Fox’s “objective” John Roberts visited Fox & Friends Weekend yesterday morning for a peek at his upcoming Fox News special about the sequester last night. However, unless you were deeply interested in the Republican point of view, only, there seemed no point in watching beyond this five-minute segment. When Roberts wasn’t directly quoting Republicans, he was quoting and promoting their point of view.
The segment began with host Alisyn Camerota saying, “Now that we’re stuck in Sequesterville, there’s a lot of finger pointing going on in Washington over who’s to blame for getting us here. Why couldn’t a deal be reached?”
Host Tucker Carlson added, “Well, John Roberts joins us now for a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the government in crisis.”
He forgot to mention that “behind-the-scenes look” was entirely from one side only:
ROBERTS: This goes back to summer of 2011 during the Budget Control Act. This was negotiations over raising the debt ceiling. Congress put together something that would be too horrible to ever happen in order to try to force both sides to the table, to come up with some spending cuts. Of course, that never happened. The super committee that was struck to do all of that failed and then we kicked the can down the road in the famous fiscal cliff deal back at the turn of this year, on New Year’s Eve.
But it became clear in February that the Republican Party just couldn’t compromise any more on this idea of raising revenues. They gave up $600 billion in tax cuts in the fiscal cliff deal and a lot of its constituents, particularly on the Tea Party side, were saying "no." And I talked to several members of Congress, both the House and the Senate, who suggested that if John Boehner were to make another compromise, like happened back on New Year’s Eve, that he probably wouldn’t remain as Speaker for very long.
So Republicans started to become more comfortable with this idea of the sequester going through. And while there was a lot of concern about the cuts to the military, this idea that we needed to rein in spending began to become the prevailing idea of the day. And then over the President’s Day holiday, the break, a lot of Republicans went back to their districts, including David Schweikert (R-AZ), to give Power Point presentations to tell people exactly how terrible our fiscal position was. And it became an emergent consensus that they needed to hold the line on this because it was perhaps the last best chance to actually get something done to cut spending.
Roberts aired a clip from his special: a visit with Republican Schweikert, who was described by Roberts as “telling his constituents he will hold firm” on the sequester.
ROBERTS: You’re going back to DC on Monday. From there, there will be five days to solve this or go over whatever fiscal cliff will happen when sequestration kicks in. How do you see this unfolding in the next few days?
SCHWEIKERT: The first mistake in the question is saying “solvent” because if we can’t do this tiny, marginal reduction in spending – which ultimately, by the end of the day, isn’t even a reduction in spending, it’s just a reduction in the growth of spending. God forbid what our future is if we can’t do this.
Roberts offered no challenge to this even though there is evidence that the sequester will cut growth and lead to job losses and is not the only opportunity to cut spending. Neither of the two hosts mentioned that either.
The audio dropped out for a few seconds as the segment returned to the Curvy Couch but it seems as though Roberts added something to the effect that to some people the sequester is “seen as a sign of broken government that can’t get anything done even in the height of a crises.” He continued, “But for other people, it seems that maybe this is a reflection of deep divisions within the country over the vision of where it should be going: bigger government vs. smaller government. And then the fact that there is a vigorous debate going on here, Tucker and Alisyn, is a sign that – well, things maybe aren’t as bad as everybody thinks they are.”
If either host even noticed that a Democratic perspective was missing, they didn’t seem to care. Camerota asked, “So, John, I mean, what happens now? From all of your investigation and talking to people, is this gonna happen or is there anything that people are doing behind the scenes to sort of, um, modify these cuts?”
Roberts answered from his one-sided perspective:
That’s a big question a lot of people have. Will the economy be wasting away in Sequesterville? Uh, you know, some of these cuts may go through but they don’t start for at least a month. So there’s a window of time here that many Republicans in the House believe they can get some work done to adjust how these cuts will be applied. You know, Carl Cameron talked to Paul Ryan last week who said that he already has agreement with Republicans and Democrats to take a look at the military cuts and perhaps adjust them in such a way that they don’t bite as hard. A lot of people believe there is plenty of time to adjust these things so that the horribleness that the president has been talking about over the last few weeks doesn’t happen.
And in case all that wasn’t enough GOP love, Roberts gave a pitch for cutting Social Se curity, Medicare and Medicaid:
But even if they get a deal, this is mostly about discretionary spending. It was about 80% discretionary spending, a little tiny piece of mandatory spending in the sequester. The big elephant in the room here is mandatory spending: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and what you do about that. Because that is really what’s going to choke the American economy over the coming years. For example, if you look after 2023, ten years from now, domestic discretionary spending or just discretionary spending goes up by about 10-14% but mandatory spending doubles to $4.5 trillion by 2023. So, as you well know, they gotta do something about that or we’re gonna be in serious trouble.
Carlson approved: “You know, you really can’t say that enough. And I don’t think people understand that’s the whole deal, mandatory spending, entitlement. …Is there ANYBODY you interviewed who’s seen in a public position of authority who seems serious about tackling the growth of Medicare?
Roberts answered, “They all realize that it’s a problem and something has to be done, Tucker. Of course, the problem with Congress always is, how do you get to that? Do you start to means test on Medicare? Do you means test more on Social Security? Do you raise the retirement age? What do you do?”
Notice how raising the income cap wasn’t mentioned as a possibility? Even though raising the cap without increasing benefits actually creates a long-term surplus?
Roberts continued, “Everybody’s got a lot of ideas but there’s certainly no consensus. But, you know, we see this emerging bi-partisanship over what to do about the application of the sequester so maybe there is some kind of appetite – let’s hope – to get at this element of spending.”
“Great reporting,” Camerota enthused, as she closed the segment.
Yes, so great, that you can grasp the entire one-hour special in just a few minutes.
“What happens to these journalists when they sign on with Fux Noise? Do they have to swear an oath of allegiance on the fat ass of Jabba The Ailes to only report right-wing talking points?”
Here’s my answer to your question Truman:
IS THE POPE CATHOLIC?
;^)
Anyway, on a more serious note, by any chance have you seen Robert Greenwald’s eye-opening and jaw-dropping documentary “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War On Journalism”? I believe it’s still available at http://www.bravenewfilms.org .