Fox's Griffin falsely claimed Clark "disparag[ed] McCain's military service"

On the August 28 edition of Fox News' Special Report, national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin claimed that retired Gen. Wesley Clark "disparag[ed] [Sen. John] McCain's military service," repeating a falsehood previously advanced by numerous media figures, in reference to Clark's June 29 appearance on CBS' Face the Nation. As Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted, Clark did not "disparag[e] McCain's military service" during that CBS News interview.

From the August 28 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume:

[begin video clip]

GRIFFIN: The military figures chosen to speak included the first woman Army Lieutenant General, Claudia Kennedy. Once a Hillary Clinton supporter, she headed Army intelligence in the '90s but has little experience in Iraq.

SCALES: The speakers came across as a weak assortment of military experts. There was no one retired military who had real military bona fides or who had a connection with the war as it is today.

GRIFFIN: Senator John Kerry talked of the Bush administration now taking Obama's policy and making it their own -- negotiating with Iran, setting a timeline for withdrawing from Iraq. And there was much talk of consensus-building and diplomacy to prevent future wars.

REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC): Barack Obama's approach to foreign affairs does not consist of might making right, but using right to buttress our might.

[end video clip]

GRIFFIN: Absent last night, General Wesley Clark, asked not to speak after disparaging McCain's military service. At the Pentagon, Jennifer Griffin, Fox News.

—L.Y.