The Media Research Center handed out its annual "DisHonors Awards" to what some of its speakers called the "lamestream media" last night at a gala dinner in Washington D.C. The conservative group roasted what it called "the most outrageously biased liberal reporters as selected by a distinguished panel of leading media observers."I'm told good times were had by all.
There were some truly rich moments provided by the nominees, many of them centered on the adulation reporters heaped on Barack Obama. Here is ABC News' Bill Weir reporting from the Obama inauguration: "Never have so many people shivered so long with such joy. From above, even the seagulls must have been awed by the blanket of humanity."
Some TV anchors went way over the top in Obamamania even as they insisted they were just reporting the facts. Take Chris Matthews of MSNBC, who said last February after listening to an Obama speech: "I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often. . . . He speaks about America in a way that has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with the feeling we have about our country. And that is an objective assessment."
An award mocking the "worst pummeling of Sarah Palin" was given out. Among the contenders was Newsweek's Howard Fineman for his dismissal of the Alaska Governor's credentials: "Sarah Palin makes Barack Obama look like John Adams. I mean, it's just, it's no contest."
The final category at the MRC dinner featured an award for "the stupidest analysis." The winner was CNN founder Ted Turner, who said that if global warming isn't rolled back, "in 30 or 40 years basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals."
But my personal favorite was from that fountain of anti-America snobbery, the BBC. Correspondent Justin Webb stood next to an 18-wheel big rig truck while dismissing President Bush's tax rebate. He warned: "Many Americans drive private cars not much smaller than this truck, and the risk is that they use their tax rebate simply to buy fuel, boosting the profits of the oil companies but doing little or nothing for the wider American economy."
In the tradition of the MRC dinner, none of the winners showed up to accept their awards, so a conservative leader was chosen to come up on stage and acknowledge the award on their behalf.
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