too stupid for network news
By American Girl in Italy on April 13, 2009 at 1:00 PM in Current Affairs, G20, President Barack Obama, Saudi Arabia
I don’t know the names of the two women in this video, so I don’t know their resumes, but if they are journalists they need to turn over their credentials right now. They have lost ALL credibility, and should never be taken seriously, or given a platform in the news, again. Ever.
Red head: “I think it was a….a leaning over.”
Blonde: “He was clearly leaning over to shake his hand. They idea that Barack Obama would bow to him is SO ridiculous…. A person is sitting down and you lean over to shake their hand, you are not bowing…The person is sitting down and you…”
Oh ye of little intelligence…. when someone is NOT sitting down, and you bend over at the waist in front of them, you are in fact bowing.
The FOX panels goes on to discuss this in the Behind the Break segment, and they continue the argument that it is ridiculous that Obama, as POTUS, would bow to him.
But that is exactly what Obama did. Why would they not admit it? The blonde insists the King was sitting, and Obama would never bow to him.
It’s bad enough that Gibbs lied about this, scoffed at the question, and dismissed the blunder, but for *journalists* to spread the lie is WRONG WRONG WRONG.
This is the kind of thing we can expect from msnbc and CNN, and this is why their ratings are so much lower than FOX’s. But FOX needs to remove these two liars from their lineup. They are irrelevant, and are either too stupid or too biased to ever be listened to, again. And having them on future segments lowers the credibility of the station.
This just proves, to me, that if they are SO willing to LIE about something so simple, they will lie about anything. And I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired of the media lying to us.
This story could have been killed days ago, had Gibbs given some kind of honest explanation, like Obama had met the King earlier in the day, and they were just joking around. Or that they know each other and had met years ago, through some friend of Obama’s. Or that Obama was overcome with excitement on meeting a King (but he refuses to bow to women)… SOMETHING, ANYTHING is better than a LIE. A lie so ridiculous, Gibbs can’t even say it with a straight face.
And for what it’s worth, I think Gibbs lost ALL credibility on this one as well. Obviously he won’t get fired for it, because he was doing it for Obama. But, I will no longer believe a word he utters, or stutters. And I ask again, why the lie?
The blonde woman from FOX just makes this more laughable by insisting that Obama would never bow to the King, since he DID. And the King is NOT sitting down.
Susan sent me this story, and the headline is hilarious:
“How Do You Say Faux Pas in Austrian?“ by Kathleen Parker
(One thing that really bothers me is the media’s refusal to hit Obama on his faux pas’ without also taking a whack at Bill, or Hillary or Bush. Can’t we just criticize Obama when he deserves it, without constantly running with the *But…but…but Bush/Bill/Hill did it too!!* meme. Bush was following PROPER protocol when he held hands with King Abdullah. Like it or not, it was protocol, and a sign of equal respect and friendship. Bowing is a sign of submission, and offensive to King Abdullah: “I have tremendous distaste for such matters because I believe that one only bows before one’s God, not before another human being.”)
Anyway, back to Kathleen’s piece, she calls it what it was, a bow.
“It is also not in our DNA to bow to monarchs or to act beholden to anyone save God. We kneel before no human. Yet, occasionally, we are required to behave politely in countries that still cleave to their pomp and circumstance.
For such purposes, we have hirelings to instruct us in questions of protocol. We wonder lately where they are. Who didn’t tell Michelle Obama that one doesn’t put an arm around the queen of England, no matter how endearing we renegades might find it? Who didn’t tell the president that the United States does not bow, especially not to the rulers of countries where women are less valuable than sheep?”
Whatever their other flaws, the Kennedys could be counted on to mind their p’s and q’s in public. If there were any question, Baldrige — officially White House social secretary and chief of staff to Jacqueline Kennedy — was there to fill in the blanks.
Which is to say, you do as the Romans. Or the Austrians (who speak German, not Austrian, Mr. President). That doesn’t mean we compromise our own values in the process. Hence Rule No. 1: Americans don’t bow to monarchs.
I’ve now watched the tape of Obama’s bow a dozen or more times. It is simply not possible to accept an anonymous [she missed Gibbs' lie, apparently] White House official’s insistence that Obama was merely reaching down to take the king’s hand and had to bend over because of the height difference.
Not to name drop, but I’ve met the king and I’ve met the president. We’re not talking Gulliver and the Lilliputians. Even if Obama needed to reach down for the king’s hand, why not let the king raise his hand of his own volition? When I shook hands with the king, he seemed to know what to do.
To any objective observer, Obama’s bend from the waist quacked like a duck. It was . . . a bow. Clumsy, embarrassing and unbecoming a president, yes, but not an act of treason or, as one newspaper put it, a gesture of “fealty to a foreign potentate.”
She acknowledges the bow, but then goes on to “grant him slack” and excuse it away (and takes another swipe at a former President), OK, fine. Whatever. Spin it however you want. Excuse it away.
But for crying out loud people, ADMIT it happened. And STOP they lying. Or find a new line of work.
(Has Katie Couric covered the Bow story? I would be interested on her take. I do recall her telling NBC reporter Lee Cowan during the primary that if he can’t be objective, he should not be a reporter…)
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, the novel by John Le Carre, a new motion picture starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.
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