Glenn Beck's creative storytelling
August 14, 2009 5:51 pm ET by Oliver Willis
On his program today, Glenn Beck told the life story of scientist Stephen Hawking (a recent recepient of the Presidential Medal Of Freedom) from an interesting perspective. In Beck's version of history, Hawking dealt with his illness (ALS) without any handouts, pulling himself up via his own bootstraps and apparently without the sort of health care system Beck claimed was a form of goose-stepping.
Beck's version of history is disputed by... Stephen Hawking, however, who recently gave credit to the maligned (by conservatives) British National Health System (NHS):
The British physisist spoke out after Republican politicians lambasted the NHS as "evil" in their effort to stop President Barack Obama's reforms of US health care which will widen availability of treatment but at a cost to higher earners who will pay higher insurance premiums.
"I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," he said. "I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."
Recent attacks on the integrity of the NHS were protested via a campaign by British users of Twitter.
Previously:
Beck links health care reform to Nazis, suggests reform would kill elderly and newborns
To use Hawking as their latest bile spew is simply disgusting.
Here's what PolitiFact has to say about the most recent statements from Pres.Obama:
"I want to assure you we're not talking about cutting Medicare benefits"...rated half true by PolitiFact
"AARP is endorsing healthcare refor bill"...rated barely true by PolitiFact
"I have not said that I was a single-payer support"...rated completely false by PolitiFact
"If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan"...rated half true by Politifact
I agree...fact checking is very important?
I receive feeds from PolitiFact on my igoogle account, so I've read all those articles about Obama and then some. And in spite of them, I still generally support the President's initiatives and Glenn Beck remains a douche-bag.
Let's look at the example with the lowest rating. Obama said "I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter because... for us to transition to a system like that I believe would be too disruptive.... And I would be concerned about the potential destructiveness of that kind of transition."
The only thing wrong with that statement is that it slightly diverted away from what he was asked. Politifact spends a bunch of time explaining that that statement contradicts completely different statements (that Obama would want single payer if he were starting from scratch).
Politifact's eventual judgment "the questioner was correct that Obama's thinking has evolved over the years. Obama's answer strikes us as too artful" is correct and fair. But artfulness and evasiveness are a long way from falsehood.
If I were using Politifact's honesty scale, I'd give them a huge black eye for truncating Obama's quote right before "because" which immediately changed the context. The other statements Wesley posted are even better for Obama than this one (when Politifact says "half true" about a democrat, they mean "90% true").
Compare this slight bending with the lunacy of Beck, Limbaugh, Palin, McCain, Bush, etc. It's night and day, but it will never look that way from the summaries of independent fact-checking organizations.
I totally disagree and think you're being too defensive of democrats\liberals. Have you seen how many pants on fire and false ratings PolitiFact has given to conservative pundits and politicians (e.g. Michelle Bachmann has a total of five).
What do you think of factcheck.org then?
My general past impression of factchecking organizations is that they would solve this problem by pairing major conservative howlers with minor liberal technicalities and slam them both in equivalent language.
Factcheck.org cheesed me off with this article, which unjustly kicked Obama up and down the room. (As the simplest of several examples, note the "$5 trillion whopper" where Obama obviously misspoke "spending" for "deficit". A misspeak is not anything like a whopper.)
But looking again does show encouraging signs of factcheck.org favoring reality over balance. Here they actually let it slip out that Obama is being more truthful than his opponents. And here is an accurate survey of the health care scene, with a good selection of 7 exaggerations skewing 5-2 republican.
"I have not said that I was a single-payer support"...rated completely false by PolitiFact.
Did they take into account that this was a quote from years ago (2003?). At this time I am not aware of a quote that exists that Mr. Obama as President of the United States has said this regarding Health Care Reform, so I can't call this one completely false and yet PolitiFact does.
It's that type of "A-HA GOTCHA" that I really distaste about pundits and cheerleaders who muddy up the waters of debate with nothing really substantial to add.
That's all I'm saying
Beck was TRASHING other folks who recieved the Presidential Medal Of Freedom this week which included- Rev. Lowery and DESMOND TUTU. he conected Desmond Tutu with Rev Wright!!! LOL If it meant making President Obama look bad- Beck would trash Mother Teresa.
Hey, why not? Mother Teresa was a monotheist (she believed in only one God), unlike that bizarre faith Beck adheres to.
(Personally, I prefer the Flying Spaghetti Monster, may you be touched by his noodly appendage)
He decided to use his noggin only after he was on his back?
He was already studying theoretical physics and cosmology before he was diagnosed with ALS. Fields not known for attracting dilettantes.
Stephen hawking has done a pretty good job of explaining how he feels about the NHS and the British healthcare system. We don't need a poorly educated, conspiracy theorist to explain why he's still with us and what he attributes his longevity to.
If not, at least it may force the network into cancelling their shows.
its all about them really, isn't it? Imagine, if you buy into rush limb. and have dittoheaded yourself, you see your hero on a tightrope everyday making it to the other end of hours of sparkling flawless analysis. The format for this type of show is all about the personality of the pundit-guru. How he/she always has the correct analysis. However, if you don't buy into their heroic and inherent truthyness, the whole thing is a tightrope walk into the absurd. How can someone be so full of it (and themselves) and continue for several hours?
Ultimately its all about how you, the listener, have put all your chips behind the right horse in the sport of poliltical debate. Its not about being exposed to many views aimed at ultimately at problem solving. Its not about informing the listener. Its about selling to the listener the political pundit personality
At what point will enough be enough?
Randy
Perhaps we should have all politicians on meds to get the truth from them.
I think Ted Kennedy probably got brain cancer on purpose just so he could prove how bad our current health care system is. And I want to see a birth certificate from Steven Hawking. I don't think he was really born in Great Britain.
How in the world could we (EU) trust Palin or even worse Limbaugh.