Newly-minted contributor Sarah Huckabee Sanders used a recent appearance on Fox Business to lecture the media “to take a good, hard look” and put out news “you have no idea which side the journalist is on.” Seriously.
Huckabee Sanders has never been known as a truth-teller herself. As I wrote when she got her Fox contract, she not only routinely lied to the public, she admitted to lying when she was under oath to Mueller investigators – then reverted to the same lie once she was out of danger of perjury charges. The fact that Fox would consider her a reputable source of commentary and analysis speaks volumes about the network’s own lack of regard for facts.
But lyin’ Huckabee Sanders seemed cluelessly sincere when she spouted off about journalism on Fox Business’ Varney & Co. recently:
HUCKABEE SANDERS: I think all of the media needs to take a good, hard look at how they put the news out. It’s gotten so much where there’s no process, there’s not - no accountability, no check and balance.
And I think that we have to start taking so much of the opinion out of the news. It’s a good news story if you can read it and you have no idea which side the journalist is on. And it’s very hard to find that. There’s a big difference between commentators and news and we have blended those so that there is no difference any more.
Just two days ago, Fox’s “ultimate journalist” Martha MacCallum interviewed Corey Lewandowski shortly after he admitted in a House Judiciary Committee hearing that he saw no obligation to be truthful during interviews. MacCallum didn’t even mention that during her softball interview.
“I wonder if Sarah Huckabee Sanders can figure out which side Lou Dobbs is on, on that same channel,” MSNBC’s Chris Hayes said drily after he played a clip of Sanders’ FBN remarks. He was referring to Dobbs’ jaw-dropping “report” from his visit to the White House. In those comments, Dobbs said about the notoriously miserable White House, “The mood in that White House couldn't be more high energy. … There's sunshine beaming throughout the place, and on almost every face.”
For another display of Fox propaganda, Hayes next played a hand-off from Sean Hannity to Laura Ingraham in which Hannity complained that Ingraham’s show cut off Donald Trump’s rally in New Mexico the night before.
“Is that the White House speaking or is that you?” Ingraham asked. “I couldn’t tell.”
Hannity insisted it was “Sean Hannity speaking.” But the White House couldn’t have hoped for more. “We were right at the crescendo. Imagine a great work of Bach or Mozart and you’re about to crescendo,” Hannity said.
Ingraham said she’d “take it under advisement.” She added, “But I’ve got an idea: you handle your hour, I’ll handle my hour. Don’t try to boss me around in my hour, Hannity. I don’t boss you around in yours.”
Watch it all below, from MSNBC’s September 18, 2019 All In with Chris Hayes.
(Huckabee Sanders image via screen grab)
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