Friday, May 25, 2018

Fox News 'Democrat' Uses North Korea Debacle To Smear Pelosi | Crooks and Liars

Fox News 'Democrat' Uses North Korea Debacle To Smear Pelosi | Crooks and Liars

Fox News 'Democrat' Uses North Korea Debacle To Smear Pelosi

As the cohosts of Outnumbered cheered on Donald Trump's sudden, impulsive withdrawal from the North Korea summit, "Democrat" Capri Cafaro helpfully rerouted the conversation to an attack on Nancy Pelosi by distorting her comments on Trump and North Korea.

The five Outnumbered panelists ignored both the danger posed by Trump's withdrawal as well as his provocations of North Korea that preceded it

There's plenty to be concerned about in Trump's withdrawal. For one thing, as Politico noted, "One danger around the possible collapse of the nuclear talks is a return to the threats and brinksmanship of 2017 which could lead to a catastrophic conflict." Although Trump's letter to Kim Jong Un was mostly diplomatic and left open the door to a future meeting, the letter also included this ominous line: "You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used."

None of that was mentioned by the four cohosts of Outnumbered, nor the #OneLuckyGuy, former George W. Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer.

Cohost Sandra Smith raised questions about Trump's wavering: "You wonder how many times the president can pull out of a planned summit. They agreed to this and he sort of, kind of went back and forth," she said.

But the rest of the gang was full of praise for Dear Leader's Wisdom.

"I salute him for not following the normal playbook," Fleischer said.

"He's left the door open but he's saying 'I'm not gonna play these games,'" cohost Katie Pavlich said. "Yesterday, they [North Korea] again threatened us with nuclear war. That is not something that any president of the United States can accept."

Pavlich conveniently "forgot" those tensions escalated after the Trump administration repeatedly brought up the "Libyan model." In that case, Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi gave up his nuclear weapons but was later killed in a western-backed intervention.

Cohost Cafaro was on the Trump train, too. "There is no way that you can stand for North Korea saying that they are willing to engage in nuclear war," she said. "There is only one way for President Trump to play this at this point and that is to walk away because you can't let North Korea do that. President Trump and the United States of America need to remain in control of this or else it's going to spiral out of control." It never seemed to occur to her that Trump's provocations might have nudged the situation out of control.

↓ Story continues below ↓

"Democrat" Cafaro gratuitously launched the attack on Pelosi

Cohost Harris Faulkner asked Cafaro whether Democrats, who were "warming" to Trump's handling of North Korea would "stay there" given that "the conversation is not over yet" between the two countries.

That prompted Cafaro to bring up Pelosi. Earlier, she had slammed Trump's withdrawal as "a good thing" for Kim Jong Un:"He got global recognition and regard. He's the big winner. And when he got this letter from the president saying, 'OK, never mind,' he must be having a giggle fit right now, there, in North Korea."

Instead of considering what Pelosi meant, Cafaro launched right into a GOP/Fox-friendly attack:

CAFARO: Essentially, the tenor and tone of it was, I think, pretty childish. … That's not the way that you engage in a diplomatic discussion. That's not the way that you show that you're willing to govern and come to the table for a national security issue that impacts everybody, Democrats and Republicans. And this is why we continue to lose as Democrats because we are not engaging in a constructive manner.

In focusing on "the tenor and tone," Cafaro ignored the important point that Pelosi was saying. As her full statement makes clear, Pelosi was arguing that the Trump administration's incompetence had bungled the negotiations, which she explicitly said she supported, in a way that benefitted North Korea. Meanwhile, Cafaro conveniently gave a pass to the far greater childishness of Trump.

The other Outnumbered panelists falsely accused Pelosi of treating North Korea as a joke – without challenge from Cafaro

Faulkner agreed about Pelosi's "whole tone and tenor" after getting in a few digs about her age. "You got crumbs, you got giggles from Pelosi," Faulkner later sneered.

"For someone like Nancy Pelosi to say that there's giggling involved when we are talking about potentially millions of people, including people in South Korea – " Pavlich began.

Cafaro jumped in – not to correct the record but to validate the dishonest smear: "Exactly," she said.

"And our own people!" Faulkner added.

"It doesn't have to be nuclear war for the people of South Korea and Nancy Pelosi is acting like this is a joke, talking about giggling. It's disgusting," Pavlich said self-righteously.

The Fox News panel went on to falsely accuse Pelosi of siding with Kim Jong Un over the U.S.

Later, after a partial clip of Pelosi's statement, Fleischer said, "This is a blame-America-first statement." He equated being a Democrat with being anti-American."For no reason other than she's a Democrat, she wants to score points over Trump," he said "Americans should be unified against Kim Jong Un." As if she had not made that clear.

Faulkner laughed at how "interesting" Fleischer's comment was. "She doesn't pick the dictator, she picks the president of the United States!" Faulkner sounded delighted.

"That's my point, she's so anti-Trump," Fleischer said. He didn't come right out and call Pelosi an enemy of America but I doubt any of the viewers missed the inference.

But Cafaro did. Either that or she agreed. Or maybe Cafaro's concern for "constructive" behavior took a far back seat to a desire for more Fox hits. She did, however, go on to scold Democrats for not being "consistent" and losing "credibility" as a result.

Watch this disgraceful display that any Democrat or liberal with integrity would have called out above, from the May 24, 2018 Outnumbered.

Originally published at Newshounds.us



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