January 16, 2016

Precious conservative cruiser Hugh Hewitt, doesn't think fact checkers matter in a Republican debate. From CNN's New Day:

LORD: One last thing about Governor Christie. I was really surprised he denied that he had supported Judge Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. I happened to have written a column about this last week for "The American Spectator." He said, if he were President Obama, he wouldn't have appointed her. But after listening to her testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he was all for her. So in fact, Marco Rubio was correct about that.

CAMEROTA; I was going to end it there, but Michael, I see you nodding. So did he catch Cruz in some flip-flops?

SMERCONISH: You know, there's a journalist in New Jersey named Matt Katz who, I think, knows more, has covered more about Chris Christie than anyone else. And in the midst of the debate, I tweeted at him last night, relative to Justice Sotomayor but relative to Planned Parenthood, because I wanted to be reminded of the facts. Chris Christie flat out denies having written a check to Planned Parenthood. Go back and look at "The Star-Ledger." They've written exhaustively on the subject. I think he'd do better, if he frankly said, "Yes, at one point in my life that was my perspective. I changed over time. Here's why."

CUOMO: Right.

SMERCONISH: But to say they misquoted me, the fact checkers are going to have their work to do.

CAMEROTA: Hugh, so that -- so Chris Christie was fact checked, that's true, last night. But what about when Marco Rubio went down that sort of litany of things that he said Ted Cruz had flip-flopped his positions on?

HEWITT: Using my boxing analogy, in the 15th round, Marco Rubio laid one on Ted Cruz.

But here's the deal about fact checkers. Nick Kristof, a terrific columnist for "The New York Times," tweeted out that Donald Trump said, in fact, in his hearing that he wanted a 45 percent tariff. Fact checking doesn't matter in these things. What matters is personality, an aura and your command presence.

And of all those two, the best command presence last night was Donald Trump and Marco Rubio. And I keep marveling at how Donald Trump can dominate a television screen. He reaches through the screen sometimes, and you know, you're back on "Celebrity Apprentice." It's an amazing skill set.

And so whether or not he said 45 percent or not, or whether or not Chris Christie said, "I like Alison Sotomayor. I would vote for her." or whether or not Ted Cruz said this or that on H-1B visas, none of that stuff matters when you go to vote.

What matters is who can beat Hillary Clinton? That's the bottom line for Republican voters. And now my friends here both are going to support, I assume -- Geoffrey is -- I'm not sure about Michael. We'll let Michael decide for himself. He might have gone over to the dark side. But we'll decide who's going to vote -- who can beat Hillary Clinton, and right now, that's open question.

CAMEROTA: Fact checking doesn't matter. We have to...

SMERCONISH: When somebody says the facts don't matter, if someone says the facts don't matter, I would suggest...

HEWITT: I didn't say that. I said fact checkers don't matter.

CAMEROTA: You said fact checking doesn't matter. Truer words during this election probably never spoken.

Michael, Hugh, Geoffrey, thank you so much. See you guys soon.

So there you go, Republicans It's not about fact checking. (PS this is from the "you can't fact-check memory" guy.) So when you pay Donald Trump's 45% tariff on all that Walmart crap you buy, or find out Marco converted your Medicare to a coupon, or wonder why all of a sudden Chris Christie eliminated Social Security benefits to those making over 200K, don't blame the fact checkers.

Blame Hugh Hewitt.

UPDATE: John Amato writes:

So Hugh Hewitt tells CNN 'facts' don't matter anymore to Republican voters. Truth may not matter in Republican presidential primaries anymore, (I actually think they do for many Republican voters) but it matters to voters in a general election for sure. It's a-holes like Hewitt that co-sign all the lying bullsh*t we see coming from the mouths of Republican politicians. Can you imagine if I said the things he does to his audience?

OK, if you're a person that's not into politics all that much and you classify yourself as an independent who just votes for the president. Let's say you find out that every word Chris Christie uttered during the Fox Business Debate was a lie that he used to defend himself against Sen. Marco Rubio's criticisms on his record, would you still vote for him? Would you trust anything he said?

Please CNN, I know you made a deal with Salem Broadcasting, but keep this buffoon off the air until your next debate in March.

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