Fox News took its hypocritical concern trolling over a mistake made by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to ridiculous heights (or lows) today in its “Fox Fan Scoop” newsletter which made that a bigger story than George W. Bush’s eulogy at his father's funeral today.
Yes, Ocasio-Cortez made a mistake when she tweeted that because “$21 TRILLION of Pentagon financial transactions ‘could not be traced, documented, or explained,’” that amount could fund 66% of Medicare for all. As The Washington Post Fact Checker explained when it awarded her four Pinocchios, “the $21 trillion is not one big pot of dormant money collecting dust somewhere. It’s the sum of all transactions — both inflows and outflows — for which the Defense Department did not have adequate documentation. ‘The same dollar could be accounted for many times,’ as Philip Klein wrote in the Washington Examiner.”
Ocasio-Cortez later told the Post, through a spokesperson, that her larger point was, “how we care so little about the ‘how do you pay for it’ when we are talking about war and military spending.”
I would characterize that as a rookie mistake from a freshman Congressperson-to-be. Ocasio-Cortez has not even assumed office yet. It’s not as though she were writing a Medicare budget based on those numbers.
But Fox News, which is obsessed with Ocasio-Cortez, thinks this is HUGELY IMPORTANT news. The “Fox Fan Scoop” that arrived in my inbox today blared at the top of the email, “Kennedy: Ocasio-Cortez 'Doesn't Have a Working Knowledge of Basic Economics'”
Actually, it’s more of an error about accounting and budgets. Which suggests that it’s Kennedy lacking the basic knowledge. Ocasio-Cortez, by the way, has a bachelor’s degree in economics and international relations. Lisa “Kennedy” Montgomery, on the other hand, has a degree in philosophy and no apparent economic credentials, other than her conservative punditry.
But that didn’t stop Kennedy, who cohosted Fox News’ Outnumbered show yesterday, from announcing that Ocasio-Cortez’ mistakes “represent the downfall of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party because it is built on a foundation of yogurt” and that she doesn’t understand “how people make money” or “how money is created.”
Cohost Harris Faulkner scolded, “You gotta have your facts straight.” She also lectured that it should not just be Republicans “who are giving [Ocasio-Cortez] grief … It should be within her own party.”
And yet, when it comes to Donald Trump’s ignorance and dishonesty, it’s such a different story. I’m old enough to remember Faulkner shrugging off the hiring of crooked creep Paul Manafort as Trump’s campaign manager because he’s “non-traditionally politician” and “that’s what people love about Donald Trump.” In another appearance, instead of pushing back on Republican Rep. Andy Briggs’ false claim that special counsel Robert Mueller has found “nothing,” "objective anchor" Faulkner helped validate it.
As for financial genius Kennedy, she blamed allegations of “persistently illegal conduct” by the Trump family running the Donald J. Trump Foundation on the Clintons. "The Clintons had a brilliant money-laundering scheme,” Kennedy dubiously said. “And it’s no surprise that any other politician would want to do the exact same thing.”
Instead of confronting the tactics, cohost Marie Harf, usually a decent advocate for Democrats, played the disappointing “she doesn’t represent most Democrats” card that did nothing to call out the malicious, dishonest game that was really going on here. Nor the fact that it was probably based in fear over Ocasio-Cortez’ popularity.
But this is how much Fox News Insider loved the attack:
Watch the sudden interest in facts below, from the December 4, 2018 Outnumbered.