If there is one thing Fox News loves to do, it is to blatantly clip snippets of dialogue from President Obama’s public comments and build them up into scandalous proportions in an attempt to portray the President as anti-America. That is precisely what they did this morning with their Fox Nation article entitled, “Obama: Americans are a ‘Little Bit Lazy'”

The Fox Nationalists have once again distorted the meaning of the President’s words in order to cast him in a negative light. Here is what was actually said:

“We’ve been a little bit lazy over the last couple of decades. We’ve kind of taken for granted, well, people would want to come here and we aren’t out there hungry, selling America and trying to attract new businesses into America.”

It could not be more clear that in the original context of his remarks Obama was referring to the actions of government, not the American people. After all, it isn’t the people who engage in activities to “sell America” or “attract new businesses into America.” Those are trade missions generally carried out by the Department of Commerce and other federal agencies. Obama made these comments at a meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), an inter-governmental trade association.

Anyone analyzing this speech would have to agree that Obama’s assessment is objectively true. They could hardly argue that the past ten years was a model of success with regard to trade and the U.S. economy in the world market.

Nevertheless, Fox News jumped on the dishonestly edited clip with the posting on Fox Nation, an editorial on Fox Radio, and at least two segments on Fox & Friends on the Fox News Channel. And in every case they falsely characterized the President as insulting the American people. But what is really insulting to the American people is the way that Fox insults their intelligence with shoddy reporting and deliberate lies. And, sadly, for many in Fox’s audience, the insult is apropos.