Liz Trotta Of Fox News Jokes About Knocking Off Obama
It doesn’t get much worse than this. Liz Trotta is a Fox News contributor and former New York bureau chief of The Washington [Moonie] Times.
As if it isn’t enough to conflate Osama and Obama by mixing up the names (as many have done before her), she goes on to assert with giddy laughter…
“and now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama …uh… Obama … well, both if we could.”
The Fox anchor, Eric Shawn, merely laughed along saying, “Talk about how you really feel.” This is, sadly, not the first call for violence from Fox News personalities. Bill O’Reilly told listeners that he didn’t want to lynch Michelle Obama unless there was “evidence.” Sean Hannity said that keeping Nancy Pelosi from becoming Speaker of the House was “worth fighting and dying for.” Non-Foxie Rush Limbaugh has been inciting his dittoheads to “riot in Denver” at the Democratic National Convention.
I suppose this just validates O’Reilly’s warning that “before this presidential election year is over somebody is going to get hurt.” And it makes me wonder what he, and the rest of the Fox terrorists, know that we don’t.
Update: In some quarters of the InterTubes™ there is grumbling that the video above was deceptively edited. For anyone interested, here is a longer clip. I don’t see how the context changes with regard to Obama, but it does include Trotta disparaging Clinton as an evasive, lying, pandering, race-baiter. So much for objectivity.
Update II: Trotta apologized this morning:
“I am so sorry about what happened yesterday and the lame attempt at humor. I feel all over myself, making it appear that I wished Barack Obama harm or any other candidate, for that matter, and I sincerely regret it and apologize to anybody I have offended. It is a very colorful political season, and many of us are making mistakes and saying things we wish we had not said.”
I’m glad she apologized, but did she have to tack on the qualifier at the end that implies an excuse because, “Hey, everybody’s doing it.”?
Tags: Eric Shawn, Fox News, Liz Trotta
So far, I have seen no mention of this story on MSNBC (on TV or .com), no mention on yahoo, no mention on CNN, and of course, no mention on Faux “news”.
I think we need to spread this story around as much as possible. I believe a lot of people simply underestimate just how vile Faux “news” is, but this helps to prove it.
For the record, it happened at 11:58 am (EDST) on May 25, 2008. The date and time are needed if you intend to file a complaint about this INDECENT broadcast with the FCC.
Some will say this was not indecent. If advocating the murder of a presidential candidate isn’t indecent, I don’t know what is!
Here’s the web address if you want to file an FCC complaint.
You’re absolutely right. I don’t expect much reporting from the Conventional Media. Olbermann would mention it, but he won’t be back until Tuesday.
Thanks for info.
And this is why I adore Olbermann. Finally someone on the news who is telling it like it is. I was trying to contact MSNBC on their website but can’t. I’m glad that CNN has a commentator spot but I can’t understand why bobble-foots are so important that Blitzer is talking about it, but he’s not touching the Liz Trotta fiasco who is a supporter of Clinton.
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
-Aldous Huxley
Isn’t ZabaSearch.com wonderful?
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[...] mis- pronouncements of a non European name? Which has definitely led to the Liz Trotta gaff… To say the least,it’s no wonder that there were 1,710,000 hits.Liz [...]
Did somebody really just say that Olberman tells it like it is? There is no bigger distorter and propogandist on the air than that guy. Don’t get me wrong, he’s very entertaining, and he surely will run with this story with his usual zeal against anything he perceives as being too conservative.
Ultimately, this is a story about nothing. A talking head said something stupid and made herself ook like a fool by trying to play it off with a laugh. She has been rightly called a fool for it. But seriously now, I never saw this kind of animosity directed towards Maher when he praised the apparent attempted assassination of Cheney, when Maher was criticized it was done so with a smile and an “Oh Bill, what did you say now?” shrug of the shoulders.
As long as the majority of people see politics through the spectrum of my side: good your side: evil we will never move forward. It comes from both sides and every time one of these “fakeroversies” comes up and everyone on one side of the aisle points and shreiks at the other side with constructed indignation.
I’m so tired of it. What is it about politics that makes adults act so clearly like annoying little children?
I appreciate your being exhausted by childish political antics. You might want to take a nap now because it’s not likely to get any better anytime soon.
As for Bill Maher, my recollection si that he was hammered hard for his comments - it was hardly a “shrug of the shoulders. And it should be noted that Maher is a comedian for whom there is a different standard than Trotta, an allegedly hard news editor and commentator.
You’re right, Maher was criticized, but almost exclusively by talk radio and conservative commenters. Most of the mainstream media and liberal commenters either excused him for just being an entertainer (as you just did) or outright defended his right to free speech.
The didtinction between the two is that Trotta’s comment was off-hand, ill-advised, and immature, it was a verbal stumble that she tried to revoer from with humor and ended up sounding like a moron, while Maher, by his own description was not trying to be funny, but instead was making a statement which he considered to be fact. He defended it by saying that you could not argue with the fact that the world would be safer if someone would kill Cheney.
The FCC complaint: I believe it is not an obscenity issue, which would require form 475B, but rather an issue of an “unfair, biased, illegal broadcast” requiring form 2000E, since this behavior falls under the category of “broadcasting threatening or intimidating statements about an individual or group.”
It is easy to submit the form online at;
http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm?sid=d1e640&id=d1e697
Thank you for the exact time and date of the broadcast. Now, the name of the show…?
I believe the program was a Sunday edition of America’s Election Headquarters.