Tue, Oct 7, 2008 2:59pm ET

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Hannity falsely claimed Obama's "air-raiding villages" statement is a "lie"

Summary: On Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Sean Hannity repeatedly cited Sen. Barack Obama's 2007 remark that "[w]e've got to get the job done there [in Afghanistan] and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there," calling the statement a "lie." Hannity did not note that Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently offered Afghans "sincere condolences and personal regrets for the recent loss of innocent life as a result of coalition airstrikes" and that news outlets have repeatedly reported that U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan have resulted in civilian casualties.
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Posted by BillJ-MN

Ssshhhhh. Don't tell Americans about the effects of those air strikes. They don't want to hear about it.

Posted by doggone-ga in reply to BillJ-MN

A cousin of mine, ex-Army, took exception to my saying pretty much the same thing about Iran.  He stated, to the effect, that none of his Army buddies would EVER deliberately harm civilians.  He wasn't too happy with me when I told him that intent had nothing to do with it.  When you are carpet bombing a city from 25,000 feet you don't have a whole lot of control over who gets hit.

Posted by Kyle_Broflovski

Obama couldn't have lied, because he never made that claim. He was pointing out that we need to have enough forces in Afghanistan so that we are NOT killing civilians. Obviously, Hannity disagrees. It's no wonder Hannity wants Afghani civilians to die, most of them are Muslims anyways.

Posted by DorisRussell

Yeah Sean, the US Never kills civilians, we are so damm innocent. (Right)

Posted by IRONY 101

I see a liar in this equation...and it isn't Barack Obama. Folks, things are really getting desperate over on the right...and Hannity's lying is pathological.

Posted by neon desert in reply to IRONY 101

In Hannity's defense, he doesn't really know that he's lying.  You see, it's because he's the

DUMBEST.

GUY.

IN.

MEDIA.

...so it's not really his fault.  You know those papers he's always looking down at and occasionally waving as if they're irrefutable facts?

Each page has a rebus of a single talking point sent to him from Levin.  He's so proud when he gets one, he tends to dwell on it for a while.

Posted by Col. Harlan Sanders in reply to neon desert

I was able to get my hands on one of those rebuses (rebi?)

un  +     +  +

     +   O   +  

Posted by neon desert in reply to Col. Harlan Sanders

That's exactly like page F +of Hannity's notes.

Posted by eweston8542983 in reply to Col. Harlan Sanders

Unrepentant terrorist?

Plural could be either. I do know that the plural of Elvis is Elvi, he said, then jumped onto an osteridge and then gimped slowly for the horizon.

Posted by achrispage6992 in reply to IRONY 101

You're exactly righ Irony. He lied last night about the NY Times piece. He said that the NY times finally did this sotry after he brought it to the people attention. Of course he conviently forgets that the NY Times story debunks his whole premise. But I guess he figures that if he doesn't tell his audience that then they will believe that even the NY Times has the same position as him. I'm am so sick of Hannity, Tracy Flick (Palin), McCain, O'Reilly and the whole lot of em'. they are each and everyone dispicable human beings. My hope is that this whole character assasination thing backfires on them and they get blamed for McCains loss. that will be torture enough for them here on earth as it is certain that they will burn in hell. Two for one....can't beat that right?

Posted by congero6189599

I was watching Palin's distortion of what Barack said, and when she yanked the chains of the robots with "thats not what our troops are doing,"  they broke predictably into "USA! USA!USA!" I've read where McCain/Palin supporters have even responded to the deliberate distortions of Palin with "kill him," I take in reference to Obama. I haven't ever seen this in a presidential campaign,and it has made me very fearful for Baracks life.  McCain/Palin to win the presidency would destroy the country. They are attempting to appeal to the most backward rabid white chauvinist fascistic elements in this nation.  I used to believe that fascism could never gain a foothold here! I thought the "new Deal" regulations and safety net would keep an economic situation like the one we experienced before ww2 from repeating itself.  Well that safety net and those regulations have been eroded like rocks sucumbing to the relentless pounding of the ocean.  The gap between the rich and the working poor has widened exponentially.  The present crisis working people are facing(  erosion of their 401k's,rising gas and food prices, lack of affordable housing and health insurance etc.) are predictably being blamed on the historically  reliable scapegoats minorities and the working poor.  No health insurance blame the"undocumented," banking crisis blame those "blacks " who took mortgages they couldn't afford,oh and "Obama pals around with terrorist, and calls our soldiers murderers, he is not like us(SIC). This was what Hitler was able to do with the "Jews" in Germany wasn't it? If we take the attacks on Obamas patriotism and associations in this light I can see a clear possibility of fascism in this country just being an economic collaspe away!  This election is so important for the future of this nation, i hope we are not seeing it's twilight! 

Posted by nerzog in reply to congero6189599

What we're seeing is the legacy of Karl Rove/ Rush Limbaugh politics of hate.  When you continually demonize your opponent, and your audience has a cumulative I.Q. smaller than their waist size,  it's a dangerous combination.

Posted by ukobserver in reply to nerzog

As l posted on a blog in London, thank god for Hillary Clinton. Without her bringing up all these smears during the primaries the Obama camp would be wasting valuable debate time answering these already debunked hail mary's thrown by an increasingly desperate McPalin team. I also have little sympathy for the media. What can be said to all the media types who had their crush on McCain and his "honour" and now find themselves on the receiving end of wingnut vitriol? Tough. Maybe if you hadn't led the charge in calling those who opposed the war, or president bush's policies, or just the general sociopathic tendencies of rightwing bottom feeders unpatriotic traitors or worse, you may have had a lot more there to back you. Only know some are finding out what their 8 years of urning a blind eye to hate has brought about.

Posted by congero6189599 in reply to nerzog

Well nerzog thanks for your reply, and while i agree this has Roves dirty hands and Limbaughs funky breath all over it , their words and actions don't take place in a vacuum and with an uniformed audience I agree it's a dangerous combination. Rove and Limburgher are skilled at manipulating the weak minded and in this current situation with people searching for answers their hate filled instant gratification answers could unleash a storm fueled with   hatred rivaling the worst periods in human history. I think about the "Cuban Missile Crisis" and how close we came to nuclear war, with the military advisers foaming at the mouth  to attack and they were on the verge of getting their way except for a few men of reason, those men don't exist in George Bush's administration and they wouldn't in a McCain/Palin administration either. Do you see what I'am driving at? Things are shaky and each day they seem to be on the verge of spiriling of control and the short term blame the others(not like us, USA!USA!USA!)non-answers could easily morph into something that can't be stopped.  That is my fear, that is why I fight !

Posted by pete592

"In the most obscene chapter in recent American history is the conduct of the Kosovo conflict when the president of the United States refused to prepare for ground operations, refused to have air power used effectively because he wanted them flying -- he had them flying at 15,000 feet where they killed innocent civilians because they were dropping bombs from such -- in high altitude." --- John McCain, 2000 Republican Primary Debate

Posted by pete592 in reply to pete592

Sorry bad link.  Here it is.

Posted by edella1793

Col

I do believe that goes way beyond Hannity's deciphering skills.

Posted by neon desert in reply to edella1793

That's why he has interns.  He doesn't actually do any deciphering himself.

But the pictures help him remember what Levin wants him to say, after his interns shows him what they mean.

Posted by edella1793 in reply to neon desert

A position as an Hannity intern has to be one of the most thankless jobs in the world.

Posted by mefirst

now cindy mccain is saying obama is running the dirtiest campaign ever.  but the mccain campaign has run two of the sleaziest ads ever.  first the one claiming obama wanted to teach "sex education" to kindergartners.  what he wants to do is warn them about inappropriate behavior by predators, not teach them about having sex.

the second ad is the one running now calling obama "dishonorable" because they clip the quote he actually made and have turned it into obama saying troops in afghanistan are "just air-raiding villages and killing civilians", which is clipped right from the middle of his sentence.  all he said was that it makes it harder to win them over when we have too many civilian casualties.    it's mccain and palin who have produced the slime and turned the truth on it's head, palin with her ridiculous claim that the press is "censoring" her, when it's her campaign that has kept her away from the press.  when is she doing meet the press?  oh, she's not?   palin has also suggested that the press is "abusing" their freedom.   obviously a planned attempt to intimidate the media.

Posted by IRONY 101 in reply to mefirst

How can Cindy say this? Obama hasn't pointed out that the source of her family wealth, which facilitated John McCain's political career, was her father's mob connections. Obama has not mentioned that Cindy stole narcotics from a charitable relief foundation to feed her drug habit and then used her connections to escape prosecution. Cindy, darling, Obama has been kind to you...

Posted by open_mind in reply to mefirst

Yeah.  I don't get that at all.  If you go to any independent fact checker like factcheck.org, the AP or cnn's research, you can see that by the facts, Obama has run demonstratably the most accurate and clean campaign in (at least recent) history.  McCain has been a fairly typical politician to my disappointment with his deceptions and outright falsehoods.  Cindy McCain has nothing to complain about with Obama.   In fact, Cindy should thank Obama in that Obama didn't act more like McCain's campaign has acted.

Posted by DeDevilTails

...so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians...

The issue is with the word "just"

I think the statement, as said by Obama, implies that air-raiding villages and killing civilians is all we are doing. Anyone have a different interpretation of what impact the word "just" has in the statement?

Posted by eweston8542983 in reply to DeDevilTails

Power projection from the air is all well and good. Without coordination and resources on the ground, all that power does is kill people. It does not lead to any resolvable, mutually benificial out come. There is much mythology regarding the effigency(sp?) of air power.

Posted by open_mind in reply to DeDevilTails

I think you are focusing on a single word for no apparent reason.  Just can just be a throwaway word - especially with a person like Obama who is known to stammer just a bit in conversation.  So just hold on a bit before rushing to judgement.

Obama has literally uttered millions of words over the last couple of years and people nitpick over the single word "just".  That is just mind-boggling to me and smells like desperation.

Posted by open_mind in reply to open_mind

Oh, and by the way, I need to pedanticly point out that focusing on a single word like "just" as the problem just seems to indicate the fallacy of changing the emphasis of the words that were said.  Barack did not emphasize the word "just", but you are focused on it.  That can lead to a different interpretation of what Obama was suggesting.  Nitpicking is often related to this fallacy.

Posted by open_mind

I was thinking that exact same thing earlier today. Thanks to Hillary and Hannity for bringing this bs up a long time ago. It is not having any positive effect for McCain. I hope he wastes his time and money trying to make this dog hunt.

Posted by DeDevilTails

I'm not focusing on a single word. I'm keeping an open mind as to what Hannity might mean when he said that. Do I think Obama believes that is all we are doing? No, but the word "just" as used in the statement CAN BE interpreted to mean that is all we are doing. That might be how Hannity interpreted it. If so, it is an inaccuracy and if he thinks it was intentional, it becomes a lie. Hannity is not responding to what Obama meant, but what he said.