blessing for a man such as this: a dramatic event that imperiled everyone in the nation’s largest state and that called for a detail freak with an iron butt."
Diane Sawyer [24]
"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."
Pushing Bush to the Left Award
Eleanor Clift [52]
"Arsenic in the water. Starting up the Cold War. Make as much carbon dioxide as you like. Laugh about it. Bush has set himself up as a huge target. And the arsenic is going to be the equivalent of what your boss [Newt Gingrich] did with cutting school lunches."
Runners-Up
Roger Ebert [48]
"George W. Bush was so indifferent to the world that in the years before he became President he made only two overseas trips, both for business, neither for curiosity. No wonder he wants to break the missile treaty, alienate NATO, ignore global warming and reinstall Russia and China as enemies: Those foreign countries scarcely exist in his imagination. Why go to Australia when you have the Outback Steakhouse right here at home?"
Margaret Carlson [34]
"Last week the Bush administration went beyond condiments, proposing to ax a Clinton administration regulation that forces the meat industry to perform salmonella tests on hamburger served in school cafeterias. Given the heightened interest in the health of cattle right now, the move wasn’t exactly well timed....
"What happened to the compassion that was supposed to go with Bush’s conservatism? The campaign prepared us for some of this – candidate Bush made plain his intention to drill in the Arctic wildlife refuge, not a bad political calculus given America’s preference for SUVs over caribou. But no one thought his team would choose slaughterhouses over schoolchildren, even if only for a day. What connects these decisions is a preference for folks he knows: his oil-field buddies (mirrors of himself), corporate executives and captains of industry, from the Halliburton honcho to the Terminix franchisee."
John Roberts [33]
"The Bush White House packaged in its first week an image of the President as a uniter. But Mr. Bush’s message has often been at odds with the mission: The Ashcroft nomination, new restrictions on abortion counseling, plans for school vouchers, an in-your-face attitude that has Democrats reluctant to let down their guard."
Linda Douglass [33]
""George W. Bush’s rhetoric is very inclusive. He means to be inclusive, and he’s used very soft rhetoric in trying to reach out to minorities. But the fact is he’s proposed no federal programs for minorities. He hasn’t talked about using the federal government to broaden the safety net."
Poisoning the Planet Award for Portraying Bush as Destroyer of the Earth
Margaret Carlson [69]
"Remember when Ronald Reagan tried to save a few pennies on the school lunch program by classifying ketchup as a vegetable? Last week the Bush administration went further, axing a regulation that forced the meat industry to test hamburgers served in school for salmonella. Imagine, Mad Cow Disease among children, K through 12. The day it hit the papers the proposal was quickly withdrawn. [If] the Bush administration keeps trying to kill health and safety regulations at this pace, soon we won’t be able to eat, drink or breathe."
Runners-Up
Dan Rather [36]
"Around the world, the anger runs as deep as the flood waters being blamed on the global warming the Kyoto treaty was supposed to fight. President Bush says he’s putting American economic interests first in rejecting Kyoto, and in Britain, where they’re having their wettest winter ever, they sadly agree....Others point to severe weather conditions around the planet – flooding for the second consecutive year in Mozambique, drought and famine in the Sudan – and they say the U.S. is substantially to blame. With only about four percent of the world’s population, the United States famously produces about twenty-five percent of the world’s harmful greenhouse gas pollution."
Dan Rather [29]
"President Bush insisted today that he was not caving in to big money contributors, big-time lobbyists, and overall industry pressure when he broke a campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. But the air was thick today with accusations from people who believe that’s exactly what happened."
President Bush and Matt Lauer [27]
President Bush: "I think the message is getting out. There are some issues, like the environment, some accuse me of not being environmentally sensitive, which is ridiculous."
Matt Lauer: "So you can look me in the eye and say that you are a President committed to cleaning up the environment?"
Picking the Lockbox Award for Denouncing Bush’s Tax Cut
Newsweek [52]
"Adios, surplus. When retired boomers dine on dog food, will they say thanks for that $600?"
Runners-Up
Roger Ebert [48]
"George W. Bush was so indifferent to the world that in the years before he became President he made only two overseas trips, both for business, neither for curiosity. No wonder he wants to break the missile treaty, alienate NATO, ignore global warming and reinstall Russia and China as enemies: Those foreign countries scarcely exist in his imagination. Why go to Australia when you have the Outback Steakhouse right here at home?"
Margaret Carlson [34]
"Last week the Bush administration went beyond condiments, proposing to ax a Clinton administration regulation that forces the meat industry to perform salmonella tests on hamburger served in school cafeterias. Given the heightened interest in the health of cattle right now, the move wasn’t exactly well timed....
"What happened to the compassion that was supposed to go with Bush’s conservatism? The campaign prepared us for some of this – candidate Bush made plain his intention to drill in the Arctic wildlife refuge, not a bad political calculus given America’s preference for SUVs over caribou. But no one thought his team would choose slaughterhouses over schoolchildren, even if only for a day. What connects these decisions is a preference for folks he knows: his oil-field buddies (mirrors of himself), corporate executives and captains of industry, from the Halliburton honcho to the Terminix franchisee."
John Roberts [33]
"The Bush White House packaged in its first week an image of the President as a uniter. But Mr. Bush’s message has often been at odds with the mission: The Ashcroft nomination, new restrictions on abortion counseling, plans for school vouchers, an in-your-face attitude that has Democrats reluctant to let down their guard."
Linda Douglass [33]
""George W. Bush’s rhetoric is very inclusive. He means to be inclusive, and he’s used very soft rhetoric in trying to reach out to minorities. But the fact is he’s proposed no federal programs for minorities. He hasn’t talked about using the federal government to broaden the safety net."
Carve Clinton into Mount Rushmore Award
Helen Thomas [80]
"Throughout the eight years he was in office, President Clinton warned us that the next great menace was international terrorism....He also brought unprecedented prosperity to our nation, and because of that, President [Bush] can use the surplus Mr. Clinton left behind to pay for many of the nation’s needs in this time of crisis....This lecture series is about the human spirit. To me and millions of others, President Clinton has always personified that. He is the man from Hope, and that is what he has given us, hope. We miss him. Thank you, Mr. President."
Runners-Up
Geraldo Rivera [40]
"Now, the return of the Prodigal Son. The, you know, the man who left office disgraced, burdened down by at least three major scandals that I can think of, got a hero’s welcome today, and I couldn’t be happier....After impeachment, after Pardongate, after the fake stories about their pilfering of the White House, Bill Clinton’s appearance today in Harlem must have been the feel-good event of the season for the former President, and he soaked up the sunshine and love."
Bill Schneider [31]
"Elvis, the first rock star. Clinton, the first rock star President....Clinton had a talent for convincing anyone listening to him that he was speaking only to them, just as Elvis convinced someone in the 100th row that he was singing only to them. Presley drew on black culture for inspiration. Clinton draws on black culture for solace."
Carole Simpson [29]
"In every family there are people and situations you would just as soon keep from others. So, when you express shock and outrage at Bill and Hillary’s brothers’ involvement in the pardon controversy, consider what your own relatives might do if you possessed the power of the presidency."
Good Morning Morons Award
CBS Early Show [55]
Bryant Gumbel: "At the risk of starting an argument, are you a believer in global warming?"
Mark McEwen: "Absolutely."
Jane Clayson: "Of course."
Julie Chen: "Yeah."
Gumbel: "So am I....And you wonder what it’s gonna take. I mean, is it gonna take some kind of a real catastrophe? I mean, does an iceberg have to come floating down the Hudson before somebody stands up and goes, ‘Oh, yeah’?"
Runners-Up
Charles Gibson and President Bush [47]
Charles Gibson: "Have you ever – it just occurred to me – have you ever, in the first hundred days, consulted or called former President Clinton?"
President Bush: "No, I haven’t."
Gibson: "To talk to him?"
President Bush: "No, I have not."
Gibson: "Don’t feel the need?"
Julie Chen [34]
"So, I’m getting less chips, paying the same amount of money. Is that legal for them to do this?"
Bryant Gumbel [32]
"You and I are fortunate enough to be basically laughing about this right now, about pennies right now, but isn’t it somewhat elitist to claim pennies have out-lived their usefulness when so many are struggling to make ends meet and we argue about pennies on the minimum wage?"
Diane Sawyer [27]
"After pepperoni pizza and banana milkshakes once, I dreamed about Bill Clinton."
Ann Curry [24]
"The American Civil Liberties Union is very concerned about your resolution. They are saying basically that those young people who choose not to participate are targeted for harassment. And the New York City school system has a lot of people, a lot of students and perhaps even teachers who are not American citizens, isn’t that correct?"
"But part of the thinking behind some of the criticism is that perhaps maybe an addendum to a renewing of, of a symbol of patriotism that perhaps the school systems across the country really should be thinking about renewing a lesson about tolerance?"
Damn Those Conservatives Award
Bill Maher and Larry King [52]
Bill Maher, host of ABC’s Politically Incorrect: "I do think, if it turns out that this beautiful young girl is gone, I think, and he [Condit] is responsible in some way, you have to look to Ken Starr for a little bit of guilt."
Larry King: "Why?"
Maher: "Because, you know, Ken Starr made it so that you, in the old days, you had an affair with somebody, and you know, okay, you had an affair. The press didn’t report it. They didn’t make a political criminal case of it. Now, it’s almost like you have to get rid of them."
Runners-Up
Bryant Gumbel [38]
"And we can’t let Justice Thomas pass on this. There’s no opinion of his in here, he doesn’t ask questions in court. Does he do anything besides vote and rubber stamp Scalia?"
Carole Simpson [34]
"This was an issue about voting rights. Yet, Justice Thomas voted with the conservative majority. His vote could have changed history. But it was not to be. He is firmly entrenched on the Court’s right....In five major cases involving civil rights and liberties, he voted against minorities every time, including rulings against job discrimination and voting rights. He’s only 52 years old and could conceivably spend another 30 years on the Supreme Court. If, during his tenure, President-elect Bush ends up making a couple of more appointments like Justice Thomas to the Supreme Court, I have heard many women and minorities say, ‘God help us.’"
David Broder [34]
"The squeamishness of much of the press in characterizing Helms for what he is suggests an unwillingness to confront the reality of race in our national life....What is unique about Helms – and from my viewpoint, unforgivable – is his willingness to pick at the scab of the great wound of American history, the legacy of slavery and segregation, and to inflame racial resentment against African Americans."
Nina Totenberg [33]
"It seems to me that the modern Republican Party and its moderate wing are in a sort of, to use the psychobabble of the era, in an abusive relationship...and the moderates are the enablers and the conservatives are the abusers and they just got used to doing it that way and suddenly one member said, ‘I’m not going to take it anymore.’"
Evan Thomas [27]
"Liberals are going to miss him, he was so wonderfully odious. Remember that old Time magazine that had him on the cover with the dark shadows under the eyes and he’s this dark and menacing figure? And it was very comforting to the East Coast media establishment to know that there was an evil guy out there that you could really fear."
Selected Not Elected Award for Claiming Bush Is an Illegitimate President
Eleanor Clift [52]
"Arsenic in the water. Starting up the Cold War. Make as much carbon dioxide as you like. Laugh about it. Bush has set himself up as a huge target. And the arsenic is going to be the equivalent of what your boss [Newt Gingrich] did with cutting school lunches."
Runners-Up
Geraldo Rivera [50]
"Should five of our nation’s nine Supreme Court Justices be imprisoned? That’s the opinion of famed former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi. He says the Justices who supported George W. Bush in the election dispute are almost treasonous white-collar criminals. He’ll explain why."
"It is a scathing indictment of the high court of the United States, at least these five conservative Justices. And I really, really, I urge law students especially, but anyone who’s interested in the machinations of the Court, to check this out: Vincent Bugliosi’s The Betrayal of America."
Dan Rather [42]
"Nineteen days after the presidential election, Florida’s Republican Secretary of State is about to announce the winner – as she sees it and she decrees it – of the state’s potentially decisive 25 electoral votes....
"The believed certification – as the Republican Secretary of State sees it – is coming just hours after a court ordered deadline for counties to submit their hand count and recount totals....
"The reason we’re on the air right across-the-board nationally right now is because Florida’s Secretary of State – a Republican, as we’ve mentioned before – campaigned actively for George Bush, well-connected to Governor Bush’s Governor brother Jeb Bush in Florida, but a woman who has consistently said ‘I’m trying to do my job, right down to the letter of the law, as best I can’....She will certify – as she sees it – who gets Florida’s 25 electoral votes....
"What’s happening here is the certification – as the Florida Secretary of State sees it and decrees it – is being signed....After this, it will be, at least in the opinion of the Secretary of State, that the results will be final...."
Diane Sawyer [27]
"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 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."
Department of Injustice Award for Denigrating John Ashcroft
Evan Thomas [55]
"Well, you know, Attorney General is actually an important job. Why can’t they buy off the right wing with unimportant jobs? I mean, this is a sop, I assume, to buy off the wing nuts, but it’s like giving, I mean, the Attorney General counts, it matters."
Runners-Up
Tony Mauro [51]
"In John Ashcroft’s America, he said in 1999, ‘We have no king but Jesus.’ But President-elect George W. Bush has nominated Ashcroft to the position of Attorney General of the United States. In the venerable halls of the Justice Department, where he will work, it is the Constitution that is king....Ashcroft will need to assure the nation that he can enforce the Constitution and the laws of Congress when they run contrary to the laws of Jesus, as they surely will. A larger question, spoken or unspoken, will be: Can a deeply religious person be Attorney General?"
Bryant Gumbel [48]
"What do you think Senator Ashcroft’s distortion of your record and tarnishing of your good name says about his character?"
Tom Brokaw [36]
"Good evening on this Martin Luther King holiday, a prelude to what begins tomorrow in Washington: The confirmation hearings for John Ashcroft, the former Missouri Senator who is George W. Bush’s choice to be Attorney General. Race will be a major issue in the contentious hearings, especially since Ashcroft defended the Confederate agenda of Robert E. Lee in an interview with the Southern Partisan, a magazine promoting the culture of the Old South."
Politics of Meaninglessness Award for the Silliest Analysis
Ted Turner [72]
"What are you, a bunch of Jesus freaks? You ought to be working for Fox."
Runners-Up
Bill O’Reilly and Dan Rather [64]
Bill O’Reilly: "I want to ask you flat out, do you think President Clinton’s an honest man?"
Dan Rather: "Yes, I think he’s an honest man."
O’Reilly: "Do you, really?"
Rather: "I do."
O’Reilly: "Even though he lied to Jim Lehrer’s face about the Lewinsky case?"
Rather: "Who among us has not lied about something?"
O’Reilly: "Well, I didn’t lie to anybody’s face on national television. I don’t think you have, have you?"
Rather: "I don’t think I ever have. I hope I never have. But, look, it’s one thing-"
O’Reilly: "How can you say he’s an honest guy then?"
Rather: "Well, because I think he is. I think at core he’s an honest person. I know that you have a different view. I know that you consider it sort of astonishing anybody would say so, but I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things."
Donald Rumsfeld [27]
"You said that the air strikes are deliberately designed not to hit residential centers, but you also say that the Taliban is hiding weapons, stockpiling weapons in residential areas. Have you ruled out the possibility of dropping leaflets days in advance of an air strike to get residents out and saying, ‘This could become a military target’? Is that something, without discussing future operations, could you see that possibly coming to fruition?"
Jonathan Alter [25]
"People send me e-mails full of dopey attacks – ‘I bet you’ve never written anything positive about a Republican in your whole life’ – obviously never having read any of the columns I wrote praising John McCain during the campaign."
Euro-Envy Award for Advocating More Government Spending
Keith Miller and Avivah Wittenberg-Cox [78]
NBC News reporter Keith Miller in Paris: "Break out the band, bring on the drinks. The French are calling it a miracle. A government-mandated 35-hour work week is changing the French way of life. Two years ago, in an effort to create more jobs, the government imposed a shorter work week on large companies, forcing them to hire more workers....Sixty percent of those on the job say their lives have improved. These American women, all working in France, have time for lunch and a life."
Avivah Wittenberg-Cox: "More Americans should be more aware that an economy as successful as the French one managed to be successful without giving up everything else in life."
Katie Couric, following the end of Miller’s taped piece: "So great that young mother being able to come home at three every day and spend that time with her child. Isn’t that nice? The French, they’ve got it right, don’t they?"
Runners-Up
Peter Jennings [73]
"The U.S. is actually the least generous of the industrialized nations. In Sweden, a new mother gets 18 months of maternity and parental leave, and she gets 80 percent of her salary for the first year. Mother or father can take the parental leave any time until a child is eight. England gives 18 weeks maternity leave. For the first six weeks, a mother gets 90 percent of her salary from the government and $86 a week thereafter. German women get two months of fully paid leave after giving birth. The government and the company kick in, and either parent has the option of three full years in parental leave with some of their salary paid and their jobs protected."
Margaret Carlson [47]
"You know, the U.S. is the only industrialized nation, I didn’t know this until today, that doesn’t spend federal money promoting tourism. Do you think it should?"
Elizabeth Vargas [44]
"More trouble at the nation’s amusement parks, two dozen people injured. Why won’t Congress let the government regulate those parks?"
Nobody Here But Us Apolitical Observers Award for Denying Liberal Bias
Evan Thomas and Jack White [56]
Newsweek’s Evan Thomas: "There is a perception, even among journalists, that the [New York] Times is going a little bit left, is getting more liberal, and that’s disquieting."
Time magazine’s Jack White: "That’s a lot of hokum, with all due respect to Evan. There is no liberal bias in the press in the whole. In fact, if there is a bias, it’s on the other side. It’s hard to find a person really, truly, of the liberal persuasion who are making any important decisions in any important media institutions in this country now. I’ve looked for them, I consider myself one, I have very few birds of a like feather around."
Runners-Up
Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos [54]
Diane Sawyer: "Watching you and watching you cover the news over the past year, you are so much about passion for politics, and it doesn’t matter to you, I mean – I really mean this."
George Stephanopoulos: "Thank you."
Sawyer: "You’ve been completely non-partisan in covering the news."
Norman Pearlstine [50]
"The New York Times is middle of the road. There is no active, aggressive, important publication of the left in America. And so as a consequence, The New York Times when compared to The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page may be considered to the left of it. But to call The New York Times left-wing is absurd."
Peter Jennings [40]
"I think there is a mainstream media. CNN is mainstream media, and the main, ABC, CBS, NBC are mainstream media. And I think it’s just essentially to make the point that we are largely in the center without particular axes to grind, without ideologies which are represented in our daily coverage, at least certainly not on purpose."
Blame America First Award
Michael Moore [54]
"Am I angry? You bet I am. I am an American citizen, and my leaders have taken my money to fund mass murder. And now my friends have paid the price with their lives.
"Keep crying, Mr. Bush. Keep running to Omaha or wherever it is you go while others die, just as you ran during Vietnam while claiming to be ‘on duty’ in the Air National Guard. Nine boys from my high school died in that miserable war. And now you are asking for ‘unity’ so you can start another one? Do not insult me or my country like this!
"Yes, I, too, will be in church at noon today, on this national day of mourning. I will pray for you, and us, and the children of New York, and the children of this sad and ugly world."
Runners-Up
Bill Maher [52]
"We have been the cowards. Lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away, that’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, not cowardly."
Katha Pollitt [43]
"My daughter, who goes to Stuyvesant High School only blocks from the World Trade Center, thinks we should fly an American flag out our window. Definitely not, I say: The flag stands for jingoism and vengeance and war. She tells me I’m wrong – the flag means standing together and honoring the dead and saying no to terrorism. In a way we’re both right....[The flag] has to bear a wide range of meanings, from simple, dignified sorrow to the violent anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry that has already resulted in murder, vandalism and arson around the country and harassment on New York City streets and campuses."
Phil Donahue [37]
"I do not believe the memory of the 7,000 plus people who were killed in these most horrendous acts of terrorism are honored by going out and killing other civilians. We went alone, we went alone when we bombed Tripoli at night, a crowded city where old people and children were sleeping. 1986, Reagan. We killed Qaddafi’s kid, and lots of other children. One person said, well, several people, ‘well, he’s adopted’ they said of the kid. And we got Pan Am 103, Lockerbie. Tell those loved ones, it was December 21, my birthday."
Susan Sontag [28]
"The disconnect between last Tuesday’s monstrous dose of reality and the self-righteous drivel and outright deceptions being peddled by public figures and TV commentators is startling, depressing. The voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilize the public. Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a ‘cowardly’ attack on ‘civilization’ or ‘liberty’ or ‘humanity’ or ‘the free world’ but an attack on the world’s self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? How many citizens are aware of the ongoing American bombing of Iraq? And if the word ‘cowardly’ is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday’s slaughter, they were not cowards."
Glimpses of Patriotism Award
Lance Morrow [67]
"For once, let’s have no ‘grief counselors’ standing by with banal consolations, as if the purpose, in the midst of all this, were merely to make everyone feel better as quickly as possible. We shouldn’t feel better. For once, let’s have no fatuous rhetoric about ‘healing.’ Healing is inappropriate now, and dangerous. There will be time later for the tears of sorrow. A day cannot live in infamy without the nourishment of rage. Let’s have rage....
"As the bodies are counted, into the thousands and thousands, hatred will not, I think, be a difficult emotion to summon. Is the medicine too strong? Call it, rather, a wholesome and intelligent enmity....Anyone who does not loathe the people who did these things, and the people who cheer them on, is too philosophical for decent company....The worst times, as we see, separate the civilized of the world from the uncivilized. This is the moment of clarity. Let the civilized toughen up, and let the uncivilized take their chances in the game they started."
Runners-Up
Tony Snow [54]
"The United States had a spirit before it had a name – one of faith and freedom, of ambition tempered by piety. We once were a nation of neighbors and friends, we are again today. We once were a nation of hardship-tested dreamers – we are again today. We once were a nation under God – we are again today. Our enemies attacked one nation, they will encounter another, for they underestimated us. Today in our grief and in our rage, our determination and hope, we’ve summoned what’s best and noblest in us. We are again Americans."
Tim Russert [30]
"I have spent this week wiping my eyes and grinding my teeth and wondering why. I’ve drawn strength from a story about a man I knew, Father Mychal Judge. The chaplain of the New York City Fire Department, a Franciscan, he raced to the World Trade Center after the explosion to comfort the injured. While administering the last rites to a dying rescue worker, he, himself, was killed by flying debris. New York’s bravest physically carried Father Mike away....
Together, firemen, priests, and brothers wept and sang the prayer of St. Francis, `May the Lord bless and keep you and show his face to you and have mercy on you.’ That is the way of New York. That is the spirit of America."
Too Late for the Ballot, But Year End "Best of NQ" Worthy:
Persecuting Clinton Allowed 9/11
"It was a huge national distraction, going after a guy who lied about getting oral sex from a woman he wasn’t married to, and I think I know a million guys who get oral sex from a woman they weren’t married to....All of us have a shared guilt right now, and the shared guilt is for the last ten years we have been horribly distracted. I would bet you that I can find you 4,000, 5,000 FBI agents who wish to God they weren’t assigned to Whitewater, Monicagate, Bill Clinton – that instead they were on the trail of Osama bin Laden and the people who were plotting mass murder against us."
Homegrown Few = Al Qaeda
"Since September 11, the word ‘terrorist’ has come to mean someone who is radical, Islamic and foreign. But many believe we have as much to fear from a home-grown group of anti-abortion crusaders."
Judges
Chuck Asay,editorial cartoonist, The Gazette in Colorado Springs
Brent Baker, Editor of MRC’s CyberAlert and Notable Quotables
Mark Belling, talk show host, WISN in Milwaukee
L. Brent Bozell III, President of the Media Research Center
David Brudnoy, radio talk show host, WBZ in Boston; journalism professor at Boston University
Priscilla Buckley, Contributing Editor of National Review
Mark Davis, talk show host, ABC Radio and WBAP in Dallas-Ft. Worth; columnist, Ft. Worth Star-Telegram
Midge Decter, author; Trustee for the Heritage Foundation
Jim Eason, KSFO in San Francisco talk show host, emeritus
Barry Farber, radio talk show host
Eric Fettmann, columnist and Associate Editorial Page Editor, New York Post
David Gold, syndicated radio talk show host
Tim Graham, White House correspondent, World magazine
Stephen Hayes, staff writer for The Weekly Standard
Cliff Kincaid, commentator
Mark Larson, talk show host and GM at KCBQ/KPRZ in San Diego
Jason Lewis, talk show host, KSTP in Minneapolis/St. Paul
Ross Mackenzie, Editor of the editorial page, Richmond Times-Dispatch
Tony Macrini, talk show host, WNIS in Norfolk, Virginia
Michelle Malkin, syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor
Patrick McGuigan, Editor of the editorial page, The Oklahoman
Jan Mickelson, talk show host, WHO Des Moines/WMT Cedar Rapids
Wes Minter, Operations Manager and talk host, KRMG in Tulsa
Jane Norris, talk show host, WHAS in Louisville
Rich Noyes, Director of Media Analysis for the Media Research Center
Marvin Olasky, Senior Fellow, Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty; Editor of World magazine
Janet Parshall, nationally syndicated radio talk show host
Henry Payne, editorial cartoonist, The Detroit News
Wladyslaw Pleszczynski, Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution
Mike Rosen, talk show host, KOA in Denver; columnist, Denver Rocky Mountain News
Ted J. Smith III, Professor of journalism, Virginia Commonwealth U.
Philip Terzian, nationally syndicated columnist
Bruce Tinsley, Mallard Fillmore cartoonist
Cal Thomas, syndicated columnist; panelist on FNC’s Fox Newswatch
Armstrong Williams, nationally syndicated columnist
Dick Williams, columnist; host of Atlanta’s Georgia Gang
JUDGE NAME, Suspendisse efficitur molestie arcu in maximus. Nunc eget urna non velit blandit ornare quis ac quam.
Walter Williams, Professor of economics, George Mason University
Thomas Winter, Editor-in-Chief of Human Events
Download Results
A printable Adobe Acrobat PDF of the "Best of NQ" awards issue is included here for your convenience.
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Media Coverage
Links to and reprints of some of the editorials and columns run this year about the MRC's
"Best Notable Quotables of 2001: The Fourteenth Annual Awards for the Year’s Worst Reporting
Print:
Richmond Times-Dispatch, February 7, 2002
Column by Ross Mackenzie
Daily Oklahoman, January 5, 2002
Column by Patrick B. McGuigan
New York Post, December 31, 2001
Editorial
Investor’s Business Daily, January 3, 2002
Editorial
Daily Oklahoman, December 31, 2001
Editorial
Columbus Dispatch, December 31, 2001
Editorial
Chattanooga Times Free Press, December 29, 2001
Editorial
Denver Rocky Mountain News, December 28, 2001
Column by Mike Rosen
Daily Oklahoman, December 26, 2001
Column by Patrick B. McGuigan
World magazine, December 8, 2001
Column by Marvin Olasky
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