Greta Van Susteren properly corrected her false assertion that the Obama administration had not called the foiled attack in Texas “terrorism.” But she did not retract the crticial intent of her original accusation.
As I posted, Van Susteren blatantly suggested on May 5th that the Obama administration was harming national security with its supposed failure to connect the Texas incident with terrorism:
In an introduction to her discussion with Fox News terrorism analyst Walid Phares, Van Susteren announced, “So far the White House not saying the gunman had ties to ISIS or calling the shooting a terror attack. Is the Obama admin being overly cautious and could it hurt national security?”
Van Susteren’s first question for Phares was, “The White House has not yet connected this to terrorism. I don’t know why. You know, it seems pretty evident. But your thoughts on that.”
Last night, Van Susteren did the right thing in noting that the Obama administration had connected the Texas attack to terrorism.
VAN SUSTEREN: Last night, I tried making the point during On The Record that the White House would not or could not directly engage in conversation about whether the attack in Texas was the direct work of ISIS. However, that point didn’t come across. I chose my words wrong, making it seem like the White House wasn’t calling the Texas attack terrorism.
And tonight, we want to clarify what the White House did say.
Van Susteren played clips of Earnest calling the attack terrorism and saying that the intelligence community is still investigating ISIS’ claim of responsibility and, if it was, “at what level” it was involved.
VAN SUSTEREN: So, just to clarify, yes, the White House is calling the attack in Texas “an attempted terrorist attack.” But no, at this point, the White House is unable to directly connect that attack to ISIS. And I think it’s only fair that I make this clarification. There was never any intention to misrepresent anything Josh Earnest said.
I have no doubt that Van Susteren had no intention to misrepresent anything Earnest said. I submit, however, that she had every intention of accusing the White House of harming national security for not declaring, “It was the work of ISIS!” on her timetable.
And that, you may notice, was not retracted.
Watch it below, from last night’s On The Record, via Media Matters.
Also, I’m sure Samaritan’s Purse does some good work but Graham is such a mean-spirited scold, I don’t think palling around with him makes Greta look any better.
What I find very interesting is that she and her husband never talk publicly about their involvement with the Church of Scientology. On the other hand, they are very vocal about their involvement with Franklin Graham and Samaritans Purse. Greta has said that Franklin is one of her “best friends” and that she talks to him almost on a daily basis. I just think it’s strange because other media personalities that are Scientologists really want you to know it. They (Greta and hubby) appear to want to keep it private.
I totally agree that Greta is a mega “Washington insider,” but feel that has a lot to do with her husband’s connections. “Overly credulous” ??? Maybe. I think it’s more denial. Tommy Christopher, who use to write for Mediaite and is a friend of hers, once said that Greta was the only anchor at FOX that was brave enough to tell their “admin suits” to take a hike if it called for her to do so. I believe that might have been true at one time, but no longer. She definitely wants you to believe that FOX doesn’t have an “agenda” on her show. She has never been an Obama fan!
Hannity at least totally believes in his ugly crusades and lies in aid of what his little mind thinks is critically important to the country. Van Susteren is just a cheap hack in aid of the partisan cause she’s paid big bucks to promote.
And McKee— Van Susteren does not and never has claimed to be a liberal. Ailes once tried to pretend she was, but that’s it.
Of course, she clearly has a pretty serious problems before you even start to pile on the crushing burden her daily betrayal of truth and fairness must bring on, the pathetic ‘plain girl’ crush she has on La Palin, the disgust and embarrassment she must feel whenever she looks in the mirror (all that cosmetic work and botox yet she looks way worse than she ever did before it). And, did I mention… SCIENTOLOGY???
On the other hand, she definitely meant to smear Obama with what she should have known was a bunch of baloney.
Christ, she gets on her high horse over the supposed persecution of Christians with all the Franklins and Tonys… and she’s A FRIGGING SCIENTOLOGIST!!
She’s was not hired to “the next right thing”!
