Most people who care anything about politics and facts know that Sean Hannity and Frank Luntz are shameless liars. Last night I saw what has to rank as one of the more blatent examples.
From time to time I watch Faux Noise to see what kind of hate and lies they are broadcasting under the guise of 'news.' I checked in for my monthly esposure to see what they were saying about Obama's address to the joint session of Congress. As luck would have it, Sean Hannity and Frank Luntz were having a 'discussion' about that very thing. In a span of about 3 minutes they both demonstrated that they will say anything, without any regard for truth or facts.
This morning I went to Media Matters to see if they had documented these liars practicing their trade. As expected, they had seen the same thing and added a video clip to their long list of lies from Faux Noise. See if you can spot the lies without any clues:
The transcript from Media Matters:
HANNITY: One of the things, Frank, you have been very, very clear about -- and I think our audience has learned a lot from you as we've done our dial groups and our focus groups, etc. -- is this tendency to go negative. And he had a very different tone on Monday, but when he said tonight that insurance executives are bad people, it took me back because it was so harsh, and I think unfair, but it's part of their polling. Let's roll this tape, and I want to get your reaction to it.
OBAMA [video clip]: Without competition, the price of insurance goes up and quality goes down. And it makes it easier for insurance companies to treat their customers badly by cherry-picking the healthiest individuals and trying to drop the sickest, by overcharging small businesses who have no leverage, and by jacking up rates. Insurance executives don't do this because they're bad people; they do it because it's profitable.
HANNITY: What'd you think?
FRANK LUNTZ (GOP pollster): I think that he's trying to demonize a segment of American society, and through the work that I've done, he may be successful, Sean. Because the American people don't think too highly of insurance companies or the people who run it.
I wonder if any of the Hannity faithful noticed that the evidence Hannity offered said the exact opposite of what he claimed? This is not the worst he has done, but it has to be one of the most obvious lies, even for the short attention span of Faux Noise viewers. Ironically, the caption at the bottom of the screen read, "ANALYZING PRES OBAMA'S SPEECH, WHAT DID THE LANGUAGE MEAN?"
In that same clip, Frank Luntz showed himself to be a fraud, or extremely stupid. Luntz picked up Hannity's lie and ran with it. He either didn't hear the language, or didn't care what it was. This from the person who said in an interview:
When reminded by the interviewer Deborah Solomon that the president isn't actually in favor of a single-payer system, but rather a hybrid of public and private providers, Luntz replied: "I'm not a policy person. I'm a language person."
How can these people remain on public airwaves?