This has been a critical week in our country’s history. The progressive power grab represented by Obamacare should be rejected on the merits of the bill itself. We know Democrats agree this is a bad bill because so many of their votes had to be bought with special deals to barely pass the Senate, on Christmas Eve – of the bill would have fallen short of the 60 votes needed.
After the Massachusetts miracle election of Scott Brown, Democrats could have scrapped the bill and started over with something bi-partisan or focused on jobs. Instead, recognizing their chance to force U.S. to take a giant step left would be gone by November anyway, they doubled-down on healthcare by attempting unconstitutional procedures like “deem and pass”.
So, this week, and this weekend, in particular, would be critical in stopping this madness and preserving not just the best health care system in the world, but our liberty itself. If Democrats won the healthcare vote, using corrupt tactics for a corrupt bill, what’s to stop them from doing that for other progressive priorities that country rejects like amnesty for illegals, cap and tx based on junk science, etc…. This had to be stopped and today was the day.
Fox News says “Democrats have the votes” (DHTV)
I first heard this yesterday when Neil Cavuto was covering the capital on a Saturday. He must have said it three or four times in one way or another. I was stunned. I had been watching the whip count carefully and, as of 11:54, the Hill reported that 215 were likely against – just one short of 216 needed to stop the bill – and 24 Democrats were undecided. Likewise, NRCC Code Red reported 209 NO votes – just 7 short of the 216 needed to stop, with 14 undecided Dems. So where was Fox getting it’s information. If anyone knew the hill, it was the Hill.
In researching this further, I came across an at RedState called, “Fox News and their “vote count”. In that article, Dan Perrin wrote that the Washington Post was reporting that Dems were “feverishly” rounding up votes. Why, if, as Fox News reported, that DHTV. Mr. Perrin also pointed out that firedoglake also reported the Dems were short. No one was willing to say on the record what Fox News had been asserting – that the Dems were one or two votes away and then, on Saturday that DHTV. It seemed suspiciously like what the Obama White House would want Fox News to say.
Was Fox News being used by the WH to create false momentum on the nation’s most-watched cable news station?
The next morning, on Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace contradicted Cavuto, “After a year of debate, the outcome is still not certain”. A few moments later, FNC’s White House correspondent Major Garrett said, “As Carl Cameron said (he didn’t) DHTV!
What??? So one part of Fox News (Wallace) says it up in the air and another (Cavuto and Cameron) says DHTV. These are two completely opposite facts. One says we don’t know, the other is we do know and DHTV. Why the discrepancy??
Surely Fox News understood the importance of the whip count for one of the most important votes in 50 years??
Surely, they understood that they needed to be careful not to simply regurgitate the White House line that DHTV – would make FNC a party to creating false momentum to pass the worst pieces of legislation in our lifetime? So, either Fox is a lot more incompetent than we thought or…there are Obama-Progressive supporters at Fox that seemed to be in charge last weekend.
Later in the show, Wallace spoke with Rep Wasserman-Schulz (D-FL) and Paul Ryan (R-WI):
Rep Schultz, the Democratic Whip, was asked if Democrats had the votes and she said, “Yes, I think we will. Between the members who’ve already committed and the ones we’ve talked to, we will have 216.” Aha! So, even the Democrats own whip acknowledges she doesn’t have 216 at the time. So, how could Fox report they had the votes yesterday? They can’t, not unless they’re being misled or they’re misleading people.
But it gets better. Wallace reminded Schultz that, prior to airtime, she had told Wallace the whip count was “in flux”.
“Whip counts are always in flux. We don’t have a hard 216 right now…I don’t know which 216 will vote for the bill” Rep Paul Ryan had a big smile on his face.
WHAT! Why has the President, Pelosi, Hoyer, Cavuto & Carl Cameron been saying “Democrats have the votes” when their own whip says it’s not a “hard 216” and she doesn’t know “which 216 will vote for the bill”? Tip for Carl Cameron – if a whip doesn’t know which lawmakers are voting for a bill, they don’t know if it will pass. So, clearly Democrats did not have the votes.
[Note: Later, the bill would pass with just 3 votes despite Stupak group signing on after Schultz’s appearance on FNS. That means, as of airtime for FNS, the Dems were far short of the 216 needed in direct contradiction to what Cavuto and Cameron were saying]
Then Wallace turns to Rep Ryan and asks him, “Do Democrats have the votes and if so, what would Republicans do today”.
Rep Ryan answers, as usual for him, directly and honestly, “She’s right that it’s in flux and they’ve been saying they’ve had the votes all week when we knew they haven’t had the votes…what we Republicans do is move on from there and fix the damage that we believe will be done to the health care system.”
Later, around 11AM EST, Carl Cameron was asked by a Fox News host if DHTV?. Cameron indicated that it appears the “GOP thinks so” because “earlier on Fox News, Paul Ryan tells us their looking beyond the vote” and then they played a clip of the above interview but edited very carefully to exclude the part where Wallace asks Ryan to presume (Wallace’s presumption not Ryan’s) that “If Dems pass the bill", what would the GOP do”. They also edited out the part where Ryan says they absolutely don’t have the votes.
So for Carl Cameron to leave you with an impression that a) Dems have the votes and b) the GOP thinks so too, was AN OUTRIGHT LIE. To also edit the a raw clip of the above FNS interview so that it fits Carl’s narrative is JOURNALISTIC FRAUD!
This isn’t the first time Carl Cameron and his producer have tried stunts like this.
After the McCain loss to Obama, Carl & his Fox News producer filed a report with Shep Smith smearing Sarah Palin. I wrote a blog at the time called, “Little Man Smears Palin. Afterword, we didn’t see much of Carl – I think Fox News heard millions of Palin fans, like myself, who thought that was incredibly bad taste and poor journalism.
Worse yet, during the 2007 Florida GOP primary, Fox News helped McCain sucker-punched Mitt Romney when McCain alleged Romney supported timetables to withdraw from Iraq, like the Democrats. To Florida’s retired military voters, that was a serious charge. To make that claim just 3 days before the polls closed made it impossible for Romney to refute the claims quickly enough, especially when Fox News, the network most Florida conservatives watch, assisted McCain by skillfully editing Romney’s comments on the subject to fit a narrative – sound familiar? Again, at the time, I wrote a blog on the subject entitled “Fox News Enabled McCain’s Political Hit Job”, posted just after the primary in January 2008.
So, let’s review: Obama learned from Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals that if you don’t have the numbers, make it look like you do, so you create false momentum. On healthcare, with the public against the bill 49% to 40% in favor, and not nearly enough votes to pass the Senate Bill in the House, Obama and Pelosi push ahead anyway, even willing to violate their oath to defend the Constitution – anything to get the bill passed (By the way, another Alinsky axiom is the ethics of something is directly related to it’s effectiveness so, violating an oath, violating the Constitution, not a problem if it’s allows you to be effective getting what you want.).
So, Obama and Pelosi need to create a false momentum – to make it appear they have the numbers so wimpy wavering Democratic members might commit to supporting the bill, if it seems like it can’t be stopped anyway. It’s one thing to stop a bill to save your hide in November. It’s entirely different to vote no only to have the bill go through anyway – then you’re all alone. The voters are angry it passed and Obama & Pelosi are made at you for voting no.
So, what better way to create false momentum than to get the “most trusted network” to start repeating the mantra that “Democrats have the votes” (DHTV) – it’s perfect. No one would pay much attention to MSNBC talking heads claiming DHTV – they lie all the time to cover Dem backsides. But to get Neil Cavuto to claim DHTV just before the tea party rally – what a great way to discourage the GOP and convince potential Dem NO votes, nervously watching the tea party rallies on TV, that it’s all been decided.
Even better to get Chris Wallace to feature reports from Carl Cameron – who is supposed to balance Major Garret (in the pocket for Obama White House) – that, say it with me Democrats have the votes. Later, Carl repeats the claim and adds the extra kicker that the GOP thinks so to and is already looking beyond Obamacare’s passage.
The sad fact is Democrats did not have the votes and all the false momentum created by Cavuto & Cameron and others, may have swayed a few Congressmen to commit to Queen Pelosi. As many as 30 Democrats were undecided as of Saturday morning and 15 undecided on Sunday. If the the false momentum created by some at Fox News swayed more than 3 members of Congressman – Fox News has blood on it’s hands.
In any event, principled conservatives can’t trust Fox News. Not until they get rid of a chain of progressives working there that push their agenda through their reporting. I’m not saying boycott Fox News – they get a lot of things right. I’m saying they can’t be trusted, so, on the big things, we must confirm their reporting with other credible sources.
