Brit Hume does his best to try to gloss over Fox's role in helping Andrew Breitbart attack Shirley Sherrod with his hit piece on the NAACP. Although Fox might not have mentioned Breitbart's edited tape on the air before she was fired, as Media Matters noted, they did have it on their web site.
WALLACE: So, Brit, what do you -- what do you make of the Sherrod case? And what do you make of this argument that this is one more example of a 24/7 media culture run amok and that we're all guilty?
HUME: Well, if this wasn't so depressing, this whole episode, it would make a wonderful farce. I mean, the misinformation that has emanated from this event, beginning with the misleading videotape or portion of videotape that started it all, although it should be noted for the record that the Breitbart version of the video did contain mention of how she came to see things in a different light -- so part of the redemption story was there. It just was completely overlooked in the -- in the early going by everybody, principally the administration, which reacted to this before it was reported really anywhere outside of the blogosphere and the Web.
The misinformation then, obviously, led to her firing. But then there were all kinds of myths about how that came about. And you heard -- you heard Governor Dean here on this program this morning spouting one of the principal elements of that misinformation, which was that Fox News had been deeply involved in causing this, when Fox News, as you pointed out, Chris, hadn't even aired the woman's name until after she was forced out.
So you know, this has been depressing. Yes, it's partly the 24/7 media cycle, but the 24/7 media cycle really hadn't gotten fully cranked up until after she was -- after she was forced out.
LIASSON: Well, this was done in part out of a concern that they would be engulfed -- the administration would be engulfed by a 24/7 media cycle, and they were trying to do what they thought all smart communication shops do, which is to make a story not happen.
HUME: They got engulfed, all right.
LIASSON: Instead, this completely -- they got engulfed already. Look, every entity here who did not do their homework and practice good journalism and report the entire videotape is guilty, including Fox, who played it but not in its entirety even after she'd been fired; the NAACP, who had the videotape in their possession in their Georgia chapter, and didn't look at it before they condemned her remarks; and certainly, the administration, who fired someone without...
(CROSSTALK)
LIASSON: ... as they have said many times since...
WALLACE: ... like, you know, as an afterthought.
LIASSON: Yeah. They were -- they...
WALLACE: They fired their own...
LIASSON: Yes.
WALLACE: ... employee without...
LIASSON: There's no doubt that...
WALLACE: ... doing due diligence.
LIASSON: ... of all of the actors here, they bear the highest standard because they are the administration. They were her employers. There's no doubt. And they -- as they have acknowledged and apologized profusely from the...
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: Well, yeah, but they keep saying it's all part of this media culture.
LIASSON: Look, there's no doubt...
(CROSSTALK)
LIASSON: That doesn't absolve them of responsibility.
WALLACE: What about the argument, Mara, that they were -- they were elected to change the cycle? They -- what was change about? What was...
LIASSON: They cannot change the cycle. They have not -- if -- I personally...
WALLACE: Well, do you think maybe not preemptively firing people would be a step...
LIASSON: That would be...
WALLACE: ... in the right direction?
LIASSON: ... a good thing. And you know what? You know, this was a sorry spectacle from A to Z. The only good thing I can think of coming out of this is from now on, hopefully, the administration, other media organizations will not take things -- take little clips from partisan Web sites and put them out as if they are the facts.
is - - who was it that kept Shirley Sherrod off of ALL the Sunday political shows? We have super majorities in the House and the Senate and we can't even get a full Ginsburg from a woman who is the Rosa Parks of our generation.Who,dammit?!!
Was it Fox News, again?
Why do you call her the Rosa Parks of our generation?
after 5 1/2 hours?
It may have something to do with Pat Buchanan's calling her that.
"The deal has to be negotiated in the real world, not on some idealized Aristotelian plane. We understand that. A 100-percent deal may be impossible."
Famous "Reality Based" Commentator
Eyes wide open... ♥
Study the symptoms not the virus...
"after 5 1/2 hours?"
I'm a slow reader. L.A. school system.
That's the spin Alexander Marlow put on on Breitbart's site. He's trying to say that “the mainstream media no longer feels allowing the public to get to know the real Shirley Sherrod advances their agenda.” Like she is never going to be heard from again. Go tell the Breitbart crew nice try, but the spin is not going to work. They still have to answer for this crap, and they will.
This is hardly investigative reporting.
Fox News, and in this instance Brit Hume, twist facts and outright lie to advance the message they want to advance. Ohh..shocking. I'll alert the blogosphere.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
and they create no real news.
They invent theatrics and make up lies to support clearly CON points of view, with their own personal points of view, presented with live clips, in and out of flashy "news" studios, fancy graphics and talking heads.
They look like a sheep, but a little glimpse under the rotten wool will show you the seething, lying, wolf of facism dripping with the blood of our dying democracy.
If look at Hume said, he certainly did not exhonerate Fox and he seems more than a little embarassed by their role in this whole affair.
They are lying about the timeline of when they published the doctored video. But the lie comes with a calculated secondary message, that publishing online is somehow different from airing something on TV. If you argue only the timeline then you've accepted their secondary message.
They are full of shit every which way.
they are writhing like maggots. they are excited!
i would vote if i were you.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
They were calling her racist, radical, etc all day without even watching the full tape. It wasn't until after we found out Breitbart is a lying douche that they started backtracking and clutching their pearls asking why Sherrod was unfairly fired when all along they were bashing her.
...the website isn't their news arm, so should not be considered news and benefit from journalistic protections.
I wish Shirley would sue Bigfart and Fuc*s for slander.
A multi-million dollar judgement would be about the only thing these psycho's would understand.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
Andrea Makris
"The deal has to be negotiated in the real world, not on some idealized Aristotelian plane. We understand that. A 100-percent deal may be impossible."
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As long as a certain portion of white America feeds this beast, Fox News and all of it's hateful lies will live.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kfhd8-swEY&fe...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
the reception Michael Steele is hosting with Andrew Breitbart in Beverly Hills next month with coverage?
"The deal has to be negotiated in the real world, not on some idealized Aristotelian plane. We understand that. A 100-percent deal may be impossible."
Famous "Reality Based" Commentator
Study the symptoms not the virus...
LIASSON: ... "of all of the actors here, they bear the highest standard because they are the administration. They were her employers. There's no doubt."
No, Andrew Breitbart should bear the highest standard, he presents himself as a serious journalist and puts it out there without vetting it; when in fact he is a right wing hack with a very serious agenda and Fox News, his go to boys, run with it (not to let the administration off the hook, they screwed up too). I hope she sues him for deformation of character.
Didn't breihtbart help james o'keefe with his doctored video?
Once could be an accident, but twice?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I almost agreed with Mara Liasson, who almost described the situation objectively. In the end, as required, Mara had to subtly attribute a little less culpability to Fox by attributing a little more culpability to the administration. Expecting her, or any of these bozos to present an issue entirely fairly is unrealistic. The party line is simply too strong.
On the other hand, what bothers me about this story most -- from an after-the-fact analytical viewpoint as opposed to what was objectively done to Ms. Sherrod -- is the way every player wants to point the finger at someone else as being the most guilty of the worst offenses. Fox, of course, wants to pretend that it did nothing at all wrong, and if it did do anything wrong it had to be because of what the administration did.
In the end, Fox isn't responsible for the administration, just as the administration isn't responsible for FoxNews. Secretary Vilsack (or Robert Gibbs) can't point to FoxNews and somehow lessen the egregiousness of the administration's behavior by referring to how irresponsible FoxNews, or the NAACP, or even Andrew Breitbart is.
Fox, too, is responsible for its own actions and they don't earn a pass or even a partial pass because the administration did something wrong. Unfortunately, FoxNews proved once again that it is incapable of discussing anything, including its own irresponsibility, responsibly. Bill O'Reilly's "apology" was more offensive than his original irresponsible call for Sherrod's resignation or termination. Chris Wallace desperately wants to pretend that if Vilsack fired Sherrod before FoxNews ever showed the video clip then Fox is absolved from responsibility for its own grotesque coverage, which, not surprisingly, Wallace is incapable of recognizing as grotesque.
Similarly, when discussing the affair, the administration gets no points for pointing out that they did something because of the way this story would be covered by cable news. If someone really did say that the administration wanted Sherrod out before the story appeared on Glenn Beck, that admission is appalling.
In a case like this where everyone (except the victim) behaved irresponsibly, the various actors should limit their assessments to the role they played and not discuss the other actors at all.
(Sigh)
So much misinformation.
So little time.
The people of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage." J.K. Galbraith
I mean really...
The crux of this whole mess is an intentionally mis-edited video, designed to create the wrong impression and we have to even listening to this disgusting back peddling? Really?
In this case I would say - yes
Shoot the messenger - he sucks
This Hume guy apparently refuses to watch Fox News, too... maybe he's not so bad after all.
I've missed it along the line somewhere... exactly who told the Admin. that it was going to appear on Beck that night vs Faux in general?
Study the symptoms not the virus...
My thought is that a producer over at Fox News called Robert Gibb's office to get a statement about the "racist" remarks appearing in a video on FoxNews.com and BigGovernment.com made by a USDA official. Gibb's then contact Rahm, Rahm contacted the person who contacted Sherrod and it all went to hell.
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Hope it does not mind solitary confinement.
"The deal has to be negotiated in the real world, not on some idealized Aristotelian plane. We understand that. A 100-percent deal may be impossible."
Famous "Reality Based" Commentator
regularly. The red phone in Beck's studio has been tapped since day one. Beck doesn't need to even lift the receiver for the White House to hear everything that is going on. In fact, I was already e-mailed a warning not to post this comment after I wrote the second sentence.
"The deal has to be negotiated in the real world, not on some idealized Aristotelian plane. We understand that. A 100-percent deal may be impossible."
Famous "Reality Based" Commentator
His "red phone." What a fucking joke that is. Egotistical little asshole.
Why don't you remove the poll from your ass? Fox is a disgrace because they were the one stop shop for Breitbart's bullshit! Good luck wiping the shit off of your face! We can all still smell it!
fail to mention that Vilsack took all the responsibility for forcing her to resign. Why is everyone taking the MSM line that the administration is responsible for her being forced to resign. There is still a lot of bullshit that people are taking for fact.
Vilsack is not part of the admin.? Who elected him? I'm interested in just what/who prompted the obviously... rash decision by Mr. Vilsack?
;)
Study the symptoms not the virus...
I doubt Vilsack even knew about the video until someone higher up in the administration told him about it and then he probably had someone call Sherrod to tell her to resign.
I think someone in the administration was probably tipped off about the video and they wanted to get rid of Sherrod before the shit hit the fan- problem was they didn't take the time to investigate anything. They just wanted to make it go away so Fox wouldn't go on a rampage.
said that he was solely responsible. If you have facts, say so but don't give me this bullshit of your speculation because it is just bullshit until you can verify it. You sound just like a Fox pundit when you say, "I think or in my opinion."
Hume was dead? He looks dead. He sounds brain dead.
Lew
Fighting the Christian American Taliban daily.
Here's Britt without makeup.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://up...
up a totally dishonest story that helped get a woman fired. Fox News will never admit that they're nothing more than a 24/7 campaign arm of the Republican Party. The people at Fox and those who watch it don't even know what good journalism looks like.
Pig with lip gloss?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
"Every year, in February, we attempt to recognize and to appreciate black history. It is a worthwhile endeavor for the contributions of African Americans to this great nation are numerous and significant. Even as we fight a war against terrorism, deal with the reality of electing an African American as our President for the first time and deal with the other significant issues of the day, the need to confront our racial past, and our racial present, and to understand the history of African people in this country, endures. One cannot truly understand America without understanding the historical experience of black people in this nation. Simply put, to get to the heart of this country one must examine its racial soul."
Study the symptoms not the virus...
Perhaps Britt "Where's the Oil" Hume's Christian faith can offer him the redemption and forgiveness necessary to overcome his hackery.
Thy name is Hume. And that is some champeen turd polishing right there.
Just imagine if the Administration and Vilsack and the NAACP had done nothing. Imagine what would have happened if they didn't react for a day or so. Fox would have had Breitbart on and they would have done the Full Monty together over and over. Beck would have demanded a response from the White House.
And then it would have been revealed that they were completely fucking wrong.
Where would we be today?
This administration specializes in missed opportunities.
Brit Hume is a complete waste of space. Probably the most boring and clueless talking head on Fox Noise. How he got beyond being an obscure news reader in some small market is beyond me.
Brit Hume sold out a long time ago. Hope he got a good price. The prick.
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