Trotta Jokes About Killing Obama On FOX

by moonwolf | May 27, 2008 at 09:11 am | 499 views | 10 comments

FOX NEWS JOKES ABOUT KILLING OBAMA LIZ A TROTTA SHOCKING

What are Obama's chances of being elected to the Presidency? Politically they are excellent, but a sick possibility is permeating the electoral process as the subject of the assassination of Barack Obama seems to be jokingly and offhandedly thrown out at every turn from many quarters. Hillary Clinton has even used a possible assassination attempt to explain why she is remaining in the primary race though she has no chance of winning.

In Canada, Liz Trotta's comments delivered on Fox News would have brought criminal charges and an immediate investigation. How is it that threats of murder against a candidate for the Presidency can be so easily flung about in the USA and those that do so can make such comments with impunity?

Keith Olbermann's stinging rebuke of Hillary Clinton's casual use of that possibility can be seen here.

The Neo-Cons' sick obsession with assassinating Barack Obama took another bizarre turn yesterday when Fox News guest Liz Trotta openly expressed a desire to see someone "knock off" the Democratic candidate.

Trotta, former New York bureau chief of the Washington Times, referred to the Democratic frontrunner as "Osama" before quipping that it would be nice to see both Bin Laden and Barack Obama killed.

TROTTA: And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama — Obama. Well, both, if we could.

HOST: Talk about how you really feel.

Flag this story

Upload

Make your good story a great story. Click here to add your photos & video to this story.

Crowd Power

Scan the web to add photos and videos to this story or add them from the NowPublic Archive.

amyjudd

at 09:17 on May 27th, 2008

How tasteless. That's awful. But it's Fox, so.... I have nothing else to say!

PEP

at 09:35 on May 27th, 2008

Well, yea, it's tasteless, but is it the fault of Fox--or their guest? Having hosted live TV shows, one thing I know is that when a guest opens their mouth, you have no control over what comes out of it. And the guest isn't a Fox employee, unless I missed something.

Plus, the original source isn't one that, shall we say, is either objective nor a legitimate news source. So without context, what we have is a highly subjective source's presentation of the issue, with the blame for the whole thing then going to: the news media that aired it.

Does this mean that when Al Sharpton, say, is a guest on CNN, NBC, Fox, you name it, that the media who hosts him takes the hit for what he says? Hmmm.

moonwolf

at 09:38 on May 27th, 2008

Sorry PEP, but Fox "News" is the context.

BigT

at 09:55 on May 27th, 2008

NowPublic Slanders Fox News.

That should be the next title for one of my pieces. What, you don't get it?

Well, moonwolf, your title is "Fox News Jokes About Killing Obama" isn't true, as PEP points out. A guest misspoke calling Obama Osama and then tried to recover by making an ill-advised joke. She was the one joking about offing Obama and David Asman, the anchor, didn't partake in the joke.

So would you blame NowPublic for a member's idiotic story?

moonwolf

at 10:46 on May 27th, 2008

Point taken and headline changed!

"So would you blame NowPublic for a member's idiotic story?" Not a fair comparison. The format of the two is completely different. If this was live TV with an MC/interviewer, and the guests were of a particular belief and questions were targeted at getting a particular response, as FOX does, which aligns with its absolutely clear bias, then indeed I would.

Fox doesn't just put people on screen following a disclaimer and then let them say whatever they choose, which is the format and purpose of Now Public. Fox purports itself to be a 'network' 'news' provider. One of the subjects that FOX commentators harp about ad nauseum is the lose lips and inappropriate statements of 'liberals' and democrats in other mediums.

Hypocrites doesn't even begin to describe FOX and its "announcers". I prefer words like vacuous, stupid, misleading, ill-advised, and inflammatory to describe what passes for news and 'reporters' on FOX. Not worth watching, unless its to see how low a supposed news organization can sink, so that we can true ourselves up and maintain a modicum of intergrity.

BigT

at 10:53 on May 27th, 2008

Thanks for changing the title. And ditto for your comments with one minor change - Switch Fox for NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, et. al.

moonwolf

at 11:07 on May 27th, 2008

I agree with you but FOX is still at the head of the pack.

amyjudd

at 09:52 on May 27th, 2008

Good points - how could they have control over the guest if it's live news. I suppose if it was pre-recorded they could have edited it out.

Karen Hatter

at 09:19 on May 27th, 2008

good stuff:

It's almost inevitable that someone would voice that sentiment outright, given some of the venomous, viseral reactions documented by campaigners for Obama. Totally irresponsible for a newsperson to state on an internationally viewed medium.