Notable Quotables: ABC Serves Up Hardballs for Hillary

September 14th, 2015 9:22 AM

Now online: the September 14 edition of Notable Quotables, MRC’s bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous quotes in the liberal media. This week, ABC's David Muir interviews Hillary Clinton, serving up hardball questions such as, "Is your mother's voice in your ear?"

At the same time, network journalists insist there's no news in Hillary's e-mail scandal, while a CNN pundit smears Dick Cheney as a "political sociopath." Highlights are posted below; the entire issue is posted online with 26 quotes, two with video, at www.MRC.org.


ABC’s Muir Serves Up Hardballs for Hillary

“I want to know, in your most private of moments, is there ever an instance when you ask yourself, ‘why am I doing this again?’... Is your mother’s voice in your ear and give me one line that you repeat to yourself?”
World News Tonight anchor David Muir to Hillary Clinton, September 8.


Nothing to See Here in Hillary’s E-Mails

Fill-in co-host John Berman: “If I could shift to Hillary Clinton just for one moment.... There is, as far as I can tell, nothing in here that reeks of illegality.” ...
Host Alisyn Camerota: “If there’s no smoking gun, when does the e-mail issue go away — and voters don’t seem to care about it, according to polls. When does the e-mail issue go away for Hillary?”
— CNN’s New Day, September 1.

Co-host Savannah Guthrie: “With this latest batch of 7,000-plus e-mails, is there a smoking gun on that issue?”
NBC’s Chuck Todd: “No, there’s not....Whether she knowingly passed around classified information in an unclassified setting, there is no evidence to suggest that, that story doesn’t hold up.”
— Exchange on NBC’s Today, September 1.

“We’ve been up all night going through these e-mails, more than 4,000 e-mails, more than 7,000 pages — there isn’t anything that seems to be what you would call, you know, a smoking gun....Are we ever going to get out of this cycle? Is she ever going to get out of this cycle?”
— Anchor Andrea Mitchell on the September 1 Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC.


Dick Cheney, “Political Sociopath”

“That is a portrait of a political sociopath for Dick Cheney....Political sociopath, yes. I actually went and looked up on the Mayo Clinic website the definition of that disorder and it fits Mr. Cheney to a T — inability to ever express remorse, to admit error, manipulative, dishonest.”
— CNN political commentator Paul Begala on the September 1 Anderson Cooper 360, attacking former Vice President Dick Cheney for blaming the rise of ISIS on Barack Obama.


Sneering at “Seriously Wrong” GOP Voters

Co-host John Heilemann: “The key thing is: Trump, Carson, Fiorina and Cruz. Four anti-establishment candidates. All of them total over 50 percent of that vote in Iowa....Trump, Carson, Cruz, Fiorina add up to about 53 percent.”
Guest co-host Mike Barnicle: “53 percent....So that means that if I lived in Iowa, I would want to know where each of those members of that 53 percent were. I would want to live as far away from them as possible. Because there is something seriously wrong with the Republican Party if those people, combined, have a majority of the voters.”
— Bloomberg’s With All Due Respect, August 31.


Seventeen Candidates, Every One an “Idiot”

New York Times host Susan Lehman: “And what about the Republicans? How do you think they could wrestle the political conversation away from Trump and his xenophobic ideas?”
Editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal: “Well, they might come up with a candidate who can actually run for office without making an idiot of himself. They don’t seem to be able to have done that, yet.”
— Exchange during an “Inside the Times” podcast, September 3.


Charter Schools = “Demonizing All Teachers”

“I would also suggest that for many who are African-American, [New Orleans is] not a better city in part because this so-called success story in the schools also included charterizing the entire system, which also meant demonizing all teachers.”
— MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press, August 30.


Assailing Christian County Clerk: “Bitch,” “Monster” Like George Wallace  

Co-host Whoopi Goldberg: “This is a woman who has been married more times than anyone at this table combined.”
Co-host Michelle Collins: “Four times. She’s my top candidate for ‘this bitch got a man.’... Have you seen the lady? Sorry. I’m serious. She’s a monster.”
The View co-hosts discussing Kentucky county court clerk Kim Davis, who was jailed and then released for refusing to sign-off on gay marriage licenses, September 8.

“Going to jail for what you believe in does not necessarily put you on par with Martin Luther King. Jeffrey Dahmer was in jail because he believes in eating people. That doesn’t make him a freedom fighter (audience laughs and applauds). And frankly, if you’re going to compare Kim Davis to someone from the 1960s civil rights movement, it should be this guy — that’s right; that’s right — Alabama governor and dippity-do poster boy, George Wallace, who famously stood in the doorway of the University of Alabama in defiance of the Supreme Court order to desegregate.”
— Comedy Central’s Nightly Show anchor Larry Wilmore, September 8.


Get Ready for Some Carefully-Planned Spontaneity

“Hillary Clinton to Show More Humor and Heart, Aides Say”
— NYTimes.com headline for a September 7 story by New York Times reporter Amy Chozick.
    

Gushing over Hillary: “The Smartest, Most-Qualified Person”

“Let’s just get this out of the way. Let’s talk about the e-mails. I mean, I actually don’t think you need to. It’s just that people keep bringing it up. They have not found a thing. They keep saying they’ve found something, but then we don’t hear anything about it. So they haven’t found anything.”  
— Ellen DeGeneres, host of her eponymous show, to Hillary Clinton, September 10.

“You are the smartest, most-qualified person for this job....If I look at all the other candidates, someone who is for rights across the board — equal rights for women, equal rights for every ethnicity, equal rights for everyone — it is — the only person I can look at is you.”
— Later in the same show.


To read the entire September 14 edition of Notable Quotables, please visit www.MRC.org.