Fox & Friends hosts falsely suggest Organizing for America director compared Palin to a terrorist
Published
On Fox & Friends, co-hosts Gretchen Carlson, Brian Kilmeade, and Steve Doocy falsely suggested that Organizing for America director Mitch Stewart compared Sarah Palin to a terrorist when he wrote in a fundraising letter that her book tour is “dangerous.” In fact, Stewart wrote that her tour is “dangerous” because Palin uses it as a platform to make false attacks on Democrats, and then the falsehoods are “widely covered by the media, then constantly echoed by right-wing attack groups.”
Fox & Friends suggests OFA director compared Palin to a terrorist
From the November 23 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
DOOCY: All right, meanwhile, as we talk about those Gitmo guys, you know who's really dangerous? Is it Khalid Shaikh Mohammed? Is it --
KILMEADE: Major Hasan?
DOOCY: -- any of those guys? No. There's an organization out there called Organizing for America, which is Barack Obama's online group. And one of the guys in charge of that is saying that something that is really dangerous is the Sarah Palin book tour.
CARLSON: Well, apparently, because they are trying to create, you know, a firestorm again. She's an easy target, and so now she could be more dangerous than any terrorist out there. In the meantime, there's all that confusion, too. You remember that other book was coming out at the exact same time that looked just like her book, except it's called Going Rouge? There it is. You know, it's very confusing. It looks very similar, so apparently some people are being confused by the two books.
KILMEADE: Harper Collins has taken out money to put out ads together so people know how to order the right book. But I'll tell you one thing. This is why I think, tactically and politically, they should fear Sarah Palin. This book sale --
DOOCY: Absolutely.
KILMEADE: -- and her popularity are so much bigger than even her supporters could imagine.
DOOCY: Right. And so it's a little payback from Harper Collins, because they didn't like the idea that, rather than Going Rogue, there was this Going Rouge book out. So people who type in Going Rouge will actually be redirected to buy the actual book. And that organizing group from the Barack Obama organization, what they're doing is they're trying to raise half a million dollars to, quote, “push back against Sarah Palin and her allies.” Push back.
OFA director called Palin's book tour “dangerous” because of the misinformation she spreads and in no way compared Palin to a terrorist
Stewart: Palin's tour is “dangerous” because her falsehoods are advanced by the media and right-wing groups. In a November fundraising email, Stewart wrote: “Right now, Sarah Palin is on a highly publicized, nationwide book tour, attacking President Obama and his plan for health reform at every turn” and that "[i]t's dangerous. Remember, this is the person who coined the term 'Death Panels' -- and opened the flood gates for months of false attacks by special interests and partisan extremists." He continued: “Whatever lie comes next will be widely covered by the media, then constantly echoed by right-wing attack groups and others who are trying to defeat reform.” From the email:
