Hannity and Bachmann Almost Apologize

From: The Nation –

A fundamental tenet for both rightwing politicians and their media pilot fish is: Never, ever, apologize for the crazy. If you get caught exaggerating or even lying outright, simply respond by saying, “The left sees it differently” or “The mainstream media take their cues from liberals” or some such weasel-bite, even if the dispute is over widely accepted facts.

Yet in just the past couple of days, two of the loudest and most obdurate voices on the right have had to apologize, or at least feign doing so, for major bloopers concerning Rep. Michelle Bachmann’s Tea Party rally held on Capitol Hill on November 5.

The most slippery mea culpa came from Fox News’s Sean Hannity. On the day of the rally (a/k/a “the Super Bowl of Freedom”), he used fake footage to bolster Bachmann’s absurd claim that the protest drew a crowd of 20,000 to 45,000–when reliable estimates stretch from 4,000 to 10,000, tops. Hannity’s producers spliced scenes from the much larger 9/12 rally sponsored by Glenn Beck in between shots of Bachmann’s much smaller turnout on 11/5, suggesting that her group had spilled out onto the Mall.

More at: The Nation!