On the February 5 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, despite admitting later in the program that he had no basis for his accusation, Fox News political analyst Dick Morris once again asserted that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) was behind the discredited allegation first reported by InsightMag.com that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) attended a madrassa in his youth. Morris, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton, claimed: "[Clinton] is very dangerous in the way she uses the resources of her private detectives, her private payroll. Do you honestly think that that negative story about Obama happened from the vast research budget of Insight?" When asked by co-host Alan Colmes if he had “any evidence the Clintons were behind the smear piece on Obama,” Morris replied: “No, I just -- obviously they were.” Morris made a similar baseless claim on the January 30 edition of Hannity & Colmes, as Media Matters for America documented, even though the smear against Obama had been discredited, and, as ABC News reported, the accusation that Clinton is responsible for the smear “remains unproven and unsubstantiated” as well.
Morris' smear came in response to Colmes' request that Morris “explain” his earlier statement that Clinton is “a monster.”
Additionally, Morris predicted: “You are going to see one after another after another derogatory information about [former Sen. John] Edwards [D-NC] and about Obama, and it's all going to be coming from the Clintons.” As Media Matters has noted, this is not the first time that Morris has predicted that Clinton would smear Obama. Recently, Morris falsely reported that Obama voted against an amendment to a Senate ethics reform bill that would have prohibited legislators from hiring family members to their campaign committees and political action committees. He then asserted that Clinton “will probably use the Illinois senator's vote against him in the presidential primaries.” After Media Matters noted that his accusation of Obama was false, Morris apologized and retracted it.
As Media Matters has also noted (here and here), Morris reportedly intends to “Swift Boat” Clinton. As syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak wrote in his January 20 column, Morris “is asking for a contribution between $25 and $100 or more to finance a critical film documentary of Sen. Hillary Clinton.”
From the February 5 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:
MORRIS: That [former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R)] was a president. [Sen. John] McCain [R-AZ] on Meet the Press was a senator.
HANNITY: I didn't even have to ask you a question.
MORRIS: McCain on Meet the Press was a senator. And Hillary's a monster. But that's a president. That's a president.
[...]
COLMES: Can you help me understand why she's a monster, so I can --
MORRIS: Come on. We've been through this already.
COLMES: No, no. I want to understand. Because I may have to, you know, vote -- explain that.
MORRIS: That she is the closest thing we have in America to a European Socialist.
[...]
MORRIS: But my point is that Hillary is as close as we're going to come to a [former Prime Minister of France Lionel] Jospin, or a [former Chancellor of Germany Gerhard] Schroeder, or a [Harold] Wilson, the former prime minister of Britain, a straight left-wing socialist.
And the other part of it is that she is very dangerous in the way she uses the resources of her private detectives, her private payroll. Do you honestly think that that negative story about Obama happened from the vast research budget of Insight?
COLMES: Come on, Dick. You want to blame that on the Clintons? I think it's outrageous to blame a smear piece that conservatives have kept repeating about Obama and blaming it --
MORRIS: Insight magazine pays $800 bucks an article. They're gonna send a reporter to Indonesia on $800?
COLMES: They're the ones who printed it, Dick. It didn't come from the Clintons.
MORRIS: You are going to see one after another after another derogatory information about Edwards and about Obama, and it's all going to be coming from the Clintons.
COLMES: Do you have any evidence the Clintons were behind the smear piece on Obama? Any evidence whatsoever?
MORRIS: No, I just -- obviously they were.
COLMES: So you just decided they are?
MORRIS: Because news media organs don't have the budget for that.
HANNITY: You guys, this is a fight that will never end between you two.
COLMES: He called her a monster.