Commenting on how The New York Times removed a phrase from a Friday article explaining how President Obama told a group of columnists that he hadn’t consumed enough cable news to fully understand the anxieties of Americans over terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Fox News Sunday panelist Brit Hume lambasted the President for his “snark” and frame of mind that makes him “impatient with the American people.”
Host Chris Wallace set the scene by briefly explaining this stunning removal from The Times article and read the quote in question before deferring to Hume: “Mr. Obama indicated he did not see enough cable television to fully appreciate the anxiety after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino.”
“I think it was snark against cable TV and it fits in with what I think is the unmistakable subtext of what the President has been saying on this issue and indeed what he said this week,” explained Hume.
The former Special Report anchor continued by opining that the President has clearly shown “a clear impression that this ISIS threat is really overblown” in that:
[Y]es, Paris was terrible and San Bernardino was awful, but if you look at it in the larger scheme of things, which is how he professes to think of the world, ISIS is really too minor a threat to really worry about and much too minor a threat to mount a ground war the way we did to drive out Saddam Hussein’s army out of Kuwait and later to invade Iraq or any of that.
Hume capped off the short assessment by ripping Obama for having an aurora of impatience:
He says that's the impression he creates, you got to go with me with my more patient strategy and I have an eye on the larger picture and really serious threats like climate change, and the rest of it and I think he's impatient with the American people for being so easily excited by cable news about these occasional attacks.
Naturally, when it came to any of the major broadcast networks covering The Times’ removal of the sentence, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC were all silent.
The relevant portion of the transcript from December 20's Fox News Sunday can be found below.
Fox News Sunday
December 20, 2015
9:46 a.m. EasternCHRIS WALLACE: The President met with columnists this week and there was a basic comment — not a quote, but a paraphrase of what he said that was first in and then very oddly was taken out of a New York Times story. We're going to put it up on the screen. “Mr. Obama indicated he did not see enough cable television to fully appreciate the anxiety after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino.” Brit, what do you make of that?
BRIT HUME: I think it was snark against cable TV and it fits in with what I think is the unmistakable subtext of what the President has been saying on this issue and indeed what he said this week. He conveys to me a clear impression that this ISIS threat is really overblown, yes, Paris was terrible and San Bernardino was awful, but if you look at it in the larger scheme of things, which is how he professes to think of the world, ISIS is really too minor a threat to really worry about and much too minor a threat to mount a ground war the way we did to drive out Saddam Hussein’s army out of Kuwait and later to invade Iraq or any of that. We don’t want to do any of that. I can’t believe ISIS wants that but, because they’d all be wiped out if we did that. He says that's the impression he creates, you got to go with me with my more patient strategy and I have an eye on the larger picture and really serious threats like climate change, and the rest of it and I think he's impatient with the American people for being so easily excited by cable news about these occasional attacks.
