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Fox News’ Sammon never believed Obama was socialist

avatar by Published Mar. 29, 2011 7:47 am Updated Mar. 29, 2011 8:00 am

The Daily Beast
Bill Sammon linked President Obama to socialism many times during the 2008 campaign, but the Fox News Washington managing editor acknowledged the following year that he was just engaging in “mischievous speculation” in raising the charge, reports Howard Kurtz and Media Matters. Sammon said he “privately” believed that the socialism allegation was “rather far-fetched.” || Media Matters: How a Fox editor tried to tie Obama to socialism.

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  • Anonymous

    Um, Groty1, well sure, by your definition every president from Washington to Obama is a socialist. Socialism, social, and society all come from the same Latin roots, the words for companionship, partner, fellowship. The idea goes back thousands of years: we band together in a community, build roads, organize security, help each other out.

    Sammon, though, was not ruminating about the idea of socialism. He was accusing one president in particular — I wonder why? — an accusation he now concedes was “far-fetched.”

    Dan

  • Anonymous

    You raise a separate issue. What is important here, and what I’m interested in, is that a leading executive of a major news organization developed a story line he believed was “far-fetched” because it fit the idealogical opinions of his organization. And then he bemusedly acknowledged it semi-publicly when he thought he wouldn’t get caught. It is proof that this influential news organization deliberately declines to present the facts as it assesses them. Here, on a j-site, that’s news.

  • Anonymous

    Big Government policies of both Democrats and Republicans are socialist. They legally confiscate money and property through coercive taxation from A and give it to B. That is socialist re-distribution. Democrats think they’re saintly because they want to take from the “rich” and give it to the less rich. How can anyone say food stamps, disability pay, unemployment insurance, etc are NOT SOCIALIST? And both parties want to redistribute to favored businesses via corporate welfare in tax breaks, subsidies, tarrifs, etc. That’s as much socialism as welfare transfers are.

    The mainstream of both parties is socialist. Just embrace it and stop acting like you’re outraged when someone factually calls you what you are — a socialist.