See, thing is Sean, they are air raiding villages, and killing civilians.

And Obama wanted more troops so that we wouldn't be doing that.

It's hard to imagine how anyone can be more dishonest.

It's impossible for these people to lie and misrepresent things so much that they're not psychotic.

Pay me $13,000,000+ a year and I will convince you the earth is 2,400 years old. It is ALL about the money for these cretins. It is amazing what people will say for cash. Falwell is a good example.

Palin has morphed into Hannity, her smear and distort mission has been blueprinted by the king, Hannity. She has adopted HIS talking points, HIS checklist of smears against Obama, and she's taking them out of Hannity-world and into the mainstream.

How will it play, THIS time? In the past, the smears torpedoed Kerry and crippled Gore, so Hannity thinks the SMEAR is the way to go. You better believe he harrangued the impressionable Palin to take up the "gutsy" cause of attacks and character assassination of one's opponent ... with the TRUTH be damned.

Palin has thrown in with Hannity, she's HIS outlet. Will it make a difference, this time? Will it rescue McCain? Doesn't look like it, THIS time.

No, no, no...in the history of this country the American military has NEVER killed an innocent civilian. Anyone who says differently is an unpatriotic radical leftist. That is, according to Sean Hannity. Now let's all join in chorus of USA! USA! USA!...

IRONY 101 , you hit the nail directly on the head. This is the mentality of the EXTREME RIGHT WING,ifyou dont believe everything that they do, instead of being a member of the loyal opposition, you are an unpaitriotic traitor. What a bunch of useless jerks.

Yes, and Obama is AGAINST killing civilians.  Why does Palin disagree with him?  I don't get it...

Well...because they're just sayin' they're innocent civilians, but you know how those darn turrists lie. Look at Barack Hussein Obama for example...pallin around with all those turrists who won't to harm this great country of ours that we all love from the bottom of our red, white and blue hearts, and would die for, or offer our kids to die for...and it's about creatin' jobs, too...and, hey, I wouldn't have sat silent in that pew for twenty years if my pastor said GD America, no sireeee, Bob...  ;>)

Hannity: " Yes or no America, who you gonna believe, me or the truth"?

Actually, UK, there's really no lie there. Hannity is just making it clear that, like Palin, he thinks we should be air raiding villages and killing civilians. It's on the record.

Does that mean republicans are pushing "even a blind squirrel is bound to find a nut in the forest" defense?

Sean Hannity has said so many 'false statements' on television and radio about Senator Obama because Sean is "Mr. Un-touchable".  Sean will always quote two or three words out of a ten worded sentence rewording it with his sleazy, slick and sick view to attack Senator Obama. The FCC will not place fines on the Networks that carry FoxNews or the ABC Radio Stations for Sean's  'false' statements, so why should he stop?  Oh, that's right Sean Hannity can get away with it because he's "Mr. Un-touchable".  Shameful.

Is that shack in the back sinking or emerging Mary?

Nicely done, Though Mr.C seems to projecting angst, which would be highly unusual.  I think I'd prefer an expression that says, "A crocodile is crewing on my foot!"

:)

chewing,not crewing, crocodiles are not known for communal activities on anybodies foot.

The shack is probably sinking.  I suspect that that trio would sink anything within 200 yards.  And I like "crewing" it makes a fun image.

Now someone with artistic talent needs to draw Cheney or grampy as Captain Hook with a croc crewing on their legs. ;-)

why should anyone not agree with what obama said.  in war, you want to be very careful about civilian casualtiies because it.....gets the civilian population mad.  this is hardly anything controversial.  plenty of military leaders acknowledge this.  

The rightwingers don't give a damn about civilians and they don't care about our military either. They are only out to score a desperate cheap point.

Can't wait to see if McCain will win ANY states come november.

I just saw the McCain ad that uses that clipped sound bite from Obama tonight.  That has to be one of the most shameless, dishonest bits of editing of a statement I've ever seen.  It gives an impression of Obama's statement completely at odds with reality.  I was disgusted.

I hope the Obama camp comes up with a good response demonstrating how dishonest that ad is.  If they produce something effective there will be an ugly blowback on McCain's campaign, as there certainly should be.

i saw the ad this morning.  it is shameless editing.  the woman announcer says something like here's what senator obama said about our troops in afghanistan, and then it has him saying they're "just air-raiding villages and killing civilians".   there's a problem when you pull a sentence out of the middle of a quote, but when you actually go to editing a few words out of a complete sentence, that is totally unacceptable.  it's an automatic sign you are attempting to deceive. 

Who is this Wasserman Schultz person by the way, and why couldn't she simply ask Hannity "Are you saying we don't air-raid villages and kill civilians"? I hate these weak Democrats that go on Fox and make fools of themselves.

Who is this Wasserman Schultz person by the way, and why couldn't she simply ask Hannity "Are you saying we don't air-raid villages and kill civilians"? I hate these weak Democrats that go on Fox and make fools of themselves.

It was a poor choice of words on Obama's part. I watched his whole response to that on youtube. In context I understand what he's getting at, that we need troops on the ground and we can't rely on airpower to get the job done.

But "air-raiding" villages has not been a tactic in Afghanistan. Yes, civilians have been killed, but we're not performing air raids against entire villages. We're not flattening rows of houses on the off chance that there might be some civilians there. There's simply no way one can accurately say we have performed "air-raiding" against villages. Simply finding some civilian deaths doesn't back up at all what Obama said. It just gives the impression of fact checking, and it's pretty weak of Media Matters. Also Reid Cherlin said our strategy consistst "solely of air raids and bombing of civilians."

Anyway, I don't know if the people at media matters have any clue about modern weaponry, but if we were air raiding villages the casualties would be a lot higher then six or seven civilians!  It would be in the hundreds and thousands...

Again, poor choice of words, and they wouldn't matter if people would stop defending them. This is like one of those battles in WWI, tens of thousands of people dying over some meaningless hill, when one side could just as easily pull back a quarter mile and save a lot of manpower.

no one is claiming what you are characterizing it as.  no one claimed we're targeting entire villages. 

In military terminology, air raiding refers to strategic bombing, like the flattening of whole cities in WW2. As such, Obama implied we're intentionally flattening entire villages. That isn't the case.

I know he didn't mean to make that implication. But he did to many people, especially army people and people alive during WW2, who understand air raiding to be strategic bombing. It was a poor word choice on Obama's part. I don't see why people should defend it. Just say it was a poorly worded statement and move on.

The point is that it makes it sound like Obama is anti-military or against the war in Afghanistan.  Neither of those things are true, as he wants more troops there in order to avoid the actions he's talking about.  That's clearly a valid point for MMfA to make.

The stated purpose of Media Matters is to battle dis-information. Sure, they're spot on if they want to show how the comment was off color and doesn't represent Obama's opinion. But then they're doing campaigning for Obama, not battling misinformation.

At that point, they might as well respond to every criticism of Obama and explain why it does not apply and how conservatives are putting disinformation out there.

What I really take issue with is the fact that they even feel it's appropriate to find cases of civilian deaths due to US bombings, as if this makes Obama's statement more valid. These civilian deaths are tragic, but they were not the goal of the bombing. In military terminology, air raiding refers to strategic bombing. Like the flattening of whole cities in WW2. As such, Obama implied we're intentionally flattening entire villages. That isn't the case.

I know he didn't actually intend the implication. It was a poor choice of words, and if he wants to he can clarify that. He obviously meant to say that air power is not a substitute for troops on the ground. But standing behind the "air-raiding" statement is silly, it turns what was a silly statement into a campaign issue. It leaves it up to each voter to determine what he means by air raiding. If MM and Obama would instead just admit it was a poor word choice then this whole thing wouldn't be such a big deal.

That's why I say this is like Verdun. Obama and supporters have put so many resources into defending this statement that they can't afford to back down. They've turned a meaningless pile of dirt into a valuable strategic objective.

"The stated purpose of Media Matters is to battle dis-information. Sure, they're spot on if they want to show how the comment was off color and doesn't represent Obama's opinion. But then they're doing campaigning for Obama, not battling misinformation."

That made absolutely zero sense.  If it doesn't represent Obama's opinion, then it's misinformation.  Are you seriously arguing that you have to be "campaigning" in order to correct a blatant misinterpretation?

"At that point, they might as well respond to every criticism of Obama and explain why it does not apply and how conservatives are putting disinformation out there."

If it's inaccurate, and it's not challenged in the media, then of course they should respond to it.  Why is this a problem?

"What I really take issue with is the fact that they even feel it's appropriate to find cases of civilian deaths due to US bombings, as if this makes Obama's statement more valid. These civilian deaths are tragic, but they were not the goal of the bombing. In military terminology, air raiding refers to strategic bombing. Like the flattening of whole cities in WW2. As such, Obama implied we're intentionally flattening entire villages. That isn't the case."

Then it's a technical distinction between "air raid" and "airstrike".  Since the context defies the idea that the killing was intentional (if we wanted to flatten villages then we could still do so even with more ground troops), the criticism is dishonest.  The error doesn't warrant anything near the level criticism he's getting, and MMfA should point that out.  The failure to distinguish between these two terms is "unforgivable", really?  They don't have to defend the word choice, as long as they point out that the meaning of his words was clear, that addresses Hannity's distortion of them.

Then it's a technical distinction between "air raid" and "airstrike"... They don't have to defend the word choice, as long as they point out that the meaning of his words was clear, that addresses Hannity's distortion of them.

Exactly! But they do defend the word choice, and they found examples of civilian deaths. Just say it was a poor word choice and be done with it. Finding examples of civilian deaths and refusing to just say it was bad word choice actually reinforces Hannity's argument since that puts you in the position of defending the soundbyte. Obama obviously does not believe we're intentionally bombing villages in air raids, and their right to repudiate peoples claims he does. This silly soundbyte about "air-raiding villages" doesn't bother me at all.

What does bother me a little bit is that his campaign, you and media matters are not willing to admit even a meaningless fault. Everyone mispeaks (Bush more than others!), that's no big deal, but this total refusal admit any fault is silly.

But the misinterpretation still needs to be addressed.  The choice of words means nothing to that, and doesn't support Hannity's argument at all.

I wonder if Hannity is really this out of touch or just utterly dishonest as usual.

Everyone knows the war is unpopular.  Most people want us to get the hell out, already.  Palin reacts to this idea with "white flag of surrender".  What is this, 2005?  I don't think even Bush spouts that crap anymore.  Palin essentially called the vast majority of Americans cowards and/or traitors.  It was a horrible moment for her, being stuck without any rational response, and then pulling that line out.  The dial-line absolutely plummeted.

But to Hannity, this was sheer brilliance.  It's almost hard to believe that he's faking this sentiment, because why on earth would you praise something that went over like a lead balloon?  I would think you'd just pretend it didn't happen instead of trying to fool people into not believing their own eyes and ears.  Either he really thought it was a great move on Palin's part, or he is (as has been noted here by others) the dumbest man in the media.  Or both, of course, I wouldn't want to forget that option.

Palin is just another FAR RIGHT WING NUT that wastes no opportunity to spit out her talking points. She dosent realize how irrelevent and outdated they are