O'Beirne Misrepresents Facts To Defend Cheney

[JABBS]

On last night's edition of Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes, conservative pundit Kate O'Beirne relied on misrepresentations in order to defend Vice President Cheney.

O'Beirne's purpose was to rail against the White House press corps. The press corps, she and host Sean Hannity agreed, were unnecessarily angry and "had their feelings hurt" because Vice President Cheney allowed didn't reveal via an official statement that he had shot a fellow quail hunter on a ranch in Corpus Christi, Texas.

O'Beirne, of the National Review, also made it clear that she felt that the reason this was even a story was because the press corps was out to "get" Cheney, presumably because of his politics.

But co-host Alan Colmes exposed that half-truth, noting that Reagan Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater, and former Reagan and Bush advisor David Gergen had also suggested Cheney was wrong. (Colmes didn't note that former Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer also agreed.) O'Beirne could only weakly mutter something about Fitzwater and Gergen not being as angry as the press corps.

(Also noteworthy: National Review’s John Podhoretz said today that the Cheney hunting accident was a “a very big deal,” and that it was “disturbing as well that there was a news blackout that lasted nearly a day about this serious incident.” Maybe O'Beirne considers Podhoretz a liberal?)

In describing the course of events, O'Beirne said the ranch owner, Katherine Armstrong, contacted the local newspaper at 8 a.m. Central Time. That's a half-truth. Armstrong did contact the Caller-Times at that time, but the reporter she sought wasn't available. So she called back at 11:30 a.m., at which time she reached another reporter, who filed a story at 2:30 p.m., which then made it onto the wires at 3:30 p.m.

Finally, O'Beirne agreed with Press Secretary Scott McClellan's decision to not reveal that the shooting victim, 78-year-old Republican fund-raiser Harry Whittington, had suffered a heart attack as a result of one of Cheney's "peppered" bullets.

McClellan claimed that it was up to the doctors to reveal that, even though the news had already been reported on the wires. He later said that he wasn't asked the question -- thus truly serving his role as a "press" secretary.

In this case, the truth didn't really matter. When Colmes protested, O'Beirne and Hannity agreed that only Colmes would continue to treat the story seriously.

Perhaps it's time for people to stop seriously treating O'Beirne -- a regular on Fox News, MSNBC and NBC talk shows.

***

This item first appeared at JABBS.

[BOSSHOG]

1. I wonder if kate and sean

will treat the situation seriously if the victim dies. If VP Gore had done that hannity would be on 24/7.

[JeffR]

2. Compared to O'Beirne

Podhoretz is a liberal.

[Punkingal]

3. She misrepresents ALL the time...

This is just business as usual.

[JABBS]

5. which raises the question

Why does she continue to appear on non-conservative shows, like Meet the Press? I can understand Hardball, because Tweety likes to generate controversy. But can't Tim Russert do better?

Shouldn't there be a truth line that these "conservative media" have to pass?

[Punkingal]

6. Well, IMO, when Tim Russert became management....

He went over to the Dark Side. He used to be an unabashed Democrat.

[asjr]

4. I wish I could buy that woman for what she is really

worth and sell her for what she thinks she is worth. I would never have to work again! She is a cartoon character.

[bigscott]

7. she is a complete bitch nt

[MrBenchley]

8. And Faux viewers cried "She's right! We don't want to know!"

and went back to staring at their dead raccoon.

[JABBS]

9. LOL

[johnnyrocket]

10. Fox News is a cesspool of lies and evil people.

[wordpix]

11. O'Bitch is on MSNBC a lot, too---she's a Repuke tool and never lets facts

get in her lying way