What does Fox News do when it can’t blame on Democrats Sean Spicer’s own offensive words about Hitler? Why, the “fair and balanced” network blames the media for reporting on it too much.
In case you missed it, here’s what Spicer said yesterday, during Passover no less, via The Washington Post:
In criticizing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday that even Adolf Hitler did not sink to that level of warfare, despite Hitler’s use of gas chambers to kill millions of Jews.
When given the chance to clarify his comment — uttered during Passover, the most celebrated Jewish holiday in the United States — Spicer then said Hitler took Jews “into the Holocaust center” [he meant concentration camps] but that Hitler “was not using the gas on his own people in the same way that Assad is doing.
Spicer has repeatedly apologized since then. But, unfortunately, even as he kept trying to clarify, he kept stepping in his own doo-doo. And even as he apologized on CNN yesterday, Spicer said Trump is attempting to “destabilize the region,” meaning Syria.
But, hey, Fox had to come up with some way to put lipstick on these latest Trump administration blunders. So Fox’s Pete Hegseth pretended on Fox & Friends this morning that the media would NEVER have covered these mistakes had it been an Obama administration spokesman. Therefore, the credibility problem is all their fault!
HEGSETH: Let’s stop using Hitler as an example, ever. There’s no reason to do that so leave that aside.
The credibility problem here is exposed through, of course, the coverage of the mainstream media. The best test is would this have ever been done to the Obama administration. … Would they have ever gotten this kind of treatment when they quickly came out and apologized and acknowledged, “Hey, it was the wrong thing to say. I shouldn’t have made that analogy. Let’s move on to, I don’t know - North Korea, Syria, health care, tax reform, the big issues that this presidency is tackling right now.
We don’t have to think too hard to imagine how Fox would be reacting if any Obama spokesperson said such a thing. All we need to do is recall Fox's obsessive poutrage when Oprah Winfrey, not even a member of the administration, opined that some of the disrespect toward President Obama was because of his race.
Hegseth continued to distort what had happened as he falsely presented Spicer's gaffe as "one comment."
HEGSETH: But they breathlessly try to bring him down. Colossal error of historic proportions? One comment from the White House podium? Are you kidding me? What they’ve done is continue to expose themselves because they can’t hold back on their dedication to tearing down any single member of the Trump administration. Anyone, it doesn’t matter. And Sean Spicer’s front and center on the front lines, taking it from the opposition party, the left-stream media, the legacy media, whatever you want to call them.
If you know of any time where Hegseth ever objected to Fox’s relentless promoting of Donald Trump’s bogus birther attacks on President Obama, or of any reason for it other than a “dedication to tearing down” the Obama administration, let me know.
Meanwhile, watch Hegseth smear those who were offended by Spicer’s remarks as dupes of the media below, from the April 12, 2017 Fox & Friends. Underneath that is Rachel Maddow’s blistering – and far more in-depth and informative – dissection of Spicer’s inarticulateness below, from the April 11, 2017 The Rachel Maddow Show.
.@PeteHegseth weighs in on mainstream media's coverage of Sean Spicer's Holocaust gaffe pic.twitter.com/UYftdoInZP
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) April 12, 2017
White House ineptitude shown in its spokesman
Rachel Maddow reviews in grueling detail White House spokesman Sean Spicer's ineptitude at speaking for the White House and cleaning up his own messes, with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson doing his part to make ridiculous statements as well.
BTW, where’s KellyAnn these days? That “alternate facts” incident may have spelled her doom. Guess they’re keeping her in the team until it’s safe to fire her.
Next may be Steve Bannon who alluvvasudden ain’t the golden boy no more. I’ll be happy to see that despicable person fired.
That said, the Trump administration reminds me of Mel Brook’s most surreal films, only better: no way a team of gag writers could ever have put this script together. No producer would ever have accepted it.