HuffPo and Kos Spread New Fox Lie!
It's a special pre-Memorial Day treat from the Fox haters. Thanks to the miracle of video editing, some obscure blog came up with a startling scoop: Fox wants to see Barack Obama assassinated! And in the Fox haters echo chamber, it only takes minutes for the story to make it to all the key blue blogs:
- White Insanity: Fox News is getting into the “let’s assassinate both Osama & Obama!” routine!
- Presidential Candidates: Fox News Contributer Wishes For Barack Obama’s Assassination
- Daily Kos: Fox News Journalist WANTS Obama DEAD
- Daily Kos: Which USA will prosecute Liz Trotta? (likely none)
- Huffington Post: FOX Pundit Wishes for Obama Assassination, Laughs
During a live interview, FOX Contributor Liz Trotta jokingly wished for the assassination of Sen. Barack Obama.The clip Mr Feldman uses is so short it virtually starts in mid-sentence:
LIZ TROTTA: and now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama--And there it stops. Mr Feldman is, of course, outraged:
SHAWN: Obama.
TROTTA: --um Obama, well both if we could.
ERIC SHAWN: Well talk about how you really feel, but do you really think--
Trotta made known that the conclusions the public should draw were (1) that Sen. Obama and Osama bin Laden are equivalent, and (2) they both deserve to be assassinated....We would be remiss if we did not note how Feldman described the interchange:
right-wing pundits on FOX News and a variety of other broadcast outlets have regularly called the Sen. Obama by the name "Osama" in a systematic propaganda campaign to convince the American public that a sitting member of their government has secret ties to terrorists.....
The vast, vast majority of Americans do not want this kind of vile, utterly disgusting, "assassination" humor to become a recurrent part of our national debate.
Hemmer quickly corrected Trotta, having noticed that she had said "Osama" when she meant "Obama."Bill Hemmer?!? Oh well, there goes Mr Feldman's Pulitzer. Now that you know what the Fox haters want you to think, we will give you the parts of the interview they didn't want you to see:
TROTTA: The Daily News, Michael Goodwin, also said "We have seen an x-ray of a very dark soul".So are the Fox haters correct? Does Fox want to see Obama dead? Did Liz Trotta wish for his assassination? We report, you decide.
SHAWN: Oh.
TROTTA: Which is a campaign-killer if I ever heard one. Well, you know, for years the media has told us that Hillary Clinton is the smartest person in the world. And that's up for grabs now, and the media's catching on to that as well. The vast right wing conspiracy blame has been undermined by her evasions, by her outright lies if I may say, by her pandering, by her race baiting, and now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama--
SHAWN: Obama.
TROTTA: --um Obama, well both if we could.
SHAWN: Well talk about how you really feel, but do you really think that--she didn't mean that she thinks that he going to get assassinated, and she apologized--
TROTTA: Well, that's beside the point, whether she meant it or not--
SHAWN: --and she's just using it in a historical context?
TROTTA: She's tone deaf, because it's a radioactive word. And the whole question of the first black man becoming a candidate for Presidency of the United States has all kinds of overtones and all kinds of caveats that really have to be considered in this thing. And his security has been a real issue. He's had bodyguards earlier than anybody else. Surely this woman had to know that that was a third rail to say "assassination". And it's hard to argue for her on this, because it isn't the first time she's made this step.
We emailed Mr Feldman with our concerns about the deceptively-edited clip he was using and the inflammatory, unjustified headline attached to his piece. We suggested that he embed the entire interview, not just the snippet, and even provided him with the embed code. To his credit, he replied promptly:
That was the clip brought to my attention at the time of posting. I've updated the post to include a link to the full interview.The article now does include a parenthetical link to the complete interview but the heavily clipped snippet remains the only video embedded there, and hence the only video most readers will see. Meanwhile, the incendiary headline and overwrought prose remain, and even though Mr Feldman is now certainly aware of what Liz Trotta was saying in the missing footage he is still saying nothing about it in his piece.
Complete segment with Eric Shawn and Liz Trotta:
UPDATE: Liz Trotta apologizes. fox news huffpo kos liz
