MSNBC's Tucker, Fox's Special Report misidentified Lieberman as a "Democrat"
While reporting on Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman's (CT) suggestion that the United States should be "prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians," MSNBC's Tucker and Fox News' Special Report misidentified Lieberman as a Democrat. On the June 11 edition of Tucker, host Tucker Carlson referred to Lieberman as "a leading Democrat." On the same day's edition of Special Report, Fox News Washington correspondent James Rosen called Lieberman "a prominent Senate Democrat." As Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted, on January 12, Congressional Quarterly reported that "Lieberman has asked to be called an Independent Democrat," adding, "[I]f the compound modifier that the senator prefers was not going to take hold, then Lieberman's second choice is to be described as an Independent" rather than being described as a "Democrat."
As Media Matters documented, Fox News' America's Newsroom, CBSNews.com, and the Financial Times also misidentified Lieberman as a Democrat while reporting on his Iran comments.
On Tucker, Carlson played a portion of Lieberman's June 10 interview on CBS' Face the Nation, then said to MSNBC political analyst Hilary Rosen: "Here you have a leading Democrat, Joe Lieberman, coming on and just saying, 'Time to go to war with Iran.' "
From the June 11 edition of MSNBC's Tucker:
CARLSON: Among the great perils of the Iraq invasion is that it would lead to a much-dreaded, wider regional conflict and the possibility -- and, of course, that's too scary for most people even to think about, but not Joe Lieberman. He's thought a lot about it. And you just heard him assert that the proxy war against Iran currently being fought within Iraq should give way to the real thing. Should America attack Iran for aiding and abetting our enemies in Iraq? And would that solve the problem of Iranian nuclear weapons? Here again with their analyses, we welcome MSNBC political analyst Hilary Rosen and Pat Buchanan.
Hilary, we checked right before air time, I don't think there's a single Democratic -- leading Democratic presidential candidate -- who's ruled out force against Iraq -- Iran. Here you have a leading Democrat, Joe Lieberman, coming on and just saying, "Time to go to war with Iran." Is this --
ROSEN: And by the way, you haven't had a Republican presidential candidate say we should go to war with Iran, either. I mean --
CARLSON: No, actually the Democrats haven't ruled it out. For all the talk about how war is bad and the war in Iraq is terrible, you haven't had anybody stand up. You haven't had Hillary --
ROSEN: Well, no one running for president is going to ever rule out war anywhere, because they --
CARLSON: Well, what do you make of this? Do you -- I mean, do you think Lieberman's got a good point?
ROSEN: I think for a deeply religious man, he's turning into a warmonger. I mean, it's just scary.
Similarly, on Special Report, James Rosen prefaced the video of Lieberman's June 11 appearance on Fox News' Your World by referring to Lieberman as a "a prominent Senate Democrat," adding that, on the show, Lieberman "urged the Bush administration to launch a cross-border military operation to stop Iran from arming terrorists and insurgents in Iraq."
From the June 11 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume:
HUME: There was word today that Iran may soon release an Iranian-American scholar who has been in prison since early May, but across several other fronts, policies and actions of the Iranian regime continue to trouble the U.S. and its allies. Correspondent James Rosen has that story.
[begin video clip]
ROSEN: Before dawn on Monday, the Israeli spy satellite Ofeq-7 climbed the heavens on its way into orbit from where, defense ministry officials said, it will gather intelligence on Iran and its nuclear program. The launch of Ofeq-7 marked another escalation in the standoff between Iran and the West.
[...]
ROSEN: While Iran's president welcomed another veteran bedeviler of Washington, leftist Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, a prominent Senate Democrat appearing on Your World with Neil Cavuto urged the Bush administration to launch a cross-border military operation to stop Iran from arming terrorists and insurgents in Iraq.
LIEBERMAN: There's a particular base, at least one in Iran near the Iraqi border, where these terrorists are being trained to go back in and kill American soldiers. They ought not to feel that they have safe haven there.
Further, during Rosen's report, Special Report aired Lieberman's Your World quote accompanied by on-screen text labeling him a Democrat:
During Lieberman's actual June 11 Your World appearance, he was correctly identified as an Independent Democrat:
Another idiot who can't keep his facts straight. Probably can't tell the difference between black congressmen, either!
Tucker and Rosen are both well aware that Joe is now an Independent. During the 2006 elections both MSNBC and Fox showed him as an (I).
This isn't a matter of not getting one's facts straight, it'd deliberately misleading the audience for political gain.
The right loves to paint Lieberman as the only democrat who "get's it" when it comes to Iraq and the War on Terror, despite his views being lockstep with the administration's failed foreign policy.
He's not an Independent Democrat or even an Independent. He has a party: the Connecticut for Lieberman party. He should be made to wear his hubris on his sleeve.
Too bad you guys can't bring yourself to like him.
He is presently about the only sensible Democrat out there. The present Democratic party wouldn't tolerate the likes of LBJ, John Kennedy, Harry Truman, or FDR, they'd make them run as Independents - who would win, too.
The blame-America-first left was soundly repudiated in the 2006 election. That Leiberman is still the Senator from Connecticut should tell you something.
Exactly, I think the grapes are pretty sour on the left side of the aisle when it comes to Lieberman. Granted, I've never agreed with the war in Iraq but at least he's one politician who sticks to his convictions.
And last I checked doesn't he still cuacus with the democrats?
For now. I notice that many right wing blogs are crowing about all the hints that Lieberman is dropping about wanting to caucus with the Republicans. And even if he doesn't officially meet with them, he's going to vote that way most of the time anyway.
I am so sick of hearing this notion of sticking to to convictions is a wonderful and admired quality in our leaders. Bush has prided himself on sticking to his decisions and convictions and look where we are now. It's stubborn and simply not needed in full effect in leadership. Why would a captain of a ship stay a crash course when he/she could easily steer away? It's stubborn and stupid.
So matter how wrong he is, no matter how divorced from reality he is, and no matter how much his sort of thinking has damaged this country... you respect him for his "convictions"?
I'd rather have a politician who changes his mind when he realises he's wrong.
He is NOT a Democrat anymore. It can't be spelled out any more clearly than that.
I did a pretty thorough search, and posted the results on another thread on this same topic. The rightwing trolls were alleging that Lieberman was just as liberal as Kennedy or Boxer. A non-partisan site that evaluates the voting records of all kinds of politicians disagrees. The only Democrat in the Senate more conservative than Lieberman was Mary Landrieu from Louisiana. There were two other Democrats who were similar to Lieberman in their voting habits. Lieberman is not a liberal Democrat. He is a conservative who wants to be called an Independent Democrat or an Indpendent.
Why is it that so many on the right and so many shilling for the right insist on calling people by names they don't ascribe to? It's not the Democrat Party, and Lieberman is not a Democrat, but they still insist on choosing their preferred names instead of the names preferred by the people they're describing. Why is that?
Indeed it does tell me something, as a resident of Connecticut. It tells me that Republicans threw their own candidate under the bus in order to get Republican favor to vote Lieberman in.
Everyone who thinks Lieberman is a Democrat should have gotten the message when his Democratic support failed and Ned Lamont won the nod for the party.
Holy Joe is nothing more than a two-faced, out-for-himself politician. He makes kissyface (literally) with the strongest parties for his own benefit and hang the rest so long as his own position is secure.
So the left was soundly repudiated by not ONE Democratic incumbent losing including those serious lefties like Kucinich and Frank? By electing a SOCIALIST to the Senate? Lefty's like Klobuchur, a Wellstone protege in Minnesota? What color is the sky on your world anyway? You dont mind if we use our OWN definition about who is reasonable and who isnt do you? Personally I think your is completely out to lunch.
I spotted a contradiction in Tucker Carlson's show.
In the transcript of the June 11th show referred to in this MMFA article, Lieberman is described as SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN, (I) CT; but in the video we can hear Carlson callng him a "leading Democratic senator".
Cuckoo!
He's as confused as Carl "Hillary-lied-didn't-lie-and-maybe-lied" Bernstein.
How inevitable that someone like the intellectually dishonest Carlson would make cynical use of this situation.Lieberman is a truly "useful idiot" if ever the term held any meaning at all.It just gets more pathetic by the day.Just drop the big one and get it over with already.
I think he's a traitor to Democratic values, but there are others who actually run and win under the party whom I consider even less faithful to Democratic values. He is certainly still free to register to vote as a Democrat, and vote in their primaries, if he wants to.
A news producer/director would pull up the font they have stored on page so-and-so and super it over the picture, and that's what it would say, until someone changed it. Honest mistakes are made in that way all the time.
Bottom line: I don't think it's nearly as big a deal as MMFA is trying to make it.
EdRoss,
FDR--not welcome in the Democratic Party? Are you insane? The New Deal is practically the only thing saving us from these laissez-faire republican throwbacks. Come on. Bush has spent much of his time trying to dismantle the New Deal. I can't believe you think FDR wouldn't be welcome in the Democratic Party.
As for Lieberman, the guy just voted not to call Alberto Gonzalez on his outright lying to Congress and the American people. He apes Republican talking points like he just got off the phone with Cheney. His desire to attack Iran will probably put Israel at risk of retaliation. He is nothing more than a neo-con who caucuses with the wrong party.
Hm, this all seems awfully familiar...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KchQ55q62N0
This, too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wffOhr9zo6o