After comparing author/documentarian Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 to “the [Joseph] Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda, where they would take truths, half-truths, and out-and-out lies and mix them all together," nationally syndicated Clear Channel radio host Glenn Beck proceeded to twist and distort facts three times on the June 28 edition of The Glenn Beck Program.

First, Beck twice claimed that George W. Bush won “all of the newspaper recounts” of the 2000 presidential election:

BECK: In fact, if I'm not mistaken, maybe there's one scenario that he [Bush] lost in, but the CNN, and The New York Times, all of the newspaper recounts, it showed Bush won the election.

BECK: Look, you want to talk about facts, let's talk about facts. The Gore recounts? George Bush won every single recount done by The New York Times! And CNN! Gore lost!

As Media Matters for America has noted, Bush did not win the recount under every scenario. According to a study conducted by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center (NORC) -- which was sponsored by news organizations including The New York Times and CNN, as well as The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post Co., Tribune Publishing, and the Associated Press -- former Vice President Al Gore emerged the winner under four recount scenarios, as reported in The Washington Post on November 12, 2001.

Second, regarding Michael Moore, Beck alleged “He's [Moore] taking help and money from Hezbollah,” apparently in reference to a June 17 article published in London newspaper The Guardian.

As Media Matters for America has previously noted, The Guardian article did not report that Moore was aligning himself with Hezbollah, let alone that he accepted “help and money” from the terrorist organization. Further, The Guardian article did not even state that Hezbollah itself had contacted the film's United Arab Emirates-distributor, Front Row Entertainment (rather, The Guardian used the words “organizations related to the Hezbollah in Lebanon”). The Guardian story has since been reported by several conservative media outlets, including as a June 22 news item in WorldNetDaily and in a June 23 “Inside Politics” column in The Washington Times. However, neither of these media outlets have accused Moore of accepting “help and money from Hezbollah.”

Finally, Beck claimed toward the end of the same program that “same-sex marriages in Massachusetts really have kind of fallen off. Now, they marry in Massachusetts about 9 people a month.” Media Matters for America has conducted a separate detailed analysis on this particular erroneous claim.

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