On the June 2 edition of Fox News' The Big Story, host John Gibson compared New York state comptroller Alan G. Hevesi's June 1 remark that Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) would put “a bullet between the president's eyes, if he could get away with it” to criticism of President Bush by former Vice President Al Gore and former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. But in those comments, neither Wilson nor Gore suggested that Bush -- or anyone else -- should or would be killed. Additionally, Gibson falsely suggested that conservatives had not made remarks analogous to Hevesi's -- seemingly portending violence against Democratic presidents and other progressives.

Hevesi made his comments during a June 1 commencement ceremony at Queens College, and he apologized for them in a news conference later that day.

During a discussion with Newsday columnist and Fox News contributor Ellis Henican -- who stated that he accepted Hevesi's apology and agreed with Hevesi's acknowledgment that making the remark was “stupid” -- Gibson suggested that Henican “go after the other people who are saying these things that don't get Hevesi's attention.” Pressed by Henican to name some of these “other people,” Gibson replied: “Listen to Joe Wilson talk about punching people in the face. Listen to Al Gore: 'How dare they.' ”

But the comments from Gore and Wilson to which Gibson apparently referred did not involve killing anyone.

For instance, in a May 26, 2004, speech, Gore criticized the Bush administration for allowing the abuse of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison facility in Iraq:

GORE: How dare they blame their misdeeds on enlisted personnel from a Reserve unit in upstate New York. President Bush owes more than one apology. On the list of those he let down are the young soldiers who are themselves apparently culpable, but who were clearly put into a moral cesspool. The perpetrators as well as the victims were both placed in their relationship to one another by the policies of George W. Bush. How dare the incompetent and willful members of this Bush-Cheney administration humiliate our nation and our people in the eyes of the world and in the conscience of our own people. How dare they subject us to such dishonor and disgrace. How dare they drag the good name of the United States of America through the mud of Saddam Hussein's torture prison.

During an April 27, 2005, speech, Gore also twice stated “how dare they” while critiquing the Religious Right's “assault on the integrity of our constitutional design.” In fact, far from advocating violence himself, Gore pointed out that a speaker at a conservative conference quoted Stalin's “no man, no problem” axiom for dealing with political dissent while advocating that Congress should take away jurisdiction from courts who make decisions with which conservatives disagree:

GORE: Another influential leader of one of these grassroots organizations, James Dobson, who heads the Focus on the Family group focused his anger on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. And he said this, and I quote, “Very few people know this, that the Congress can simply disenfranchise a court. They don't have to fire anybody or impeach them or go through that battle. All they have to do is say the Ninth Circuit doesn't exist anymore. And it's gone.”

Edwin Vieiras, speaker at their conference on confronting the so- called judicial war on faith, said that his bottom line for dealing with the Supreme Court came from Stalin.

[laughter]

I'm not making this up. He said, and I quote, “He,” Stalin, “had a slogan and it worked pretty well for him whenever he ran into difficulty: 'No man, no problem.' ”

[laughter]

If we are a nation of laws, not men, that Stalinist approach is so deeply antithetical to what our country is all about, it should be repudiated unanimously in both parties. But through their words and threats, many of these Republicans are creating an atmosphere in which judges might well hesitate to exercise their independence for fear of congressional retribution or worse.

It is no accident that this assault on the integrity of our constitutional design has been fueled by a small group claiming special knowledge of God's will in American politics. They even claim that those of us who disagree with their point of view are waging war against people of faith.

How dare they? How dare they?

Wilson has written that he thought about “punching” syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak and has purportedly said he would like to “punch” U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad. But as with Gore, none of these comments included the suggestion that anyone should or would be killed.

In his book The Politics of Truth (Carroll & Graf Publishers, April 2004), Wilson wrote that after Novak exposed his wife's secret work for the CIA, he “felt that punching the man [Novak] in the nose would not have been an unreasonable response” [p.348].

Additionally, a March 24 post on the Daily Kos weblog contained purported quotes from Wilson's March 20 speech at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Although the full text of the speech is not available, the author of the post, who claimed to have attended the speech, quoted Wilson as saying “I'd like to punch [Khalilzad] right in the face.” (These and other purported quotes from the speech drew attacks from such conservatives as Jonah Goldberg and Andrew Sullivan.)

Further, Gibson falsely suggested that conservatives had not made remarks that are analogous to Hevesi's -- seeming to portend violence against liberals. When Henican responded to Gibson's assertion that violent anti-Bush rhetoric had “infected the political class” by noting that "[s]ome pretty harsh" things had been said during the Clinton administration, Gibson asked: “Do you remember a 'bullet between the eyes' comment about Bill Clinton?” When Henican later asserted that "[t]here's hatred on all sides of the political spectrum," Gibson responded: “Not like that.”

But Gibson apparently forgot about, for example, Ann Coulter's musing, in her book High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton (Regnery, 1998), on “whether to impeach or assassinate” President Clinton.

As Media Matters for America has noted, many other conservatives have also made public remarks seemingly contemplating the murder of those with whom they disagree. For example, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly once said that the Los Angeles Times editorial board wouldn't understand his objection to legal representation for detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, until terrorists kill then-editorial page editor Michael Kinsley. Also, radio host Glenn Beck said he was “thinking about killing [filmmaker] Michael Moore” and pondered whether “I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it.” Media Matters also exposed conservative Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson's call for the assassination of Venezuela's socialist president, Hugo Chavez.

From the June 2 edition of Fox News' The Big Story with John Gibson:

GIBSON: So, Ellis, to coin a phrase, where's the outrage?

HENICAN: Well, I mean, listen -- it's moronic, it's dumb.

GIBSON: Well, a bullet between the eyes, Ellis, What's it between friends?

HENICAN: I'm telling you, everything. It's dumb. It's stupid. Pick a word. We're calling him at Newsday “the out-of-comptroller.” But come on -- I mean, it was one stupid thing said. And he immediately apologized for it.

GIBSON: No, no, no, Ellis, that's not what I'm talking about.

HENICAN: No, no. That is what you're talking about.

GIBSON: No, no. There's an atmosphere of this, where people feel it is permissible to say virtually anything about Bush --

HENICAN: No -- no -- no -- no --

GIBSON: -- and now it has infected the political class.

HENICAN: Welcome -- welcome to the 21st century. I don't know if you remember something called the Clinton Administration? Some pretty harsh things were said then. It is part of the course of --

GIBSON: Do you remember a “bullet between the eyes” comment about Bill Clinton?

HENICAN: I remember that he was a rapist, that he was a drug dealer, a bunch of crazy stuff. This -- but seriously, put this in context. Nobody is defending it, least of all Alan Hevesi, who apologized about 15 minutes after the words were out.

GIBSON: No, I get that part. What I'm trying to get at with you, Ellis, because you watched the scene --

HENICAN: And I covered it as well.

GIBSON: And you covered it as well. What is going on out there that people feel free to say such things?

HENICAN: Do you think this was done free? The guy's paying a huge cost for it. He's being clobbered for it.

GIBSON: No. You don't -- look below Hevesi. Look at what's going on the Left. Look at what's going on the angry Left.

HENICAN: There's hatred on all sides of the political spectrum --

GIBSON: Not like that.

HENICAN: I denounce it every time I see it. I denounce it.

GIBSON: Not like that.

HENICAN: Ah, same kind of stuff.

[...]

GIBSON: What about the atmosphere?

HENICAN: I'm trying to reel in the overreactions to it. I'm doing you a favor here.

GIBSON: No, no, no. I'm trying to reel in the overreactions to Bush. And you're not playing here.

HENICAN: Nobody is saying Bush ought to be shot. Nobody means that. Nobody is saying that. If it came out in a stupid sentence, what you do is apologize and you recognize it for what it is, a stupid utterance by a smart guy who did something stupid.

GIBSON: Are you willing to go after the other people who are saying these things that don't get Hevesi's attention?

HENICAN: Like who?

GIBSON: Tons of them.

HENICAN: Well, you know, I don't believe that anybody ought to joke like that --

GIBSON: Listen to Joe Wilson, talk about punching people in the face. Listen to Al Gore: “How dare they.” Listen to all that stuff.

HENICAN: Listen, listen. You know what the truth is? It's that it always bothers us when it's on the other side of the political spectrum. People, you know -- conservatives denounce liberals when they do it. Liberals denounce conservatives. The truth of the matter is, everybody ought to take a cold shower and separate the real stuff from the things that are just stupid.

GIBSON: All right. The shower's ready. I'm holding your towel. Get on in there.

HENICAN: But we're not doing it together, all right?

GIBSON: Absolutely not.

HENICAN: Shower for one. Shower for one.

GIBSON: Shower for one. Exactly.

HENICAN: See you, buddy.

GIBSON: All right, see you later, Ellis.

* BYLINE (joe wilson or joseph wilson or joseph c. wilson) and punch and novak