Follow The Leader: Beck’s Rhetoric Has Infected Fox News

Media Matters has done some thorough research on this issue…

Media Matters

In the wake of Glenn Beck announcing he will end his Fox News show, Media Matters demonstrates how throughout Beck’s tenure at Fox News the false, incendiary, and even violent rhetoric he pushed on his television and radio shows spread throughout the network. Where Beck leads Fox follows … but who will they follow now?

Suggesting Obama Has A Problem With “The White Culture”

Spreading Violent Rhetoric

Smearing Acorn

Smearing Then-Green Jobs Adviser Van Jones

Smearing OIRA Administrator Cass Sunstein

Smearing Assistant To The President For Science And Technology John Holdren

Smearing Then-White House Communications Director Anita Dunn

Smearing George Soros

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Fox News executive admits his attempt to link Obama to socialism was a lie

Raw Story

During the 2008 presidential campaign one Fox News executive repeatedly tried to smear Barack Obama with charges of “socialism.”

Liberal watchdog group Media Matters has uncovered audio that indicates Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon was just engaging in what he called “mischievous speculation.”

In 2009, Sammon told an audience aboard Mediterranean cruise sponsored by a right-wing college that his 2008 attempt to link Obama to socialism was “a premise that privately I found rather far-fetched.”

“Last year, candidate Barack Obama stood on a sidewalk in Toledo, Ohio, and first let it slip to Joe the Plumber that he wanted to quote, ‘spread the wealth around,'” Sammon said. “At that time, I have to admit, that I went on TV on Fox News and publicly engaged in what I guess was some rather mischievous speculation about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism, a premise that privately I found rather far-fetched.”

During the 2008 campaign, the then-Washington deputy managing editor repeatedly suggested that Obama had socialist tendencies.

On Oct. 14, 2008, Sammon said that Obama’s comment to Joe Wurzelbacher “is red meat when you’re talking to conservatives and you start talking about ‘spread the wealth around.’ That is tantamount to socialism.”      Read more…

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