This week the president said the word “ass,” sending the media into a tizzy of idiocy and sparking hours of mind-numbing "commentary" -- time that we here at Media Matters will never get back.
One of the more unbelievable developments was Fox & Friends' decision to bleep out the word from their video clip of Obama's remarks, despite the fact that they had recently aired a bleep-free clip of Andrew Young calling John Edwards an “arrogant ass.”
It would appear that someone at Fox News, stretching hard for a scandal, realized that by editing Obama's words to add a “bleep,” Fox could make his remarks seem more controversial or newsworthy than they really are, which is not at all.
Sean Hannity clearly got the memo, stating last night of Obama's comments, “I won't use his term”:
HANNITY: The way you said it in your piece was the president is meeting with his oil spill experts to, you know, find out whose bleep to kick, which we talked about a lot last night then -- and has gotten a lot of play here.
[...]
HANNITY: Obviously, the response or lack thereof to the oil spill is having an impact. What do you -- and the president seems to be getting angry when he's talking about kicking -- I won't use his term. What do you make of where the president is right now politically? [Hannity, 6/9/10]
See, Hannity “won't use his term.” He won't say “ass” on national television. That would be inappropriate. Have I mentioned I heart Nexis?
Here's Hannity quoting Snoop Dogg:
HANNITY: Finally tonight, the Don Imus story has raised many issues concerning race. One of them being that rap stars use language similar, if not worse, to Don Imus's comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team.
Well, rapper Snoop Dogg who's had multiple run-ins with the law had the following to say about Imus's comment. Quote, “It's a completely different scenario. Rappers are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We're talking about bleep that's in the 'hood' that ain't doing” -- his words, not mine -- that ain't doing bleep.
[...]
HANNITY: Anyway, these are two separate things: “First of all, we ain't no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel. I will not let them say (expletive deleted) in the same league as him.” [Hannity & Colmes, 4/11/07]
Here's Hannity quoting a New Black Panther Party member:
HANNITY: Did you use the term “cracker”? Did you use the term “Uncle Tom”? Did you say, “You ain't” -- did you say, “You ain't in Israel”? Did you say, “You're going to get your Jewish ass beat”? Did you say that? Did you say that, sir? [Hannity & Colmes, 4/11/06]
And here's Hannity quoting an anonymous supporter of Dan Rather:
HANNITY: Let me ask you this question. Just before the break, we were going with the question of why Walter Cronkite -- and this was a stinging shot, this timing, this week, to say the things that he said, that this should have happened a long time ago.
GOLDBERG: Right.
HANNITY: He couldn't understand why he stayed in that chair as long as he did. But Rather's people were quoted -- Rather loyalists were quoted in Shale's column today calling him a codgerly old ass who just stayed alive long enough to see this moment. [Hannity & Colmes, 3/9/2005]
So Snoop Dogg says “ass” and Hannity quotes him on television, no problem. But if Obama is going to use that word, looks like he'll need to shout out "earmuffs," for Fox's sake.