Make a false statement, then use edited footage to support it. Secrets of the noise machine, exposed! Updated!

A video clip of Brigitte Quinn and Judy Bachrach of Vanity Fair is getting a lot of attention over at Oliver Willis, what Mr Bill would probably call one of the "defamation sites". Ms Bachrach has appeared with Ms Quinn before, to discuss such weighty issues as the style sense of candidates' wives. But this time around she had bigger fish to fry. Ms Bachrach employed the activist technique of interview hijacking. The guest simply ignores the questions asked, talks over the interviewer if necessary, and changes the subject to whatever she wants to talk about.

And as for that video clip, there's a twist: it has been cleverly edited to remove all of the preliminaries that show what the topic of the segment was to be. But at J$P we believe in full disclosure:

QUINN: The President getting a head start on tomorrow's festivities. We'll take a look at the grand Presidential party plans....

This doesn't sound much like a segment devoted to discussing armor in Iraq. But we continue with Quinn's introduction:

QUINN: President Bush sworn in for his second term tomorrow, but the parties in Washington already underway. Why wait? The four-day military-themed affair full of candlelight dinners, parties, and no fewer than nine inaugural balls.

What this introduction makes clear is that Ms Bachrach was invited to Fox News Live to talk about the parties, the dresses, the balls--not the war in Iraq. (And by some peculiar coincidental twist, this introduction just happens to be exactly the part that has been cut from Oliver's video clip.) As we see, a guest well-trained in the art of hijacking makes her own rules:

BACHRACH: Something should put a crimp in the plans of the White House to have such a very lavish inaugural at a time of war.
QUINN: Really? Oh, OK.
BACHRACH: Yes, what I've noticed is, the worse a war is going the more lavish the inaugural festivities...

Ms Quinn is a bit surprised by the turn in the conversation, but her guest is not entirely off-topic, so she continues the discussion along this line. Then the hijack begins:

BACHRACH: Have you noticed any peace or any transfer of democracy in Iraq? If you have, you're the first person to have seen it and I'd like to hear about it.

Iraq? Iraq? Where exactly did that come from? The topic was inauguration parties. So Quinn calls her on it:

QUINN: ...Judy, to be honest with you I really didn't want to argue politics with you this morning...

Precisely. The segment was not supposed to be about politics or the war in Iraq. But a determined hijacker is not so easily deterred:

BACHRACH: Oh really? I thought I was allowed to talk about what I wanted to talk about.

Translation: who cares about why I was invited to appear? Do not adjust your receiver; I am controlling this interview. The hijack is complete. The conversation turns to scrap metal and flimsy vehicles. Quinn acts in a thoroughly professional manner in letting the guest have her say and doing her best to get a word in edgewise as Bachrach repeatedly talks over her.

So offering as his "evidence" a doctored clip that omits the introduction (where the topic to be discussed was set) Oliver Willis proclaims:

On Fox News Channel, you're free to speak about the coronation of George W... unless you've got the nerve to criticize Dear Leader. Then you get a Fox News Meltdown.

Now Oliver's criticism automatically becomes gospel in many quarters, no matter how much the factual inaccuracy is pointed out. This is how the noise machine works. But consider that even in this interview, Bachrach was not cut off, or forced to stick to the original topic. What's more, we checked out FNC's coverage later that day, and just between 4:00 and 6:00 pm alone we saw:

Mo Alem (DC Anti-War Network) on Your World with Neil Cavuto
Geraldine Ferraro and Richard Aborn on The Big Story with John Gibson
Shazza Nzingha on The Big Story

Surprisingly enough, each and every one of these guests had "the nerve to criticize Dear Leader", on the FNC airwaves. There were no meltdowns, and they weren't hauled off by some burly security guard. Each said his or her piece. But according to Oliver, these interviews never happened, and never could have happened--because Fox News Channel doesn't permit criticism of George Bush. How can this be?

The answer to that question is inescapable. Oliver is just not telling the truth.

Update: Judy Bachrach tells the Washingtonian that she was promised ten minutes for her interview.
1. There are no 10-minute interviews on Fox News Live. That's longer than the program blocks run! With her interview starting at 11:48 am that would take her beyond the end of the program and through most of the following commercial break.
B. What about the other topics that had been teased earlier, and ran after Bachrach's interview? Are we supposed to forget they existed?
III. When you catch someone in a lie, doesn't that make all their testimony suspect?