Fox News: When the news doesn’t fit your narrative – change the f*king news

On Wednesday of this week, President Obama gave an impassioned speech on the economy that many saw as a kick-off to the looming mid-term elections. How did the President do? Well as Jon Stewart demonstrated last night on The Daily Show, it really depends on which cable news network you watched. Oh and he also mocked the President’s evolving stance on bipartisanship for good measure.

The following segment from The Daily Show proves yet again, that its way more fun and interesting to cover the reporters, journalists and commentators of political news, than it is to actually cover political news. After pointing out how President Obama appears to have somewhat given up on his pledge to focus on the commonalities between political rivals, he then showed how the analysts at Fox News and MSNBC strangely had the opposite opinion of how the President did (one can guess how that specifically worked out.)

He then showed a clip of Sean Hannity clearly removing the context of a portion of the President’s speech regarding increased tax rates in a pretty damning bit of commentary to the Fox News prime time host. The heart of Stewart’s commentary can best be summed up as follows:

“Starting clips later and cutting them off before the speaker finished the thoughts full construction can be a useful tool in helping your audience understand what you want them to think. It’s a fun and easy way to make people you disagree with say things that make them unelectable. Not that the Republicans need any help making themselves unelectable.”

<table style='font:11px arial; color:#333; background-color:#f5f5f5' cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' width='360' height='353'><tbody><tr style='background-color:#e5e5e5' valign='middle'><td style='padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;'><a target='_blank' style='color:#333; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;' href='http://www.thedailyshow.com'>The Daily Show With Jon Stewart</a></td><td style='padding:2px 5px 0px 5px; text-align:right; font-weight:bold;'>Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c</td></tr><tr style='height:14px;' valign='middle'><td style='padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;' colspan='2'<a target='_blank' style='color:#333; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;' href='http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-september-9-2010/are-you-ready-for-some-midterms----msnbc-s-political-narrative'>Are You Ready for Some Midterms? - MSNBC's Political Narrative<a></td></tr><tr style='height:14px; background-color:#353535' valign='middle'><td colspan='2' style='padding:2px 5px 0px 5px; width:360px; overflow:hidden; text-align:right'><a target='_blank' style='color:#96deff; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;' href='http://www.thedailyshow.com/'>www.thedailyshow.com</a></td></tr><tr valign='middle'><td style='padding:0px;' colspan='2'><embed style='display:block' src='http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:352221' width='360' height='301' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' wmode='window' allowFullscreen='true' flashvars='autoPlay=false' allowscriptaccess='always' allownetworking='all' bgcolor='#000000'></embed></td></tr><tr style='height:18px;' valign='middle'><td style='padding:0px;' colspan='2'><table style='margin:0px; text-align:center' cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' width='100%' height='100%'><tr valign='middle'><td style='padding:3px; width:33%;'><a target='_blank' style='font:10px arial; color:#333; text-decoration:none;' href='http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/'>Daily Show Full Episodes</a></td><td style='padding:3px; width:33%;'><a target='_blank' style='font:10px arial; color:#333; text-decoration:none;' href='http://www.indecisionforever.com/'>Political Humor</a></td><td style='padding:3px; width:33%;'><a target='_blank' style='font:10px arial; color:#333; text-decoration:none;' href='http://www.thedailyshow.com/videos/tag/Tea+Party'>Tea Party</a></td></tr></table></td></tr></tbody></table>

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/jon-stewart-skewers-fox-news-and-msnbc-for-skewed-coverage-of-obama/

 

CNN host calls out Sean Hannity for ‘deceptive’ video editing



Fox News personality Sean Hannity is an opinion host, not a reporter: a fact made abundantly clear in last week's fracas over what one CNN host called on Sunday "deceptive" video editing.

Most journalists would get fired over something like this.

Last week, Hannity featured a clip of President Obama explaining why he will allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, just as the prior administration had planned. Introducing the video, Hannity called Obama's words "a rare moment of honesty" that he hopes voters will watch.

"... [Taxes] are scheduled to go up substantially next year, for everybody," the president said.

Cut back to Hannity.

"I know the anointed one will make sure that happens," he quipped disapprovingly.

But, that's not really what the president said.

"Under the tax plan passed by the last administration, taxes are scheduled to go up substantially next year, for everybody," he explained, in an unedited version of the remarks. "By the way, this was by design."

The president has suggested that America keep the tax cuts afforded to the vast majority of Americans, while allowing tax cuts for the wealthiest to expire. As Obama puts it, he'd like to keep the Bush tax cuts that pertain to 98 percent of Americans, and do away with the substantial tax benefits for the wealthy.

Cutting right to the chase, CNN's Howard Kurtz on Sunday called out Hannity's audio/visual trickery.

"Isn't that kind of editing -- what's the word -- deceptive?" he mused.

"It's a fun and easy way to make people you disagree with say things that make them unelectable," summarized Daily Show host Jon Stewart, who was first to catch Hannity's edit.

"Hannity and [Fox News personality Glenn] Beck use this technique often and repeatedly," video blog Crooks and Liars noted. "Hannity, for instance, has repeatedly run a deceptively edited video of Obama speaking abroad in order to smear him as being a president who presents a weak American face. It's almost a nightly feature of Beck's show, who uses selective edits to smear everyone from Van Jones to Jim Wallis to President Obama.

"Indeed, selectively cropped video has been a specialty of Fox News generally for some time now, and it has been long remarked."

A similarly deceptive video was employed by conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart in his media assault on former Department of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod. She was fired from her job after he released a video which was edited to show an apparent admission of on-the-job racism, but unedited footage of her speech showed she was actually recounting a decades-past experience that taught her the fruitlessness of racist attitudes.

http://rawreplaymedia.com/media/2010/1007/cnn_rs_hannity_editing_100912a.mov

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/kurtz-calls-hannity-deceptive-editing/

 

Yes, I saw that. Unbelievable, isn't it?

 

And the funny thing is, this is what they do with 'actual' events and facts, one can only wonder how fair their opinion commentary is.

 

Hey cold, long time no trolling. Why such a long break from ET?

 

This is just a lie.

The only reason the Bush tax cuts were temporary is that that is the only way they could get them passed over democrat obstructionism in the congress. Temporary tax cuts only required a simple majority. Democrats could fillibuster permanent tax cuts.

There is a simple principle here. Democrats will use any excuse to raise taxes and will oppose tax relief by all means possible. The only people they want to get tax "cuts" are people who are not paying taxes. They claim to want to preserve the "middle class" tax cuts, but that is also a lie. They will repeal them if they are reelected, just like Clinton's promised middle class tax cuts never materialized.

 

What is the lie that you are referring to?

Democrats are proposing tax cuts for 97% of the population, what do you mean oppose? Its the Repubs that were holding it hostage so that it will be extended for the rich. And they will repeal it after they win reelections since we all know that there are no elections after the mid-terms and there wont be any more re-elections, ever!

 

So are you supporting tax cuts for the rich, who had gotten disproportionately richer during Bush's administration? Tax cuts that do not pay for themselves (a matter that has already been established as fact) and were put in place while Bush was engaging the country in two wars? Please teach me all about fiscal responsibility.

 

And while you're at AAA, teach him about objectivity, humility and minding his own Canadian business.

 

More House Dems bailing on WH refusal to extend all Bush-era tax cuts
POSTED AT 2:32 PM ON SEPTEMBER 9, 2010 BY ED MORRISSEY

If Democrats plan to paint the GOP as extreme this year on a national level by tying them to the Bush tax cuts for higher-income earners, they have a problem. Their own House members have begun to split from the party message and the White House on this issue, as Greg Sargent reports for the Washington Post. In fact, Rep. Jim Himes directly contradicted Barack Obama’s allegation that the GOP was looking out for the rich in demanding an extension for all the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts by scoffing at the notion that a $250,000 income makes one “rich”:

• Rep Jim Himes of Conneticut says he supports a termporary extension, because earning $250,000 annually “does not make you really rich.”
  
• Rep Bobby Bright of Alabama came out against ending the tax cuts, because “a vast majority of my constituents … don’t believe in tax increases on anybody at this point in time.”
  
• Rep Ron Klein of Florida wants a one year extension of the tax cuts, including those for the rich, because “right now, our top economic priority has to be job creation.”
  
• Rep Gerry Connolly of Virginia says the tax cuts should remain because the recovery remains “fragile.”
  
• Rep Gary Peters of Michigan wants the cuts to continue lest we “jeopardize economic recovery.”
  
• Rep Harry Mitchell of Arizona says he “strongly” opposes letting the tax cuts lapse because “we need to encourage investment, not discourage it.”

So which is more extreme — the President who considers anyone making $250K so rich that the government needs to confiscate more of those earnings, or the Democrats who agree with the GOP that such a policy would hurt investment and the economy? If one counts this by a measure of bipartisanship, then it appears that the White House is holding the “extreme” position on tax hikes.

Sargent writes that national polls show support for raising taxes on the higher income earners. Is he right? Neither of the national polls released this week directly address the question, which seems rather odd in retrospect, since it’s about the only major issue that this Congress will have to decide this year. The WaPo/ABC poll did ask voters which party they trusted more on taxes, and Republicans got a 45/40 lead among registered voters, a reversal of the position from six months ago, when Democrats led 41/37.

Rasmussen almost always includes this question in its state-level polling, but that’s a little different than what Sargent noted. However, California is usually not considered a representation of conservative America, and its results are instructive. Among likely voters in California three weeks ago, Rasmussen found a majority that supported extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, and a plurality of 46% that wanted all of them extended; 41% wanted the extensions limited to middle-class earners. If there is a national consensus to exclude the upper end from extensions, that consensus has oddly excluded California’s more liberal electorate. Given that, expect to see even more defections from the White House message of tax hikes and more government spending.