Most outrageous statements of 2005
December 23, 2005 3:56 pm ET
Here are the most outrageous statements Media Matters for America has documented this year. From attacks on women, Muslims, and African-Americans to a call for the assassination of a foreign leader to an open invitation for Al Qaeda to "blow up" San Francisco to a claim that gay marriage would lead to unions between "a man and his donkey," these statements acutely represent the extreme conservative speech we found in the news media in 2005. (We tried to limit the comments to a Top 10 list, but it was simply impossible.)
- Former Reagan administration Secretary of Education Bill Bennett: "[Y]ou could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." [Salem Radio Network's Bill Bennett's Morning in America, 9/28/05]
- Pat Robertson: "If [Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez] thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it." [Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club, 8/22/05]
- Bill O'Reilly to San Francisco: "[I]f Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. ... You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead." [Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, 12/8/05]
- Bill O'Reilly, agreeing with caller that illegal immigrants are "biological weapon[s]": "I think you could probably make an absolutely airtight case that more than 3,000 Americans have been either killed or injured, based upon the 11 million illegals who are here." [Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, 4/15/05]
- Rush Limbaugh: "Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society." [The Rush Limbaugh Show, 8/12/05]
- Rush Limbaugh on the kidnapping of peace activists in Iraq: "I'm telling you, folks, there's a part of me that likes this." [The Rush Limbaugh Show, 11/29/05]
- Ann Coulter: Bill Clinton "was a very good rapist"; "I'm getting a little fed up with hearing about, oh, civilian casualties"; "I think we ought to nuke North Korea right now just to give the rest of the world a warning." [New York Observer, 1/10/05]
- Ann Coulter: "Isn't it great to see Muslims celebrating something other than the slaughter of Americans?" [Syndicated column, 2/3/05]
- Radio host Glenn Beck: "[Y]ou know it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims' families? Took me about a year." [Premiere Radio Networks' The Glenn Beck Program, 9/9/05]
- Tucker Carlson: "Canada is a sweet country. It is like your retarded cousin you see at Thanksgiving and sort of pat him on the head. You know, he's nice, but you don't take him seriously. That's Canada." [MSNBC's The Situation with Tucker Carlson, 12/15/05]
- American Family Association president Tim Wildmon: Liberals "don't have the kind of family responsibilities most people have, and certainly not church responsibilities." [American Family Radio's Today's Issues, 5/11/05]
- David Horowitz on Cindy Sheehan: "It's very hard to have respect for a woman who exploits the death of her own son and doesn't respect her own son's life. ... She portrays him as an idiot." [MSNBC's Connected: Coast to Coast, 8/16/05]
- Radio host Neal Boortz on the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams: "[T]here will be riots in South Central Los Angeles and elsewhere. ... The rioting, of course, will lead to wide scale looting. There are a lot of aspiring rappers and NBA superstars who could really use a nice flat-screen television right now." [Boortz.com, 12/12/05]
- Pat Buchanan: "Our guys" in Iraq "have got every right to have good news put into the media and get to the people of Iraq, even if it's got to be planted or bought." [MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, 12/1/05]
- National Review editor Rich Lowry: Given EPA-mandated "small-flush" toilets, "[h]ow is it possible to flush a Quran down the toilet?" [Young America's Foundation speech, 8/5/05]
- Neal Boortz, suggesting that a victim of Hurricane Katrina housed in an Atlanta hotel consider prostitution: "I dare say she could walk out of that hotel and walk 100 yards in either direction on Fulton Industrial Boulevard here in Atlanta and have a job. What's that? Well, no, no, no. ... Well, you know what? [laughing] Now that you mention it ... [i]f that's the only way she can take care of herself, it sure beats the hell out of sucking off the taxpayers." [Cox Radio Syndication's The Neal Boortz Show, 10/24/05]
- Focus on the Family founder and chairman James C. Dobson: Same-sex marriage would lead to "marriage between daddies and little girls ... between a man and his donkey." [Focus on the Family radio program, 10/6/05]
- Accuracy in Media editor Cliff Kincaid: "Have you noticed that many news organizations, in honor of former ABC News anchorman Peter Jennings, have embarked on a quit smoking campaign? So why don't our media launch a campaign advising people to quit engaging in the dangerous and addictive homosexual lifestyle? ... It appears that the homosexual lifestyle is as addictive as smoking." [Accuracy in Media column, 12/14/05]
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To a man ... or woman ... these people support the present Administration. You are known by the company you keep. May GOD have mercy on their souls.
Thank you very much for your work in 2005. I expect another good year of stupidity exposing from MMFA.
Limbaugh's comment that human beings cannot destroy ecosystems over the feminism statement, because here he can do real damage by spreading misinformation, rather then simply looking like an imbecile as usual.
you could have filled this whole list with Oreilly quotes alone.
Coulter: "[T]he government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo"
Transcripts of every Coulter interview, every O'Reilly, Hannity and Limbaugh broadcast, and a good chunk of CNN’s spinning and right-wing apologetics would all make the cut as outrageous.
But there's just not enough hard drive space on Earth to catalog the endlessly un-spooling fatuous drivel on behalf of the Bush administration.
...and pray for the day apes rule the Earth. And then I realize these statements are just as unbelievable. That any of these people could pass for well "people" shows how loosely we are now defining the term, at present.
There are too many I realize, but what about the radio talk show nut case Michael Savage, I've heard him say some really outrageous things that topped most everything on this list!
Thank you for pointing these out because when I tell people what people like O'Reilly and Carlson say they never believe me. I always get the "No one would ever say that" look. Now I can tell them to come here and see for themselves.
Debbie Schlussel and David Horowitz on the life and death of Marla Ruzicka.
Wow, I just read your two links, and all I can say is that I'm glad no one pays attention to that website.
Jonah Goldberg (or was it Rich Lowry) about the Hurricane Katrina victims. He said something along the lines of "Who cares about the victims, they should learn to grow gills and swim under water and talk to the fishes." These are not his exact words but it was close to this and just as bad.
Whether or not you agree with Bill Bennett's statements or consider them racist, you do your own readers a disservice by quoting him out of context. In fact he was arguing against exactly the kind of assertion that you accuse him of making:
"But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky."
no one thinks Bennett believes that black babies should be aborted. The problem is his linking specifically African-Americans with crime. It's not the "abortion" part of it that is offensive, it is the "the crime rate would go down" part.
I can't believe that Rep. Tom Tancredo's (R-CO) call to bomb Mecca didn't make the list. From July, 2005 while being interviewed on WFLA-AM in Orlando, FL:
Tom Tancredo: "Well, what if you said something like — if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites," Tancredo answered.
Pat Campbell (radio host): "You're talking about bombing Mecca?"
Tom Tancredo: "Yeah."
It's a classic!
May I offer another distinction between those biggots and they idiots who listen to them... That, they couldn't exist on our side of the fense! Not only we progressives are better B.S. detectors, but we wouldn't tolerate such stupidity and shortsightedness.