Hillary Clinton’s blunder has left a trail. The senator from New York explained that she was staying the course in the democratic primaries notably, because in June 1968 Robert Kennedy was assassinated. This was an announcement that some had interpreted as a secret desire for harm to come to Barack Obama, her rival for the candidacy. Speaking on May 25th about the declaration of the former first lady-–who apologized–-a journalist for Fox News explained that “some are reading this as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama.”
The other journalist on the stage pointed out to Liz Trotta that it related to “Obama” and not “Osama”. She retracted, but continued on to joke “Well… both if we could!” This was a reference to her previous term “knock off”, which, according to her, is as good for the Illinois senator as for Osama Bin Laden, the person behind of the September 11 attacks that plunged America into mourning in 2001.
Petitions to the Channel
The journalist apologized immediately, but the damage was already done. An internet petition was started demanding her resignation. It had already collected more than 9,000 cyber-signatures at the time we went online. Another petition started by Fox Attacks, which posted about 39,500 signatures, targets Fox News for its repeated attacks against Barack Obama.
On a film compiling extracts of mistakes from Fox News, one can see that the station, which is distinctly pro-Republican, announced that the Protestant Christian candidate had studied in a Koranic school in Indonesia. This information was refuted on CNN, where the director of the school clarified that it is public and open to all religions. The film also reminds us of how much Fox News insisted on reminding us that Barack Obama’s middle name is Hussein, as if to create a link at any cost between Islam and the senator at a time when this religion frightens a fringe of the American population.
In February, an employee of NBC News mistakenly released a photo of Osama Bin Laden in place of that of the senator. The White House candidate’s campaign team reacted immediately and hotly. The presenter Chris Matthews apologized on air soon after the error was made and the guilty party was punished.
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