{"id":15828,"date":"2008-06-10T16:45:38","date_gmt":"2008-06-10T20:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15828.html"},"modified":"2008-06-10T16:45:38","modified_gmt":"2008-06-10T20:45:38","slug":"terrorist-fist-jab-comments-sparks-apology-and-cancellation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/terrorist-fist-jab-comments-sparks-apology-and-cancellation\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Terrorist fist jab’ comments sparks apology — and cancellation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The “fist bump” heard round the world has sparked all kinds of media interest<\/a>, but for sheer stupidity, it’s hard to top Fox News. “America’s Pulse” anchor E.D. Hill did a segment on the Obama gesture late last week, alerting viewers<\/a> to the various ways in which the affectionate moment between the candidate his wife could be interpreted: “A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab?”<\/p>\n

The fine folks at Media Matters launched a petition drive<\/a> yesterday: “Tell Fox News this is appalling and unacceptable, and demand an apology from E.D. Hill.”<\/p>\n

Today, it got results. Hill backed off her comments this afternoon.<\/p>\n

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For those who can’t watch clips online, Hill told viewers, “Want to start the show by clarifying something I said on the show last Friday about an upcoming body-language segment. Now, I mention various ways in the Obamas’ fist-bump in St. Paul had been characterized in the media. I apologize because unfortunately some thought I, personally, had characterized it inappropriately. I regret that. It was not my intention. I certainly didn’t mean to associate the word terrorist in any way with Senator Obama and his wife.”<\/p>\n

As apologies go, this is pretty weak tea. She didn’t “mean” to associate the Obamas with being terrorists, she was merely raising the possibility that their hand gesture might be seen as terrorist-like. How could anyone be offended?
\n
\nEven better, if Hill wants to make ridiculous accusations about Democrats in the future, she’ll have to find a different venue — Fox News announced today that Hill’s show has been cancelled<\/a>.<\/p>\n

TVNewser has learned beginning Monday Live Desk with Martha MacCallum will be expanded to two hours, airing from 1-3pmET. MacCallum will also be getting a co-anchor and a new set. Trace Gallagher joins as co-anchor, while continuing to fill in for Shepard Smith on Studio B and Fox Report. Also starting Monday Live Desk will originate from the FNC newsroom.<\/p>\n

America’s Pulse anchored by E.D. Hill goes away, but Hill stays with the network in a capacity to be determined. Hill has been with FNC since 1998.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s certainly possible that the timing was coincidental, and I haven’t seen any reports connecting Hill’s cancellation to her ridiculous comments about Obama.<\/p>\n

But if Fox News were smart, the network would make the connection in order to gain at least some shred of journalistic credibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The “fist bump” heard round the world has sparked all kinds of media interest, but for sheer stupidity, it’s hard to top Fox News. “America’s Pulse” anchor E.D. Hill did a segment on the Obama gesture late last week, alerting viewers to the various ways in which the affectionate moment between the candidate his wife […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15828\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}