O'Reilly and Ingraham on Minnesota Senate Vote Recount, Also Media Matters inaccuracies
From the November 13 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:
O'REILLY: There are 200 votes separating Senator Norm Coleman from his challenger Al Franken in Minnesota. There will be a recount, because Coleman's lead is so small, but now there ar charges of cheating. After the vote last week, Coleman lead Franken by 727 votes now the lead is down to about 200 votes with various things adding to 458 to Franken and taking 63 away from Coleman. He didn't get one vote, Coleman. So things are looking pretty shaky in Minnesota even more so because the guy in charge of the election, Mark Ritchie, said this:
[begin video clip]
CONTESSA BREWER (MSNBC anchor): Do you understand why the Coleman campaign is now questioning the integrity of the vote counting?
RITCHIE: Oh, I think that is normal campaign. Their goal is to win at any price.
[end video clip]
O'REILLY: That is pretty shocking. He is supposed to be impartial. But then it got even worse. When hours after making that statement Ritchie said this:
[begin video clip]
RITCHIE: I don't have any reaction to that because I didn't say that their campaign is willing to win at any price.
[end video clip]
O'REILLY: He just said it. Sounds like Barney Frank. Joining us now once again to analyze this Laura Ingraham.
You know. Now we are into the twilight zone. OK. Just like Barney Frank. We play the clip and the guy comes on anyd says that I didn't say what you just heard. But this guy is the secretary of state. He's in charge of overseeing this thing, and now we've been investigating it. Do you realize that since Election Day -- do you know, that since Election Day, Coleman didn't get -- they didn't find one vote for Coleman. He lost 47 or 67 votes. The other guy, Franken, they're finding votes all over the place -- in the trunks of cars --
INGRAHAM: Well, you know --
O'REILLY: -- you know, up in the tree. You know, and, I mean, everybody's watching this, so I don't know, can you -- do you think they can get away with it?
INGRAHAM: This is vote counting by David Copperfield. I mean, this is like a David Blaine illusionist finding votes everywhere.
Look, this is my rule of thumb, Bill. Anytime a Republican in a race like this is only winning by, let's say, a thousand votes or less, then you can bet that that Republican's going to end up losing that seat. It just always seems to work out this way, that -- that the election officials in the state where there's, you know, some type of dispute, always get into this kind of gray area, and -- and we find now that these votes -- these 504 votes -- came from three precincts -- just three precincts out of the whole state. That's staggering.
And as John Lott pointed out, Bill, in a great column he wrote that was in today's New York Post, the -- the numbers of votes they found -- found for -- for Cole -- for Franken, excuse me, since Election Day outpace the number they found for Obama by 2.5, OK? Two-point-nine times as many votes were found for all Democratic officials statewide.
O'REILLY: Well, but -- but here's the deal. Here's the deal.
INGRAHAM: Something doesn't add up there. It's very strange.
O'REILLY: Everything doesn't add up, not something. Everything doesn't add up. You're not finding any votes for the Republican guy? None?
INGRAHAM: No, of course not.
O'REILLY: You're taking votes away from the guy? And then, all of a sudden, as you pointed out, three -- and what are there, a thousand precincts? More than a thousand. Three, all right, heavily Democratic, they're kicking votes in like this. But here's the deal. If Franken gets in, that puts the Democrats over the 60 magic number. So, that -- that means it's every American, because this is a far-left loon we're looking at right here -- not Bill Clinton, Al Franken. He's a loon, OK? So, if he gets in, every American, every single person in this country is gonna be impacted. And I just -- see, I don't know what you do here.
If -- if the fix is in -- and you just heard the secretary of state -- the fix is in. What does Coleman do? Does he take it to the federal level? What does he do?
Media Matters has a transcript of the exchange between O'Reilly and Ingraham where they misquote O'Reilly and cuts out any material that points out the problems with Ritchie's comments. Just compare the beginning of the transcript that I have here with the beginning of their transcript.
Media Matters changes completely alter the impression created by O'Reilly's broadcast. Media Matters also edits the video to completely change the meaning of the exchange. Media Matters is taking O'Reilly's statement about Coleman not gaining a single vote completely out of context. O'Reilly was obviously just talking about their not being a net loss and not any net pick up for Coleman.
Labels: mediabias, mediamatters
posted by John Lott at 3:43 PM
9 Comments:
Deja vu of Washington's 2004 Governor's election. Democrat votes picked as soon as they were able to "touch" the ballots during the re-count. Old ballot were modified/"corrected" and new ballots were added. The re-count turned into a new count and the Demo "won" after 3 "counts"!
I find this to be highly disturbing to say the least.
Finding myself at a lack of polite words to describe this willfull misrepresentation propagated by Media Matters, I leave all here a copy of their statement from their website...
"Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media."
Source:http://mediamatters.org/about_us/
Wow...
Somehow I doubt this comment will get posted, but I know Lott loves to read my corrections, so here goes...
Lott,
Did you watch the clip? Did you read either of the transcripts?
The only apparent "misquote" on the Media Matters site is this:
O'REILLY: Next on the rundown, Laura Ingraham will react to our discussion and also analyze possible voter fraud in the intense Minnesota Senate race.
And I'd wager that O'Reilly did say that at least as a promo for the segment before it ran. Frankly, I'm not going to waste my time scouring YouTube for video clips to prove how petty an issue this is. How is this a substantive "misquote," Lott?
Obviously, the Media Matters transcript is edited. That's what the presence of [...] means. Maybe you never learned that in college.
The Media Matters transcript does in fact deal with Ritchie's statements and O'Reilly's concerns about Ritchie's bias by both accurately quoting Ritchie and O'Reilly. (And I should point out that MM includes the Fox-edited version of Ritchie's statements, which are more damning of Ritchie than the full version of his statement. Yeah, there's bias for you.)
You claim that MM takes O'Reilly's false statements about Coleman not getting any additional votes out of context. Do you know what the phrase "out of context means"? I have a feeling you do, since that's your standard operating practice. The MM transcript puts O'Reilly's statements in context. You might try reading it. Or, if you prefer, read your own post. O'Reilly, multiple times repeats the lie that Coleman gained no votes from the audit process. How is that "out of context"? He repeats, multiple times, statements that are demonstrably false. A viewer of this segment would come away less informed of the situation in Minnesota than he or she started.
Here is the full interview with Ritchie,to compare with the version that Fox uses, which is a good example of quotes being used out of context... a strategy you know so well, Lott.
Oh, and speaking of context, let's not forget the O'Reilly has a long-standing personal vendetta against Franken for exposing the lies O'Reilly has repeated about his own journalism career and his personal history. And of course don't forget that Fox's trademark infringement suit against Franken for mocking their "Fair and Balanced" slogan was laughed out of court and dismissed as "wholly without merit, both factually and legally."
Now there's a little context for you.
Re: Clark's comment - Irregardless of who said what about Ritchies comment - MM or O'Reilly - the issue is Ritchie went on national news (MSNBC) and made the accusation that the Republican Senator's "goal is to win at any price." This is insinuating a LOT about the Republican party and for this to come from a political figure whose position demands impartiality, is concerning to Republicans. Republicans concerns regarding Mark Ritchie heading up this recount process are valid when you consider his close alliance with ACORN - which oh by the way, ACORN laughably claims to be "non-partisan, that's why it receives taxpayer funding - Ritchie himself was formerly a "community organizer" and he has received endorsments and funding from ACORN during his campaign to win the Sec. of State position. We've all become re-familiarized this election season with ACORN's dirty tactics when it comes to election fraud (if you don't know what I'm talking about, then Google newsreports yourself on ACORN & Mickey Mouse, Dallas Cowboys, 7-year old girl from CT, and rampant new voter registration fraud). Ritchie also dismissed requests by an election watchdog group to review its MN new voter registrations when they found 200,000 duplicate voter registrations and 60,000 applicants listed non-existant mailing addresses. Instead, Ritchie accused the group, which happened to be a conservative group, of raising a “new level of desperateness” and attempting to cast doubt over the election outcome. He never had it investigated.
It's a very fishy situation going on up there in Minnesota, and conservatives like Dr. John Lott are perfectly legitimate to point out the red flags about this Senate race.
What is apparently obvious, painfully obvious is that clark's command of the English language is questionable at best...
The fact that Mark Ritchie has never held a real job and his only claim to fame is pandering to parasites...
Is clark trying to make like the MSM and ignore the facts?
indoviking,
I'm all for discussing the issues and having a debate rooted in facts, but Lott can't make an argument based on facts or reason. He relies on lies and innuendo and a readership that generally accepts what he says at face value. His "analysis" is lazy at best and often fraudulent.
By all means, we should debate the issues, but let's start with the truth, instead of endlessly recycled half-truths and lies.
And 1, please enlighten me with you erudition and show me where I have failed to grasp Lott's meaning. Time and time again, I have shown where Lott fails to tell the truth. Read Lott's posts. Read the claims of fact he makes and then read the articles and videos he links to. Time and time again, the source material itself shows how wrong Lott is.
"And 1, please enlighten me with you erudition and show me where I have failed to grasp Lott's meaning"...
Obviously is started with the word, "Somehow" and went downhill from there...
1,
You're hilarious... such insightful commentary... I can see you are someone to be taken very seriously! LOL!
When it comes to politicians, vote stealing or fraud, Al Gore made the only true statement of his life, "There's no controlling legal authority". Al Frankens victory will never be challenged by anyone of consequence.
Post a Comment
<< Home