On Fox & Friends, “It's A Sad State” When President Obama “Gets Credit” For Calling San Bernardino Shooting “Terrorism”

Fox Hosts Moved The Goalposts After Repeatedly Criticizing Obama For Not Using The Word “Terrorism” Enough

Written by Media Matters Staff

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Fox & Friends hosts criticized President Obama's December 6 remarks on terrorism following the San Bernardino shooting, with Elisabeth Hasselbeck claiming “It's a sad state when [Obama] gets credit for actually using the word [terrorism] that should have been used all along.” Hasselbeck's statement represents a strategic moving of the goalposts, part of a Fox News tradition, where pundits continually shift the standards for how the Obama administration should respond to terror attacks. Fox & Friends hosts asserted that Obama “should have just added to” his condemnation of the shooting as “an act of terrorism,” despite the fact that the network's hosts have long asserted that President Obama does not use the words “terrorist” and “terrorism” enough. From the December 7 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

KRISTIN FISHER: The president ended his remarks by saying what we should not do. He says we should not be sucked into another ground war in the Middle East, nor should we say that we're at war with an entire religion. In his entire remarks, he never once used the words “radical Islamic terrorism,” Brian, Elisabeth, and Steve.

STEVE DOOCY: Thank you, Kristin. He did use the word terrorism though.

ELISABETH HASSELBECK: He did.

DOOCY: That's a step in the right direction, but then again he had to because his FBI director said it was terrorism, two days earlier.

HASSELBECK: It's a sad state when he gets credit for actually using the word that should have been used all along.

DOOCY: He could have, he should have just added to it.

HASSELBECK: Perhaps.

DOOCY: Just one more word.

HASSELBECK: Just another step forward would be great.