Joseph Goebbels famously said that if you want to convince a populace of A Big Lie (fake news), then you do it by repeating it, over and over and over again. For a long time I have been keeping an eye on Hannity, reportedly nightly conversing with Trump after his show. What struck me some time ago how repetitive the core pats of his introductory monologue are. I have increasingly noticed that pro-Trump people seem to believe pretty much all of this super-repeated core Hannity-Trump lies. And I have seen no systematic or regular effort to offset this Goebbelsian Big Lie repetition. So, here I am going to make a small attempt to point out some of the worst lies Hannity Big Lies about.
Almost all of it has to do with Hillary Clinton, a “whataboutism,” argument; Trump may have done some questionable things, but whatabout Hillary and her emails and so much more? After all, at Trump rallies they still chant “Lock her up,” although reportedly in West VA a few days ago there was less enthusiasm and a lot of empty chairs.
A caveat is that this is not some super defense of Hillary. One more or less accurate bit in the usual Hannity rant is that Hillary and the DNC treated Bernie Sanders badly and unfairly. But I simply note for now that Bernie himself totally supported her, even as we know some people who voted for him voted for Trump. And, of course, she should have spent more time in Wisconsin and MIchigan rather than such effluvia as Arizona and (gag) Utah. She was not on top of things, although in the case of the third surprise swing state, Pennsylvania, that was where she was on the last night of the campaign in Philadelphia, trying to get the vote out. She knew that one was crucial, and she lost it.
So now we must deal with crucial issues.
Part of Hannity’s standard every evening monologue is that James Comey and Peter Strzok were total Dem stooges plotting to do Trump in. But most of us know that she had a solid lead until Comey came out within two weeks of the election that she was back under investigation on her emails, only to learn about two days before the election that there was nothing of any importance in these emails, already well known. That turned the polls and she lost. The one possible offset would have been if the FBI had also reported that the Trump campaign was under investigation for Russia links, but they did not do so. The key person on that matter was Peter Strzok, now super Trump enemy in the ongoing Hannity propaganda, and recently improperly fired, even as he pointed this out, but, hey, in an email with his mistress he said they might block Trump. They are both in trouble for those emails, even though they did not act to block him, which they might actually have been able to do if they had leaked all this Russian crap after Comey came out with his empty accusation against Hillary that did her in and gave us this disastrous president.
I am not going to cover all the regular reported lies of Hannity in his monologue, but here are a few. So he posits that Hillary was personally responsible for the FISA warrant on Carter Page, coming supposedly from the “discredited Steele dossier, from a foreigner using Russian sources.” Ooops.
So the foreigner using Russian sources is Christopher Steele, rarely given his full name in the Hannity monologues, a former British MI6 agent who focused on Russia, and long accepted by all US intel agencies as a reliable source from our supposedly closest ally (aside from possibly now enemy Canada, blame Canada!). Which brings us to the fundamental lie of Hannity, that the Steele dossier has been “discredited.” This is the central lie now believed by anybody who watches Hannity as their main news/opinion source. No, it has not been discredited, quite the opposite. Not a single thing in that dossier has been discredited or is even in serious doubt. The vast majority of it has been in fact independently verified. What is true is that some parts of it remain unverified, even as none of it has been proven false. Among those parts is its most famous accusation of a peeing incident in Moscow. Weirdly Hanniity and friends have ended up focusing on this shocking item, somehow turning the failure to fully verify it into making the entire dossier “discredited.” Really.
On other parts of this, no, it was not Hillary’s campaign that was primarily responsible for this mostly accurate dossier. The funding for it initially came in the primary campaign from the Bush family, given their deep connections with serious intel, including especially British intel. Hillary was a minor player on this dossier.
It did not trigger the FISA investigations of Carter Page. He had been under scrutiny for his numerous Russian ties for years, with this dossier simply one among other pieces of evidence for renewing an investigation of him.
I shall address one other issue in his usual rant. Regularly he charges that Hillary was responsible for “giving US uranium to Russia.” The decision on the US-Russia uranium deal in 2011 (maybe a year earlier or later, not important), was made by an interagency committee, chaired by the then Sec of Energy, who is the big player in US nuclear policy. Nine agencies were on that committee, one of the State, then run by Hillary. The Canadians were also a major player on this, strongly supporting the deal (a very complicated matter, if not in Hannity’s eyes). The committee’s decision was unanimouis, with some flunky of Hillary’s on the committee going along with it. And, in fact, aside from a few odd bits, no US uranium was exported as a result of this agreement, although Russia has earned some income from uranium sales within the US. This is supposed to be the ultimate “Hillary running for the Russians, so pay no attention to Trump doing so, and lock her up!!!”
There is quite a bit more that is totally false in Hannity’s standard rant that Trump regularly tweets about. But this is all I shall deal with for now, but it is pretty core stuff.
Barkley Rosser
“Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship…
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
– Hermann Goering (as told to Gustav Gilbert during the Nuremberg trials)
Yeah, cause you know that everyone is saying we should go to war with russia over this.
What a total ah you are ilsm.
“Which brings us to the fundamental lie of Hannity, that the Steele dossier has been “discredited.” This is the central lie now believed by anybody who watches Hannity as their main news/opinion source. No, it has not been discredited, quite the opposite. “
Here is a quote from a Washington Post article.
“It’s also worth noting that the information included in the reports is mostly unverified “humint” — intelligence gathered by talking to people. As Wired noted shortly after the dossier was published, such intelligence will usually be flagged with indicators suggesting how credible the sources and claims should be considered. The dossier lacks that.”
From: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/10/25/what-the-trump-dossier-says-and-what-it-doesnt/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.1fe076fa909d
Unverified HUMINT is gossip.
Raw intelligence reports are never released because they may contain half truths or out right lies.
When did we reach the point where gossip could be used discredit US citizens? When did we reach the point where any US citizen has to defend themselves against gossip?
I share your dislike for Hannity’s program but I can not say that his is any worse than Madow’s program. They are zealots, and I avoid them.
Don’t know whether Hannity is Goebbles yet, but he clearly aspires to be. Fox is certainly the Pravda of the GOP.
“I share your dislike for Hannity’s program but I can not say that his is any worse than Madow’s program.”
Oh Lord. First of all her last name is Maddow. And no – she is honest with her viewers. To compare her to a serial liar like Hannity only indicates the political biases of the commenter.
Note what can be reliably said today:
“Not a single thing in that dossier has been discredited or is even in serious doubt. The vast majority of it has been in fact independently verified. What is true is that some parts of it remain unverified, even as none of it has been proven false.”
That hummit quote Jim H pulled out of his rear end was something that was written about this dossier back in January 2017. Sorry Jim but you are being incredibly dishonest here.
JimH,
I am not impressed with your link or your argument. That report is old. Guess what? Several of the things it claims are unverified have since been verified. It dismisses many as “inconsequential,” but it does not say they are false. While there are items not verified, as near as I can tell there is only one item that seems to be seriously in doubt, although I have recently seen reports on it. That is the matter of Cohen’s possible trip to Prague. But that has certainlly not been disproven.
Bottom line, nothing in the dossier has been disproven, and lots of it has been verified, although in some cases Steele may have written it down after an item became publicly known elsewhere.
As for your worrying about some poor US citizen being implicated by Humint gossip, just whom are you referring to? Carter Page? There were many other sources drawing the attention of the FBI to him. Trump? Give me an effing break.
Sorry, but your link verifies that nothing in the dossier has been disproven, nothing, even if most of it is Humint gossip.
Emike,
“sigh”……..
Whataboutism is a propaganda technique……..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
It was used by the US to counter Soviet propaganda which told the US it was the pot calling the kettle black”.
Which given the situation was a proper tactic among tilting propagandists whose moral foundation was about equally perverse.
ilsm,
You use it more than anyone on the blogs.
And I love your impersonation of Goebbels: ” if you want to convince a populace of A Big Lie (fake news), then you do it by repeating it, over and over and over again.”
Then you state:
“It was used by the US to counter Soviet propaganda which told the US it was the pot calling the kettle black”.
and post a link which says:
“Whataboutism (also known as whataboutery) is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent’s position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument,[1][2][3] which is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda”
You lie right in plain site.
Emike,
Refute: “Whataboutism is a propaganda technique……..”
in any context you want such as
Hannity versus Clinton/DNC apologists
or US versus USSR perversity
or
defending your Trump Derangement Syndrome
you could read the wiki link?
I could have stopped at sigh………
I quoted your wiki link and your “it was used by the US” is also a direct quote from you.
You’re despicable, even for a russian troll.
“You’re despicable, even for a russian troll.”
repeating it over and over does not make it
any more than an “ad hominem”
, which is ancestor of tu quoque
a fallacy linked to whataboutism…….
I will not argue with your propaganda
point I was making is propagandists
US, Saudi or GCC do not deal in logic
if you looked for sophistry and considered
epistemology you might be logical……..
Good read except for the typos.
The whole Bernie thing. White nationalists and Russian trolls crying crocodile tears about that mean old DWS. Please.
Maddow as Goebbles–if you live in Libya or Syria you might agree.
On the matter of Hannity and Maddow, both have strong views and definiite obsessions. However there is an important difference that is relevant to this post, in particular why Hannity resembles Goebbels and Maddow does not (aside from ideology). It is that Maddow does not have a set spiel that she repeats almost every show, especially one that is filled with blatant falsehood after blatant falsehood. Yes, she tends to focus on a small number of issues, but at least she does not repeat herself, and little of what she says is blatantly false, even if some of it is exaggerated and questionable.
As noted in my post, this is what Hannity does. Really. Watch him with any regularity, and he always, or almost always, repeats the lies I have listed and some others as well, over and over. Maddow varies what she says, even if she pursues certain themes, and if she is occasionally inaccurate and if it is shown, she does not repeat such things, and certainly not over and over..
Mr. Rosser,
“Yes, she tends to focus on a small number of issues, but at least she does not repeat herself, and little of what she says is blatantly false, even if some of it is exaggerated and questionable.”
This is exactly what confirmation bias looks like in the real world.
I am surprised that you did not notice.
Exactly what looks like confirmation bias here, that I said she focuses on a small number of items or that I said that little of what she says is blatantly false?
The items I listed in Hannity’s standard monologue, repeated almost every night in a nearly word-for-word are blatantly false. Do I need to go through them again to show that?
If you wish to maintain your claim, then show a single thing that Rachel Maddow ever said that was blatantly false that she then repeated after this was pointed out. Indeed just tell us anything she has said at all that is blatantly false (I imagine she has, but there are not any obvious examples popping up, especially of items where she went against facts known at the time she made the statement).
If you cannot do that, then your claims about “cognitive bias” are just vacuous crap. I have already granted that she focuses on particular items and I think sometimes exaggerates. Does this show me to be guilty of “cognitive bias”? I think it shows me recognizing that she has biases. The real problem is when those biases lead one to spout and then believe blatantly false things, especially repeatedly as Hannity has done in an almost ritualtistic manner. If you cannot come up with anything even remotely comparable for Maddow, then you are just full of it, JimH.
JimH,
So would you say that engineering, physics, mathematics, chemistry and astronomy are also examples of what confirmation bias looks like in the real world?
I never would have guessed your a big supporter of our intelligence agencies. You and Doug Feith. In terms of the Steele dossier can you quantify how much of the dossier has been verified? 20%, 50%, 90%?
Sorry, you’re.
Also your paragraph about the genesis of the dossier is way off-base. It was the Washington Free Beacon and it’s owner, hedge-fund billionaire Paul Singer who was a Marco Rubio supporter.
JimH,
One can distinguish when “engineering, physics, mathematics, chemistry and astronomy” diverge from epistemology aka the scientific method.
What marks much of the US Media ranging from social media, the press, broadcast:Maddow, Hannity, et alia is the smart sounding malarkey (Plato had a treatise concerning sophistry, after he went through epistemology).
So much ill applied deduction (cherry picking etc) to prove a false point.
There are many propagandists…….
Little John,
You are correct that the origin of the Steele dossier was not the Bush campaign but another GOP candidate, Marco Rubio, and the Singer-funded Washington Free Beacon. Thank you for correcting this.
But this does not change the basic story. Hannity never mentions this. It is always that Hillary and DNC funded it, with no mention of earlier GOP funding, and iit was supposedly the only source for the FBI targeting Carter Page, which is just simply a brazen lie.
I am a bit mystified why you peg me as a “supporter of our intelligence agencies.” The only one I mention is the FBI, which I charge with throwing the election to Trump by having Comey publicly announce the renewed investigation of her just before the election while Strzok and others kept silent about the investigation of Trump. And how does Feith come into this? He worked at DOD. I said the FBI did not use only the Steele dossier as a source on Page, but that is widely known and neither a support or attack, aside from disagreeing with Hannity’s false claims.
There is disagreement on just how much of the dossier has been “verified,” but it is certainly above 50% and probably above 70%, but not at 90%. It remains that the only piece anybody is seriously challenging is the possible Cohen visit to Prague, which he has challenged by showing no visit to Prague on his passport, although he could easily have entered the Czech Republic from another EU nation without ever having to have the Czechs stamping his passport, so that story has not been disproven. Nothing in it has been disproven, while Hannity night after night claims it is “discredited.” Sorry, but not, just plain total crap, another brazen lie.
Barkley:
Been into Czech Republic several times from Passau, Germany to visit suppliers. Once you are in Europe, it is easy to travel as the old customs stations. The only place I was stopped was coming out of Switzerland as I had a Director (Chinese) with me and I was asked who she was. In my perfect English and not-so perfect German, I explained who I was and who she was and the German company we worked for near Reithiem – Weilheim.
Indeed my German counterparts would point the abandoned and massive custom stations out. A bit of a victory.
As I said before, I share your dislike for Hannity’s program but I can not say that his is any worse than Maddow’s program. They are zealots, and I avoid them.
Two or three times a year I visit family in other parts of the country. During those visits I get 2 or 3 hours to review Fox and MSNBC.
What I don’t see on either network are genuine conversations between equally matched conservative and liberal politicians.
What I do see occasionally are discussions between liberal commentators and more conservative liberal commentators on MSNBC. And discussions between conservative commentators and more liberal conservative commentators on FOX.
But most of the time, what I see is a lovefest on both networks.
It is not the repetitiousness or the loose-with-the-truth oratory that I abhor so much as the pettiness. There is no complexity to them. They trot out some supposed factoid, faun over it for 10 or 15 minutes and move on to the next one. These entertainers describe a black and white world. Either you accept their version of the truth or you are not very bright.
They have not been elected to anything but they make political compromise less possible.
I have been a registered Independent since the late 1970s. I do not have cable or satellite televison in my home and haven’t for about 15 years. What little propaganda I get comes from the over-the-air stations, and frankly that is getting worse as time goes by.
BR-I am not a Fox viewer but I do know who Hannity is and what he does, and I have seen snippets of his show. He seems like an entertainer as opposed to a journalist.
My comment about your support for intelligence agencies refers to your faith in MI6 and the FBI. I think you would agree with me that both of those agencies have a history of…shall we say “untruths”? Although we are much more familiar with the decades of FBI deceits, most UK citizens are just as familiar with the fabrications of MI6. The run-up to the Iraq war is just the most glaring contemporary example. I mention Feith because he was a big cheerleader for intelligence agency’s myths about Iraq. It was meant as a bon mot. My only suggestion is that intelligence agencies, and this includes the FBI, are not exactly a paragon of truth. In addition it seems somewhat contradictory to blame malfeasance on the FBI’s part in Hillary’s defeat while wholeheartedly defending their vetting and use of the dossier.
One more thing. The Nazi thing is so tired and old. We already heard eight years of it during W. Bush. Can’t the so-called left come up with something more up-to-date?
To both Jim H and Little John,
So neither of you really watches these shows, especially Hannity’s, so you have no credibility in most of your remakes, especially comparing Maddow and Hannity. This especially applies to you, Jim H. You do not watch, so you do not know. You claim they are essentially identical, but they are not.
LJ,
Hannity is not an entertainer. He speaks with Trump on the phone nearly every night after his show and his line is almost exactly that of Trump’s. He is a skilled propagandist who follows the methods of Goebbels very closely. And, sure the Nazi thing is old, but Trump has been spouting stuff from outright ne-Nazi sites. Hannity is imitating Goebbels incredibly closely. As noted, you do not watch him regularly enough to know. It has become astounding. Again, a crucial difference between him and Maddow is that almost everything in his nightly repeated recitation is a massive lie. Maddosw is sometimes wrong, and she is biased, but most of what she talks about is “reality-based.”
On the matter of intel agencies, ah yes, I did mention MI6 as well as the FBI. But you need to keep in mind the context of this. Hannity never mentions either the nationality of Steele or what agency he worked for. He is described as a “foreign agent using Russian surces of information.” It is he and Hillary who are colluding with the Russians, see, not Trump, and Hannity in fact regularly follows this assertion with how Hillary needs to be investigated for her Russian collusion, not Trump. This has nothing to do with either FBI or MI6 credibility, although the fact that Hannity avoids mentioning Britain or MI6 shows he knows his listeners might take Steele more seriously. No, he is a “foreign agent” who is part of Hillary’s plotting with the Russians.
You really do not get it. I suggest you watch Hannity’s monologue every night in for a week, five nights in a row. Then maybe you will get it.
Oh, and I did not “vet” FBI’s use of the dossier. I noted two things: the FBi used lots of other sources than the dossier on Page, even though Hannity lies every night that it was only the dossier, which he falsely declares to be “discredited” and It does not matter what you or I think of FBI or MI6, the bottom line is that not a single thing in the dossier has been discredited, not one damned thing, with lots of it (not sure of exact amount) independently verified.
LJ,
Interchangeable with nazis are :
racists..
assholes
jerkoffs
They all fit.
LJ,
One thing. You know that people, including the FBI, had the dossier prior to the election, right? You know those people all chose not to make the dossier public before the election, right?
Your comparing the FBIs treatment of Clinton and trump is comparing mountains to molehills.
BR-To paraphrase Greenwald this is the first Resistance in the history of the world to venerate state security services. A better, more consequential question is why aren’t Mueller and Brennan in jail? One spys on Americans (of course mainly Muslims) while the other encourages and enables extraordinary rendition and the murder of U.S. citizens. And you’re worried about a TV host. Oy vey.
EM-I think any regular reader here gets your shtick…racism, asshole, racism, asshole, racism, asshole..ad infinitum. It is amusing but not very original.
LJ,
You seem to be going off the deep end with wacko conspiracy theories now. I have not venerated any intel agency here, so you can take that line and shove it up your ass.
As for Mueller and Brennan deserving to go to jail, what? Which one “spys” [sic] on Muslim Americans? Mueller was FBI director for some time, and he almost certainly did then, along with every other FBI director in recent years. I am unaware that he was worse about that than any other director. I am not aware that in his current position as Special Counsel, he is spying on any Muslim Americans. Trump and Hannity certainly want him fired, and maybe even investigated for actions as FBI director, although what they have whined about was his management of some mafia prosecution in Boston having nothing to do with either Muslims or Russians.
As for Brennan, well Trump has removed his security clearance with the full whooping support of Hannity, although no other former CIA director has had this done. Now is he the one currently spying on Muslim Americans or did he do so when director more than other CIA directors? Which American citizens did he or Mueller “extraordinarily render” for murder? I know that some US citizens working with al Qaeda or ISIS have been killed by drones abroad without trial, although that was done with the support of several CIA directors, including Brennan. I don’t think Mueller had anything to do with that. That is certainly worthy of questioning, although, frankly, I think our overall drone war that has been killing civilians in lots of places is a much bigger war crime, with our last several presidents, including the current one, responsible for that, with people like military and intel types following orders on this very reprehensible stuff from presidents, who have all viewed this as a “cheap” way to fight the “war on terror.” Please note, no veneration of any of this by me at all..
If somehow you think that Mueller and Brennan especially and particularly deserve arrest or whatever for all this, you are completely out of it. This is just plain stupid and uninformed drivel.
As for describing Hannity as “a TV host,” well, Goebbels was “a radio host.” Hannity not only spouts Trump’s lies (currently estimated to be pouring forth at an average rate of 9 per day), but he actively encourages Trump in certain themes. That Trump continues to rant about “Lock her up” and how the DOJ should be going after Hillary and Steele and Strzok rather than Carter Page or Paul Manafort or Donald Trump, Jr. is closely tied to Hannity’s widely watched and believed nightly propaganda spiel, again, filled with fullout falsehoods.
Mr Rosser,
I am shocked that you believe that anyone must watch these programs regularly to know what they are about. Two or three hours twice a year for 15 years is more than adequate!
To say that they are formulaic is a gross understatement.
It is fine that you do not want to watch these shows. But the fact that almost never do makes you completely illegible to make a comparison between two different shows regarding how rhey behave. You do not have any credibility on this, none.
I am watching Hannity right now. Not only did he repeat his standard stuff, word for word, Steele is still a “foreign agent getting information from sleazy Russians,” andd then going on to call for investigations of Hillary, but he and his folks have goine nuts on this stuff because of Brue Ohr testifying before a House committee (not sure which one). Hannity charged Ohr with lying in his testimony about the FISA app on Carter Page about 25 times. Basis of this? That the Steele dossier is a discredit lie, which is a total lie as I have poiinted out. Of course not a hint of former FOP input to Steele’s dossier, not a whisper of Steele being British or working for MI6. No mention that there were other information sources for the FISA app.
Here he goes again. Hannity is at this moment saying about 5 times in a row that Bruce Ohr “lied” to the FISA courts. The lie? That the Steele dossier was believable, although it would not “pass in a court of law,” (due indeed to being Humint gossip, although none of it has been disproven and most of it has been verified). Hannity and his guests are just going nuts over this garbage.
Oh, Hannity does implicitly admit that there were other sources of support for the FISA app. He says that the Steele dossiet “provided the bulk” of info for the app. Oh, in the past Hannity has said it was the only source. Ooooops!
Oh, Hannity was really worked up that Ohr has spoken with Russian oligarchs. But Ohr long studid Russian criminal gangs. Of course he spoke with such oligarchs.
There he just went again: Hannity declaring that the FISA was lied to because rthe dossier “presented Russian lies paid for by Hillary.” This is where these people are at, totally at, total lies upon lies.
Oh, the final hilarity is that Hannity is all nuts that Mueller has not interviewed Ohr, supposedly. But why should he? Ohr has little to offer. He is only important is Mueller is investigating the details of how the Steele dossier came about (Ohr played a role in that), but, frankly, that is not what Mueller is investigating, and, Hannity and Trump aside, there is no reason why he should.
Again, the real bottom line is that Comey and the FBI reported their investigation of Hillary, almost certainly throwing the election to Trump, while saying notheing about their investigation of Trump or this dossier. There is simply nothing there, although Hannity was just now calling for the investigation and arrests of a bunch of DOJ and FBI officials because of the supposed falisty of the dossier, which is a lie. Really.
So, Jim H, you really have no idea what you are talking about.
One more point, especially for those who say Hannity is “just a TV host.” He is laying the grounds for the firing of AG Sessions and the ending of the Mueller investigation. Hannity has just said this will happen after the midterm elections, especiallly if the GOP can hold the House.
Oh, and what has gone on with the Steele dossier is “the biggest scandal in US history.” By now regular Hannity watches totally believe this and are calling for Trump to fire Sessions and end the investigation, as well as go after anybody assoxiated with this “discredited” dossier, even though not a single thing in it has been so discredited, nothing.
“Oh, and what has gone on with the Steele dossier is “the biggest scandal in US history.” By now regular Hannity watches totally believe this and are calling for Trump to fire Sessions and end the investigation, as well as go after anybody assoxiated with this “discredited” dossier, even though not a single thing in it has been so discredited, nothing.”
Finally, something that we can agree about. Unwary viewers do come to believe that what they are viewing is a source of facts. When in fact what they are viewing is a source of opinions. (Uncontested opinions in most cases.)
President Obama was once asked how the US government would respond if Syria used chemical weapons in their civil war. Trying to respond with a thoughtful answer he said that if Syria used chemical weapons that would be a red line. I certainly did not interpret that as an overt threat of immediate retribution. BUT conservative talk television ranted about his inaction later when there seemed to be proof that the Syrian government was using chemical weapons. They stated or implied that he had lied about his red line statement. I know about this because I got very tired of hearing from friends and acquaintances that President Obama had lied. They had come to believe that either President Obama would exact some very public retribution or else he lied.
Hannity and Maddow are poor sources for facts. I avoid them except for about twice a year when I check to see if there has been some improvement.
“racism, asshole, racism, asshole, racism, asshole..ad infinitum. It is amusing but not very original.”
Of course it is not original. Coming to you since the CIvil Rights Act. And if has dominated American politics since then.
And it is far from funny.
Jim H,
Both Hannity and Maddow may be “poor sources of facts,” but she more reliable than he is on the fact front by several orders of magnitude, although, again, if you rarely watch either, you may not realize that.