Fox News: President Obama Calling Pakistan Terror Group “Terrorists” Isn't Good Enough
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Fox News is moving the goalposts on how President Obama should respond to terrorist attacks, complaining that the White House's statement on a deadly attack on a Pakistani school did not mention “the Taliban.” The network had previously attacked Obama for not using the words “terrorist” and “terrorism,” two words that appear in the president's statement.
On the December 17 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, correspondent Ainsley Earhardt reported on the global reaction to a deadly attack on a school in Peshawar, Pakistan carried out by members of the terrorist group Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan. Earhardt highlighted that the president's statement did not mention the Taliban:
EARHARDT: Brand new information about one of the worst terrorist attacks in Pakistan's history: Pakistani Taliban insurgents storming an army school in Peshawar, killing more than 140 people, most of those young school children. Leaders across the globe condemning those brutal attacks, but the White House not mentioning the Taliban, at all. President Obama's statement reads this, quote “by targeting students and teachers in this heinous attack, terrorists have once against shown their depravity.”
Similarly, on-screen text during the December 17 edition of Fox & Friends First declared Obama's response was “Not A Full Statement” because the president did not mention the Taliban:
Fox News has long asserted that President Obama does not use the words “terrorist” and “terrorism” enough. The network frequently claimed that the president did not call the 2012 Benghazi attacks “terrorism” -- the day after the attack, Obama referred to it as an “act of terror.”