Jason Bennett clued me into this from Beck. It probably won’t stay there, so I quote it: “Iran planning attack on U.S. soil: Reason #388372 why diplomacy alone doesn’t work — despite Obama’s butt kissing diplomacy, Iran still is reportedly planning terror attacks on U.S. soil.” He links to something called The Blaze. It has the same misleading editing as the misleading Fox News piece. It says “The U.S. intelligence community believes that Iran is prepared to launch terrorist attacks inside the United States in response to perceived threats from America and its allies, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the Senate Tuesday morning in an open hearing.” No, that’s not what Clapper said. Clapper’s written testimony does not say terrorist attacks concerning the threat from Iran that he raises. It simply says “an attack” and “future attacks.” And, in addition, he says “in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime.” Another thing — Clapper said that what the Iranians actually might do depended on “their perceptions of U.S. threats against the regime.” It seems to me that fairly subtle changes in words, small additions and subtractions, alter meaning quite substantially. Beck has sensationalized Clapper’s testimony and made the Iranians seem bent on terror attacks here. This suits his bias, but it’s warmongering and irresponsible.
I don’t watch or read Beck, but then I don’t watch any television whatever and haven’t done so for decades. When I catch bits and pieces of such shows at various establishments, it seems to me that these pundits are living in another world, another quite crazy world.
