Don’t leave it to Cleaver

Democratic partisans and their mainstream media adjunct have sought to brand the Tea Party resistance to the Obama administration as racist and bigoted. Democratic congressmen alleged over the weekend that they were subjected to racist and bigoted epithets at the Tea Party-inspired rally protesting Obamacare at the Capitol.
Fox News reported the allegations as facts, even though not a single video documenting the rally supports the allegations. Fox News took the word of the Democratic congressmen at face value without noting the efforts of Democratic partisans to brand opposition to Obamacare and the rest of the administration’s program of national socialism as racist. Given the partisan animus of those making the allegations and the lack of evidence supporting them, I think Fox News made a serious mistake in reporting the allegations as facts.
On the O’Reilly Factor last night, Bill O’Reilly interviewed Dana Loesch on the subject. Loesch didn’t make the best argument against what Fox News had done (or even call Fox News on it), and O’Reilly was simply obtuse on the question of fact involved. But at least the issue of credibility was raised. The video of Loesch’s segment is below.

As they say, we report, you decide. When Fox News reported the Democrats’ allegations as facts, it decided rather than reported.
UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds rounds up comments here.

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