Why did Major Garrett ignore the hugely important Obama bows story?
November 20, 2009 11:19 am ET by Eric Boehlert
News Hounds make a great point [emphasis added]:
President Obama sat down with Major Garrett for a few minutes in an interview that was aired on yesterday's (11/18/09) Special Report. It was straightforward, fair and respectful. But there was no mention of one of Fox News' biggest stories of late, President Obama's bow to the Emperor of Japan. If Fox News thought the bow so important that the network obsessed over it on multiple shows and gave it top billing on their Fox Nation website, shouldn't Garrett have asked about it?
Garrett's glaring omission raises two distinct possibilities. A) He was woefully unprepared for his Obama sit-down. B) He would have been monumentally embarrassed to even raise the foolish topic of the bow.
I'm going with B.
And just in case you're unclear about the massive amount of fooling Fox News did on the all-important bow story, just take a look:
Bill O'Reilly mentioned the bow on his segment last night after the Palin interview and showed a video of Nixon bowing to Mao on his trip to China and said it was protocol for Obama to do what he did. Different announcers have different opinions on every network and I would imagine Major Garrett is intelligent enough to ask the questions he wants to ask.
And therein lies the rub. Some folks watch these "different announcers" spewing their "different opinions" and believe that they are watching "news." The reason Major Garrett was granted the interview is that he is a JOURNALIST and he's not asking about the bow because it wasn't news.
And what good would come out of asking him, anyway? Obama would just say he was following protocol, then what? Garrett is then supposed to tell him that he bowed way too low and looked a bit outside the lines of Japanese custom, and try to embarrass Obama further on his first interview with him?
This isn't reporting on conservative misinformation, it's just making illogical presumptions and falsely presenting Major Garrett as nothing more than a mouthpiece for Fox's every talking point you think they think is important.
Garrett is a journalist and as a journalist, he knows that this story isn't "news."
BTW, I didn't say that Garrett was embarrassed to ask the question. I said that, as a legitimate journalist, he understood that the question was trivial and wasn't news.
It was a regular interview with a pool reporter, and Major Garrett happened to be next in line for filling that slot.
Obama wasn't in any way stretching out an olive branch to FoxNews.
I will re-iterate . . . Garrett is a journalist and as a journalist, he know that this story isn't "news."
What part of that do you not understand?
"Some folks watch these "different announcers" spewing their "different opinions" and believe that they are watching "news." ...bintx
No those people know they are listening to opinion, sometines coupled with news as in the acorn exposures for example, but most definately opinion.
And, why on earth should Obama appear on O'Reilly's show? Just because you and his 2 million fans think that he's the be all and end all doesn't mean that he is.
Like many bullies, when confronted with their enemy face to face, they back down because they know they are no match. They know they are in the wrong.
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The Midnight Review
Mum Is The Word
mmfa slams a FOX reporter for not promoting bow-gate.
LMELAO...
Both choices are slams. Neither choice is grounded in anything other than biased, idle speculation. Nothing has been presented that Major Garrett is the type of journalist who wouldn't come prepared to an interview with the President, nor has any been presented that he's given an opinion on the bowing incident as to whether it's a legitimate news story or not.