Fox News Chief Political Analyst Brit Hume very carefully parsed his words as he defended Tucker Carlson presenting “another side to the [Jan. 6] story that was never presented by the committee.”
Hume appeared on Special Report yesterday, obviously to defend the mountain of criticism heaped on Tucker Carlson for presenting a completely false picture of the Jan. 6 insurrection, while he is still dealing with a mountain of recently-public evidence proved him a complete liar about the 2020 election to his viewers.
In his introduction to the discussion, Baier contradicted Carlson’s “peaceful demonstration” propaganda. Baier said, “Obviously, other videotape shows violence from that day, including the assault of more than 140 police officers who were injured, some of them, some of them badly, and some of them never returned to work.” He added, “That said the controversy around it and Kevin McCarthy's decision to give these tapes over to Tucker Carlson, produced a lot of questions.”
There to defend the indefensible was Hume.
HUME: What strikes me about this is, what a poor job, the January 6 committee did. They had access to all of this information, and they were very, very, very selective in what they presented.
And they had a committee that was composed entirely of people chosen by Nancy Pelosi, or approved by Nancy Pelosi. The Republicans didn't really have a say on that committee, and no one on that committee did any serious cross examination. Nor did the member -- any members of that committee insist on the videotape that we've been seeing from Tucker Carlson be aired as part of what the committee was doing.
FACT CHECK: Nobody mentioned that the reason there were no members of the committee chosen by then-Minority Leader McCarthy is because he had a temper tantrum when Pelosi rejected two of his choices and then pulled all five of his picks. In other words, the lack of McCarthy Republicans was his own doing.
Hume continued blaming the Democrats for Carlson’s falsehoods, albeit without saying they were true or false:
HUME: Tucker was able to construct an entirely different narrative from that which was presented by the committee. All of this would have been unnecessary if we'd had a normally composed, properly balanced committee on January 6th. The opportunity would have been there to present a video that Tucker used as well as what the members -- other members of the committee wanted to use, and this all would have been over and over and done, and behind us.
They chose not to do that. Kevin McCarthy, whose chosen members were not allowed to be on that committee has now done what he's done. We see there is another side of the story that was never presented by the committee.
…
Look, Tucker made an argument based on the -- on the tape that he showed, which he's perfectly entitled to do. Normally, of course, this would be done in the, in the -- in the course of the -- of the committee's business, but it wasn't. So, now, we have what we have.
Much of the reaction seems to me to be hysterical, bordering on, you know, unconstitutional assertions of censorship and so on.
So, my view of this is that sooner or later all this videotape will be out, and the public may have a better chance to make a proper assessment of what happened that day.
Basically, it comes down to this question, Bret. Was it a riot? Which I think it was, and which I think Tucker said as well it was. Or was it really an insurrection that threatened the republic, as Bennie Thompson put it? We came, as he put it, critically close to losing our democracy that day. I don't think the evidence supports that.
Merriam-Webster defines an insurrection as “an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government.” A crowd chanting that the vice president should be hanged for certifying a presidential election seems to fit that bill perfectly.
You can watch Hume whitewash Carlson’s disinformation below, from the March 8, 2023 Special Report.
1. Angry Right Wingers can tantrum all they want about January 6. They’re not getting away with retroactively painting it as a tourist visit or a small disturbance by a few bad apples. It was an angry Right Wing mob attacking the US Capitol with implements in their hands, smashing windows, bringing nooses with which they announced their intention to hang the acting president of the US at the time, Mike Pence. And all because Pence’s childish former spokesman couldn’t stand the fact that he, Donald Trump, is a loser.
2. The January 6 committee did a commendable job of collating the information and materials we have from what will go down in history as one of the lowest points for the Right Wing in American history. Republicans did participate in the committee, including Liz Cheney who is herself fairly Far Right. The other Republicans that were suggested were never serious candidates for such a committee and had made clear that they would have spent their time disrupting the committee and challenging its existence rather than contributing in any constructive manner. Brian is correct to note that McCarthy’s temper tantrum is the reason that more Republicans didn’t participate, not anyone else’s behavior. McCarthy apparently throws these tantrums as a regular behavior for him, and it seems he does so out of his own insecurities.
3. Brit Hume should be remembered as a fairly poor excuse for an “elder statesman”, which is clearly the position he sees himself as holding at Fox. In reality, he is an extreme angry Right Wing partisan who regularly spouts talking points rather than actual analysis. His career before Fox gave him a platform consisted of multiple embarrassments, including when his attempted “gotcha” during President Clinton’s intro of RBG backfired into utter humiliation for him in front of the entire White House press corps. It’s interesting to note that predator and disgraced former pundit Bill O’Reilly openly campaigned to get Hume’s position before Fox was compelled to fire him.
In the same breath they claim that xxx, yyy, and zzz have supernatural powers; in the next they admit that those very same folks didn’t succeed. January 6 was a GOP-incited, GOP-led insurrection perpetrated by a mob convinced that they were doing the will of the Dear Leader. Antifa was nowhere in sight and I’ve seen very few faces of colour, mostly police being battered and sprayed by the mob.
Positively Orwellian, they are. Positively Orwellian.
Wannabee sage Hume musta been dozing off when practically every honest reporter referred briefly to that peaceful-tourist story before going on to shoot it down using overwhelming evidence that January 6 was an attempted insurrection. As many have noted, an attempt at a crime that fails (e.g. bank robbery or murder) is still a crime.
