Beck adds to “fog of controversy” by deceptively editing Pelosi health care comments

On his April 7 show, Glenn Beck deceptively cropped a speech from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in order to make it seem like she was saying something about health care reform that she wasn't.

Beck's video made it seem as if Speaker Pelosi simply said that “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what's in it,” and he went on to suggest that what Pelosi meant was that she was deceitfully hiding what was in the health care legislation until after it passed.

In fact, what Beck left off is the rest of Pelosi's statement. After commenting that discussion of health care reform had been focused on “the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill,” she said in full, “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of controversy.” (emphasis added)

Beck's deceptive cropping echoes that of other conservatives, but even worse, it is exactly the sort of misinformation that has created the “fog of controversy” that Pelosi was referring to.

In the past few months Beck has falsely claimed that health care reform will allow Obama to control your life, that it would create death panels, that it was the “end of the American Constitution”, would send uninsured people to jail, and so on.

If that isn't the creation of a “fog of controversy,” what is? No wonder Beck conveniently edited those comments out of the full statement. He just added to the fog.