Best Notable Quotables of 2007, The

Human Events, Dec 24, 2007

-ABC's Chris Cuomo reporting from Paris for Earth Day, "Good Morning America," April 20.

O Great Goreacle Award

CO-HOST HARRY SMITH: "President Bush getting ready to go to Europe for the G-8. The folks in the European Union want to do emissions reductions. The President said yesterday we're not going to participate.... If you were president, you would have probably signed on?"

FORMER VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE: "Yeah, yeah."

SMITH: "Do you mind if I-? [holds up a 'Gore 2008' pin].... There you go. You can hold it. [laughter].... Here, let's see what it looks like, [holds pin to Gore's lapel]... .All right, all right. Save mat in a freeze frame."

-Exchange on CBS's "The Early Show," May 30.

Runner-up.

"Incredible as it may seem, Al Gore is not only totally carbon neutral, but geekchic cool. No velvet rope can stop him. ...'He is more popular now than he ever was in office, and he knows it,' says Laurie David, one of me producers of Inconvenient Truth and a Hollywood environmental activist (and wife of "Seinfeld" co-creator Larry David) who has traveled around the world promoting the film with Gore. 'He's a superhero now.'"

-Washington Post reporter William Booth in a front-page profile of Gore headlined, "Al Gore, Rock Star; Oscar Hopeful May Be America's Coolest Ex-Vice President Ever," February 25.

Politics of Meaninglessness Award for Silliest Analysis

"Perhaps the outpouring of sympathy for [the falsely arrested Duke lacrosse players] Reade Seligman, Collin Finnerty and David Evans is just a bit misplaced.... As students of Duke University or otiier elite institutions, these young men will get on with their privileged lives.... They are very differently situated in life from, say, me young women of die Rutgers University women's basketball team."

-"Nightline" co-anchor Terry Moran writing on his "Pushback" blog on ABCNews.com the day after the North Carolina attorney general declared the players innocent of highly-publicized rape charges, April 12.

Runner-up:

"As part of our ongoing series of reports on the environment, 'America Goes Green,' we take on the question that can make otherwise competent adults quake with fear. We've all been there. You come to the end of the checkout line and then comes that question: 'Paper or plastic?' For that one brief moment, we grocery buyers are made to feel like the fate of the planet hinges on our decision."

-NBC's Brian Williams on the May 7 Nightly News. [47]

Good Morning Morons Award

"So I'm running in the park on Saturday, in shorts, thinking this [warm weather] is great, but are we all gonna die? You know? I can't, I can't figure this out."

-Co-host Meredith Vieira talking about global warming on NBC's "Today," January 8.

Runner-up:

CO-HOST DIANE SAWYER: "A ntimber 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?"