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Fox News: We Edit, You Decide

Upchurch said:
There's nothing I can really add to this.
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Pu-lease.

Special Report ends every single broadcast, five nights a week with a comedy gag from a politician or a comedian's take on politics or politicians. The majority of them actually poke fun of the President. Fox covers them usually with a laugh track and leads them in such a way that any rational - and that's the key word - person would identify them as comedy.

Your videographer suffers from an advanced state of BDS. A course of therapy and medication could help, but that would be up to his clinician-of-choice.
 
Let's say Colbert DIDN'T coach him. Who cares? It was a joke. It was funny and anyone who wouldn't vote for him because of those statements has no sense of humor.
 
Upchurch said:
There's nothing I can really add to this.
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Holy crap. They take a humor feature and cut it down without actually changing the meaning, and this is called an editorial conspiracy? If they'd taken the responses and cut the questions, that would be dishonest, but it says Colbert Report on the friggin' graphic! So f'ing what?

Kee-rist, this is one bored lib. Really love the little captions and Mr. Rogers monologue, BTW. Very engaging. :rolleyes: I think he could use a fair bit of editing himself.
 
My problem with this pol is that he didn't say "I'm not saying that because every news outfit will show it and some idiots may think I mean those things especially those that read Drudge"
 
Upchurch said:
There's nothing I can really add to this.
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Er... I don't get it. EVERYBODY knows "The Colbert Report" is comedy. And FOX clearly shows that the clip is from the Colbert Report and it shows Steve Colbert as well.

Nobody is saying or implying that the question-and-answer session with Colbert is serious. What FOX news find "hard to believe" is that the politician answered questions like "I enjoy cocaine because...", EVEN IF it is only a comedy sketch.
 
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When I saw that on The Colbert Report, my jaw dropped at how stupid Wexler had to be to say those things. I don't care what party he's in, that's just political suicide.

That being said, Fox News is waaaaaaayyy too smug and condescending about their editing.
 
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Forty-Two said:
When I saw that on The Colbert Report, my jaw dropped at how stupid Wexler had to be to say those things. I don't care what party he's in, that's just political suicide.

That being said, Fox News is waaaaaaayyy too smug and condescending about their editing.
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Oh, sure, like you've never blown a solid week on cocaine and hookers. Talk about smug. ;)
 
Forty-Two said:
When I saw that on The Colbert Report, my jaw dropped at how stupid Wexler had to be to say those things. I don't care what party he's in, that's just political suicide.

That being said, Fox News is waaaaaaayyy too smug and condescending about their editing.
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Actually, I thought it was funny. All things being equal, I would like a candidate with a sense of humor. He actually earned a few points in my book.
 
Forty-Two said:
When I saw that on The Colbert Report, my jaw dropped at how stupid Wexler had to be to say those things. I don't care what party he's in, that's just political suicide.
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At least it was obvious that it was a joke. I've seen republicans on the CR that appear serious in their stupidity. The guy from Georgia who didn't know the Ten Commandments, despite supporting a law to require them to be posted, for example. I was thinking, "He's got to be joking!" but there was no indication that he was.
 
The reason Wexler came across to me as not to bright has less to do with what he said and more to do with the vacant look on his face as Stephen Colbert goaded him into saying them. His expression was that of, "Um, I think this may be wrong, but I should do what he says..."

If the guy had just laughed it off and started joking around, props to him. If he had said, as HarryKeough put it, "I'm not saying that because every news outfit will show it and some idiots may think I mean those things," again, no loss of respect there either.

I guess that thing that struck me most about him was the way he was just mindlessly going along with it. I'm a huge fan of both TCR and TDS, and I love watching the moment when people realize they've just made a fool of themselves. Some of them clam up and end the interview (like Rod Blogojevich, governor of my native state), some of them relax and join in, realizing they deserve the egg on their face. This guy... He just didn't seem to have the wits to choose either option.
 
Interesting. I'm surprised no one, or very few, saw it the way I did.

pgwenthold said:
At least it was obvious that it was a joke. I've seen republicans on the CR that appear serious in their stupidity. The guy from Georgia who didn't know the Ten Commandments, despite supporting a law to require them to be posted, for example. I was thinking, "He's got to be joking!" but there was no indication that he was.
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There are, apparently, two kinds of congressmen in terms of the Colbert Report: the ones who play along with the joke and the ones who are genuinely idiots. The guy pgwenthold mentioned is the latter.

The guy in the OP clip is the former. To me, I thought it was fairly obvious that the editing job, by removing context, made him look more like a genuine idiot rather than a guy who was just having fun with it.

Yes, the Colbert Report is a comedy show and obviously the bit was meant to be funny, but it is a question of whether or not they were having fun with him or at him.
 
I never thought I'd be defending Fox News, but this doesn't seem all that bad to me. Wexler said some incredibly stupid things, even for a comedy show, and Fox edited for time and to make the comments look slightly worse, but they certainly didn't take them out of context (I don't see how one could take "I like doing cocaine because it's a fun thing to do" out of context, anyway). It is a little annoying that Fox seemed, let's say, willing to leave people unfamiliar with Colbert under the impression that it was a serious interview, but any backlash Wexler suffers from this is more his fault than Fox's.

On the other hand, how many Fox News viewers would have voted for Wexler (even in an uncontested race) anyway?
 
Upchurch said:
There are, apparently, two kinds of congressmen in terms of the Colbert Report: the ones who play along with the joke and the ones who are genuinely idiots. The guy pgwenthold mentioned is the latter.

The guy in the OP clip is the former.
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I don't think anybody disagrees, the problem is he played along with the joke WAAAY too much.

To me, I thought it was fairly obvious that the editing job, by removing context, made him look more like a genuine idiot rather than a guy who was just having fun with it.
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Didn't look to me like that at all. I mean, just how much context can you remove from "The Colbert Report"? Who, exactly, thinks the questions like "I enjoy cocaine because...." are serious? In any case he was obviously smiling and playing along with the joke.
 
JamesDillon said:
It is a little annoying that Fox seemed, let's say, willing to leave people unfamiliar with Colbert under the impression that it was a serious interview, but any backlash Wexler suffers from this is more his fault than Fox's.
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Oh, c'mon. That "The Colbert Report" is comedy is common knowledge. If nothing else, anybody who doesn't know and cares enough can google it.
 
I hate fox news, but don't see this item as particularly nefarious. It was an end of segment filler, they edited it down to get the jist while fitting in the time slot. It's still clear the guy was joking around.
 
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