The Media Research Center has announced its 2008 Notable Quotable Awards, with Quote of the Year going to — who else? — Chris Matthews:

The competition was probably toughest for the Obamagasm Award, won by Nancy Gibbs of Time magazine for this foray into disinterested objectivity:

Some princes are born in palaces. Some are born in mangers. But a few are born in the imagination, out of scraps of history and hope….

Gibbs beat out David Gergen — CNN’s idea of a Republican — who said of Obama’s Denver convention speech that “it was less a speech than a symphony. . . . a masterpiece.”

There’s much, much more, including:

• The reporter who admitted that his “knees quaked” when he was assigned to cover Obama, because he “wondered if I could do the campaign justice.”
• The reporter who called T. Boone Pickens’ sponsorship of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth “an ugly chapter in American political history.”
• The Pummeling Palin Award, where Chris Matthews had to be inventive to beat out Joy Behar’s assertion that Sarah Palin is “very mean to animals, this woman.”

. . . and don’t miss this hard-hitting interview by Brian Williams, which rated only runner-up for the “Let Us Fluff Your Pillow Award”:

Brian should demand a recount!