Fox's Jarrett repeats, defends health benefits committee falsehood, says he'll "apologize" if he's wrong
August 16, 2009 6:36 pm ET
From the August 16 edition of Fox News' America's News HQ:
Expand All
Expand 1st Level
Collapse All
The other right-wing media mogul you should worry about
Palin's book and Obama's bow: a media week to forget
Media Matters: The Palin chronicles
Actually, they should just start out every show by apologizing in advance.
.
Yeah! Right! And I'll be sitting here holding my breath until ANYBODY on Fox apologizes about ANYTHING.
.
Subject: Glad to see Jarrett give Chapter and Verse
From:
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:47:22 -0400
Re: Gregg Jarrett and his promise to apologize if wrong
On Sunday, Gregg Jarrett lied. Period. He said he had the
house health reform bill in front of him. That's not true. He lied.
He was talking to a Democratic congressman and said he had the House Bill in front of them and proceeded to quote from page 30 of it about a health benefits committee. He didn't have the bill before him. He lied.
He called the committee the "Health Benefits Committee. The real name is different. So we know he's not quoting from the real bill.
He doesn't give the section number--- which anyone with a legal
background trying to prove a point would
And there's no way in hell that he actually read the text. You want proof, here's the actual text taken from the printer friendly version of the bill found via the Library of Congress Thomas search engine.
SEC. 123. HEALTH BENEFITS ADVISORY COMMITTEE.
(a) Establishment-
(1) IN GENERAL- There is established a private-public advisory committee which shall be a panel of medical and other experts to be known as the Health Benefits Advisory Committee to recommend covered benefits and essential, enhanced, and premium plans.
(2) CHAIR- The Surgeon General shall be a member and the chair of the Health Benefits Advisory Committee.
(3) MEMBERSHIP- The Health Benefits Advisory Committee shall be composed of the following members, in addition to the SurgeonGeneral....
What's sickening is Jarrett using his legal background as bolstering his interpretation of the bill. Really nasty.
I see he graduated from UCSF Hasting School of Law. Wow, judging by his statutory interpretation skills I would have guessed he failed at the Nashville Y.M.C.A. Night Law School.
Why? Forget about the rest of the section. Well, when you see a
committee that includes the Surgeon-General it is very unlikely that this committee will be bureaucratically coming between you and your doctor in making decisions for coverage.
The purpose of the committee is exactly as described by the Democratic Congressman who, without having look at anything, knew exactly what it was about and gave an accurate answer.
The only thing that saved Jarrett was the congressman didn't whip out the bill and prove what a liar Mr. Jarrett is.
Distortion and misinterpretations are one thing. But how can a news organization tolerate on-air personnel who plain out lie.
Fire him.
Of course, he won't even apologize.
--- end--
After sending the email I wondered what the most popular right wing media outlet where I am would do to a newscaster. At a minimum, he'd be censured. But there's a good chance he would be fired.