The folks at the Romney campaign, and their PR reps at Fox News, must have been pleased with the phony controversy they created by deceitfully editing President Obama’s remarks. Their dishonest portrayal of the President as dismissive of the efforts of business developers successfully exploited the short attention spans of many media pundits while simultaneously stimulating the drool glands of conservative dittoheads.
So satisfied with their reality distortion, they are already testing a new iteration on the Fox Nation web site: “Obama: Our Union Isn’t Perfect”
Consistent with their modus operandi, the Fox Nationalists have excerpted an out-of-context snippet from a speech Obama delivered to the National Urban League. The rhetorical surgery creates a deliberately false impression of the President’s views. In this case, the intent is to malign Obama for insulting America which, of course, he never did. Here is a more complete segment of Obama’s remarks where he was recalling his work on behalf of low-income families in Chicago:
“I confess the progress didn’t come quickly, and it did not come easily. Sometimes it didn’t come at all. There were times where I thought about giving up and moving on. But what kept me going day in and day out was the same thing that has sustained the Urban League all these years. The same thing that sustains all of you. And that is the belief that in America, change is always possible. That our union may not be perfect, but it is perfectible. That we can strive over time, through effort and sweat and blood and tears until it is the place we imagine. It may come in fits and starts, at a pace that can be slow and frustrating, but if we are willing to push through all the doubt and the cynicism and the weariness, then yes, we can form that more perfect union.”
The far-right wingnuts who manage to squeeze something derogatory out of these words are fundamentally dim-witted. They are the sort of patriopathic zealots who can’t comprehend that nothing, including America, is perfect. And despite their glassy-eyed flag-lust, they are not even aware that it was our founders who set the nation on a course to perfect the union. They even wrote it into the Constitution.
Obama’s speech was an indisputably positive expression of the limitless scope of opportunity that America represents. It was an affirmation of our nation’s unique ability to grow and to heal despite all obstacles. Yet the gloomsayers at Fox managed to dial up their pessimism and animus and extract something so utterly contrary that it bears no resemblance to the meaning intended by the President.
It is that ability to detour so sharply from the obvious that makes Fox Nation such a productive factory of falsehoods. And it should surprise no one if this warped wording becomes the subject of Mitt Romney’s next lie-riddled advertisement. After all, Fox is the testing grounds for Romney’s campaign of manufactured outrage. You might call it his hissy fitness center.
Check out Jon Stewart’s brilliant take on the subject:
“And despite their glassy-eyed flag-lust, they are not even aware that it was our founders who set the nation on a course to perfect the union”
Defining a “perfect union” is the source of disagreement. What you may believe is moving us toward a more perfect union differs greatly from what I or someone else may think is perfect. It’s probable that whoever wrote this Fox Nation article assumes the Presidents vision for perfection is very different than theirs. Of course they could have approached it that way without misleading or misquoting. You of course feel the desire to mislead is deliberate – and you may be right. But in the end, the issue noted in the article could easily be debated based on a difference in visions – after 3.5 years, the president can’t hide from who he really is in this election, so I think we have plenty of examples of what this president really believes.
Defining a perfect union is irrelevant to this article. The only point I’m making is that Fox is extracting another out-of-context soundbite in order to misrepresent what Obama said and make him look bad. They are political hit squad working for the Romney campaign.
By the way, I like it when people note that “the president can’t hide from who he really is.” So if he is reelected then you can’t say the people were fooled. You’ll have to admit that the people actually want what the President represents.
Fair enough – I’m aware of your dislike of fox news and/or fox nation and the desire to manipulate and/or misquote what the president says. And you are right – partly – about if the president wins re-election. In the end and I think this goes back some time – we have a choice between 2 people (sadly only 2) and many times the alternative is just not good enough (or is just so crappy) to throw an incumbent out of office. You make that statement for one reason – you are confident Barak Obama will win a second term. But if he wins, is it because people like what he is doing or is it because the other guy stinks. Mitt Romney is one of the worst alternatives I’ve seen. He is such and empty suit – but that hardly confirms Barak Obama is doing a bang up job on running the country. But you are right, if people take him over Mitt, then we are either huge suckers or the people actually like what this guy is doing. I’m not sure how this will turn out, but we aren’t looking to good with either guy winning.
If the democratic party takes the house back and keeps the senate with Barak Obama as president for a second term – then I’ll have very little argument left.
‘Obama:Our Union Isn’t Perfect’. What is their point? That is a statement of the obvious. The people who put this shit out are unbelievable and must be ultimately embarrassed by this shit because, as pointed out many times on this blog, they will not divulge who they are. If this is such stellar journalism why won’t they own up to it? We know it comes from Fox so I guess that’s all we need to know, although I would be curious as to who the individuals are that put this juvenile nonsense out.
You know who else didn’t think the union was perfect? Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, et al. They even wrote it into the Constitution. I wonder why Fox doesn’t demonize them.
More to the point, what is the definition of a “perfect union”? Is it one where there are boundless opportunities but the inevitable poor are allowed to starve or die of exposure as a payment for their “crime” of poverty? Or is it one where there are boundless opportunities and the members of a democracy take responsibility for all its members? Is a perfect union one in which political parties stonewall one another in times of crisis and, rather than find solutions, find only fault in one another? Hurray for FOX NATION for offering only resolute blame while offering nothing of importance.
Unfortunately, a perfect democracy means there is no wealth, bureaucracy, or property. In a true democracy, everyone stands on equal ground. Everyone lives in a community based on empathy and humanity. There would be no need for countries, for the monetization of our resources and the politics which sustained them would not exist. This would be a more “perfect union”, that is if the brainwashed masses could accept it.
“My country is the world, and my religion is to do good”, Thomas Paine.
And?
The Union (if that refers to America) is certainly not perfect. nothing in this world is.
What’s the story supposed to be about again Fox?
Just trying to see what sticks….the very task of a political pr operation.
…..you should hire a private investigator, or several, to find out who the editors are. Just a suggestion, it might also help this site go mainstream. That would be something.
If President Obama was a fencer, and said, “I like rapiers”, FoxNation would truncate “rapier” to “rape” and run the headline “President Obama likes rape!!”
Then Steve from York would come in and talk about how President Obama spends too much time fencing, and completely miss the point.
You are spot on. I’ve seen the very same thing many, many times.
Your first sentence is accurate as well.
I generally understand the point, but i choose to focus in on the crazy statements within an article used to support the leftist point of view. In the end, i’m not sure what good this website is since the primary viewer is already in the bag for a left wing candidate. All the criticism in the world of what fox news says isn’t going to change anyones mind here because you all think the same already. Maybe it’s just to make yourselves feel better.
When I’ve thought Mark is making a big deal out of a non-issue, I’ve told him. Or just ignored the article, if I felt there was more hyperbole than substance.
Sammy, you aren’t a dissenting voice here – you are supportive of the liberal point of view, so ignoring is easier for you because he is saying stuff you like. I was quiet for some time, but sometimes the nonsense is too much to ignore. I don’t dispute the fox news criticisms because I think he is right (or left in his case).
I have indeed dissented on these pages. And I have left alone issues I thought were silly because I thought they needed no comment.
I’m actually a moderate. But the right has shifted so far to the right that those of us who used to be considered centrists or moderates are now considered liberal. Even the most prominent moderate and centrist blog sites appear to conservatives to be liberally slanted because the right has gone off the right deep end.