Fox Crops Obama To Falsely Accuse Him Of Not Answering Boehner's Twitter Question

Reporting on President Obama's recent Twitter town hall, Fox & Friends aired a cropped video clip of President Obama to falsely accuse him of not answering Speaker of the House John Boehner's question about debt. In fact, Obama addressed the question at length.

Fox & Friends aired a clip of Obama being asked to respond to Boehner's Twitter question, which asked, “After embarking on a record spending binge that left us deeper in debt, where are the jobs?” They showed only Obama as responding by saying, “Well, look, obviously John is the Speaker of the House, he's a Republican, and so this is a slightly skewed question,” before they immediately pounced on Obama. Guest host Eric Bolling demanded that Obama “answer the question, though. Don't laugh it off.” Well, Obama did “answer the question, though.” The problem is, Fox didn't show it.

Here's Obama's full response to the question. As you can see, he goes on at length to address Boehner's tweet:

Well, look, obviously John is the Speaker of the House, he's a Republican, and so this is a slightly skewed question. (Laughter.) But what he's right about is that we have not seen fast enough job growth relative to the need. I mean, we lost, as I said, 4 million jobs before I took office, before I was sworn in. About 4 million jobs were lost in the few months right after I took office before our economic policies had a chance to take any effect.

And over the last 15 months, we've actually seen two million jobs created in the private sector. And so we're each month seeing growth in jobs, But when you've got a 8 million dollar -- 8-million-job hole and you're only filling it 100,000-200,000 jobs at a time each month, obviously that's way too long for a lot of folks who are still out of work.

There are a couple of things that we can continue to do. I actually worked with Speaker Boehner to pass a payroll tax cut in December that put an extra $1,000 in the pockets of almost every single American. That means they're spending money. That means that businesses have customers. And that has helped improve overall growth.

We have provided at least 16 tax cuts to small businesses who have needed a lot of help and have been struggling, including, for example, saying zero capital gains taxes on startups -- because our attitude is we want to encourage new companies, young entrepreneurs, to get out there, start their business, without feeling like if they're successful in the first couple of years that somehow they have to pay taxes, as opposed to putting that money back into their business.

So we've been able to cooperate with Republicans on a range of these issues. There are some areas where the Republicans have been more resistant in cooperating, even though I think most objective observers think it's the right thing to do. I'll give you a specific example.

It's estimated that we have about $2 trillion worth of infrastructure that needs to be rebuilt. Roads, bridges, sewer lines, water mains; our air traffic control system doesn't make sense. We don't have the kind of electric grid that's smart, meaning it doesn't waste a lot of energy in transmission. Our broadband system is slower than a lot of other countries.

For us to move forward on a major infrastructure initiative where we're putting people to work right now -- including construction workers who were disproportionately unemployed when the housing bubble went bust -- to put them to work rebuilding America at a time when interest rates are very low, contractors are looking for work, and the need is there, that is something that could make a huge, positive impact on the economy overall. And it's an example of making an investment now that ends up having huge payoffs down the road.

We haven't gotten the kind of cooperation that I'd like to see on some of those ideas and initiatives. But I'm just going to keep on trying and eventually I'm sure the Speaker will see the light. (Laughter.)

Co-host Steve Doocy acknowledged that Obama “did eventually wind up answering the question, kind of, and once again the president blamed George Bush.” He then aired the portion of Obama's answer in which he noted that 4 million jobs were lost before he took office and that 4 million jobs were lost in his first few months in office before his policies could take effect. As much as Doocy may not want that to be true, it is. This chart of job losses under Presidents Obama and Bush illustrates Obama's point.

Moreover, despite the fact that the moderator chose questions asked by Republicans like Boehner, Bolling laughably declared that Obama's Q&A “was a softball game” and that he “heard harder questions on the Miss America” pageant. If Bolling were interested in learning what a softball interview looked like, he should tune into his own network every time a Republican is interviewed. After all, Fox News' idea of a hard-hitting interview involves Sean Hannity sitting in the passenger seat of former President Bush's pickup truck asking “questions” such as, Do "[y]ou remember what you felt" when you realized your “purpose” was to “defend freedom?”

As if the segment wasn't petty enough, there was this. Due to some sort of technical glitch, Boehner's tweet contained some wingdings, which the moderator initially blamed on Boehner before correcting himself. After the moderator said the “characters are” Boehner's “fault,” Obama replied by chuckling and saying, “John obviously needs to work on his typing skills.” Well, Doocy, for one, isn't about to take such a harmless joke lying down, saying, “to the surprise of the White House, he accused John Boehner of having a typo there. John Boehner's office was able to prove that when the tweet left their office it was clean. The typo occurred apparently at the White House.” Now this is journalism, Fox News style.