Chavez' Assassination remarks escalate: Fox relegates to the gossip minute
Reported by Chrish - August 29, 2005
Special Report has a segment at the bottom of the hour called the Grapevine, which host Brit Hume regularly labels "the most intriguing two minutes on television." It is the time to get your righteous indignation up, for spats and dust-ups, insulting and ridiculous comments, and occassionally an important piece of news is technically "reported" but not given any weight. Today 8/29/05 the latter applied to a short piece on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez' reaction to radical Christian cleric Pat Robertson's call for assassination.
Hume: "A week after the televangelist Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and then apologized, Chavez is now threatening to take legal action against not only Robertson, but the United States. Chavez says he might seek to extradite Robertson under international treaties, calling Robertson 'crazy,and a public menace.' What's more, he says his government will file suit in U.S. court to demand that the Bush administration call Robertson's comments 'an act of terrorism' insisting, 'If the U.S. government does not take the action it must take, we will go to the United Nations and the Organization of American States to denounce the U.S. government.'"
This was read with Hume's trademark mock aghast intonations, indicating to the viewer that Chavez was a little off himself in making his demands.
Comment: If a liberal or Democrat had stirred up an international incident like this, or if the leader threatened was on board with the Bush gang, there would be no need for the target to take legal action against the menace; the Bush White House would hand him over and Fox would cover it ceaselessly. As it is a radical right-winger with the support of a million Bush-voters who threatened an independent leader not cowed by this administration, Fox will diminish it.
