Anyone who's logged on to the internet today, probably has heard about embattled Senator Thad Cochran's jaw-dropping statement to a Fox News reporter, allegedly showing complete ignorance about House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's stunning primary loss earlier this week. But the Cochran camp says he was joking and that Fox reporter Kyle Rothenberg should have known it.
In the very brief clip Fox News posted online today, Cochran is asked if what happened in Virginia, i.e. Cantor's loss, concerns him. The reporter was referring to establishment GOP Cochran's upcoming primary run-off against a Tea Party insurgent.
With a straight face, Cochran said, "I don't know what you're talking about. What happened in Virginia?" When the reporter said he was referring to "Eric Cantor losing his seat," Cochran replied, "Well, I haven't really followed that campaign very closely at all."
"Really?" the reporter asked.
"Really," Cochran said.
Not surprisingly, the video - which Fox called "Embattled Senator says he's unaware of Cantor's loss" - has gone viral. Now, the Cochran campaign says the video is misleading. From the Clarion-Ledger:
Cochran spokesman Jordan Russell said Cochran was frustrated because the candidate had been asked the same question multiple times just before sitting down to do the interview. ...Russell said Cochran was irritated to be asked the same question again and was politely trying to steer the interview on to other things.
...After the video was posted online and started gaining traction, the Cochran campaign took to Twitter to defend the senator and challenge what Russell said was a misleading headline by Fox News. ...The campaign said that the Fox News report was "directly contradicted" by statements Cochran gave to Mississippi media the day after Cantor lost. They then linked to three different stories that had Cochran acknowledging Cantor's loss.
Considering Fox News' blatant promotions of the Tea Party and its obvious support for Cantor's opponent, it's not surprising that Fox would try to duplicate its success in Virginia with one in Mississippi. Sean Hannity has already promoted Cochran's opponent on the air in a campaign stump speech disguised as an interview.
So was this an honest misunderstanding? I report, you decide.
Only with FoxNoise and the extreme right would you find works of fiction being taken as guides for real world politics (not sure which is the more widely used—“1984” with its constant rewriting of history or “Atlas Shrugged” and its “self-sufficiency blather” even as its author sucked the government teat for all its worth).
