Saturday, October 17, 2015

Neil Cavuto publicly apologizes for having fake terrorism expert and CIA agent on his show.

Courtesy of Mediaite:  

On Friday afternoon, Fox News host Neil Cavuto took the rather extraordinary step of delivering a lengthy apology over his show’s use of Wayne Simmons as a terrorism expert, after it was revealed that Simmons had been arrested for allegedly lying about his ties to the Central Intelligence Agency. 

Cavuto told viewers that “it has come to our attention that a frequent guest on this show might not have been who he purported to be” (which presumably means Fox News will no longer be booking “presidential candidate” Bobby Jindal), but he also made a valiant attempt to stop the buck:

“If it’s true that all our due diligence and vetting on Mr. Simmons missed this, that’s big, and that’s on me. And only me.”

Oh it's true alright. Not only that but I would be willing to bet money that a number of the other "experts" on Fox News are fakes as well.

And it should be remembered that Fox allowed this Simmons guy to do incredible damage during numerous interviews.

Think Progress has a list of just some of them.

Here are a few of the highlights:

A little more than a year after the 2008 presidential election, Simmons told Fox News that president Obama — who he called the “boy king” — was directly responsible for a number of recent acts of terrorism. 

Speaking on The O’Reilly Factor in 2005, Simmons defended then-President George W. Bush’s decision to go into Iraq, and said Democratic-controlled government would cause “9-1-1s unabated.” 

Employing another “guys like me” reference, Simmons in 2009 said that CIA operatives might abandon their posts because of then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, whom he called a “pathological liar.” 

Appearing on Fox News in March, he asserted that White House adviser Valerie Jarrett was actually running the country. But she didn’t know how to defeat ISIS. For Simmons, the solution was very simple. 

“We could end this in a week. And that’s not an exaggeration. That’s not hyperbole. We could run a number of sorties, thousands of sorties, locate, identify and designate absolutely decimate ISIS, ISIL, I.S., whatever you want to call them. They would all be dead,” he said.

There are of course many more examples of the constant stream of bullshit spewed by this phony asshole.

The thing is that while I hand it to Cavuto for at least making the minimal attempt to take some responsibility here, the fact remains that Fox News provides disinformation and outlandish fact free exaggerations on a daily basis.

And the truly frightening part is that their audience does not seem to care that they do.

13 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:36 PM

    Apology not accepted. Do the right thing and follow
    Martin Bashir's lead for telling the truth,

    ReplyDelete
  2. ibwilliamsi4:40 PM

    I'm not a big fan of Reddit, but it seems to me that they should be all over the CV's of every "expert" on Faux News.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous5:05 PM

    Faux Nooze should apologize for having the Tundra Turd on there spewing all her lies about the country and the President for all those years, also too.
    I especially liked your comment about Piyush "Bobby" Jindal no longer being allowed as a guest on Faux.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous6:41 AM

      Or at least apologize for describing Palin as an 'energy expert.' She isn't. Never was. Never will be.

      Delete
  4. The fact remains that Fox News provides disinformation and outlandish fact free exaggerations on a daily basis.

    And the truly frightening part is that their audience does not seem to care that they do.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Who doesn't love having their prejudices confirmed? Only losers like me, who will consequently never find succor in this world.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous6:08 PM

      5:12 PM

      Their audience depends on those lies and misinformation to face another day. Reality (I mean "real reality") doesn't blame the folks the Fox viewers want to blame. Fox viewers are the willfully ignorant. They vote. That is frightening.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:58 PM

      They vote and they reproduce (even without legal and/or scriptual sanction).

      dowl

      Delete
  5. Anonymous6:54 PM

    Take a look at this!
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3277402/Smoking-gun-emails-reveal-Blair-s-deal-blood-George-Bush-Iraq-war-forged-YEAR-invasion-started.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous7:58 PM

    We have become a culture that accepts "reality tv" as real. Remember when War Of The Worlds was on radio and people believed it? It changed broadcasting , they had to say it was not real and it was only a story.

    Any network should have the moral responsibility of checking out their sources. That can't be relied on anymore if you want the truth do your own research. The only thing Fox News cares about is sensationalism, fear and the sky is falling, unfortunately most of their audience revels in the paranoia and wishes it was late 1950's or early 60's again.

    The boom years when you could be middle class and still own a cottage on a lake.I know and I also know those days are gone and nothing either party can do will bring them back but there can be brighter days ahead if you plan for your future, if you learn to save your money as much as you can and don't expect a vacation to Cancun every year.

    Our parent's gave up things to achieve their goals don't think for one minute they didn't do without so i don't want to hear another polition go on about " Making America Great Again" It always has been great and if you say it isn't [ Trump] kiss my ass your a traitor, a pompous fool and a liar playing on false hopes.This Country will survive despite all the fear that the Republican party throws at us.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous8:07 PM

    .....And the band played on

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous3:48 AM

    Fox News? How 'bout calling it: Faux Spews....fairly unbalanced & plenty of fodder to feed a whole herd of fearful haters

    ReplyDelete
  9. Randall6:13 AM

    "...a very rare exception" my ass.
    MOST of Fox News' "experts" are little more than charlatans, and that includes Cavuto.

    And as far as giving Cavuto credit for apologizing; bullshit.
    He was backed into a corner and had no choice: they got caught on their propagandizing.

    ReplyDelete

Don't feed the trolls!
It just goes directly to their thighs.