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Fox and Friends ‘Clarifies’ Its False Reporting About ‘Hiroshima Apology’ WikiLeaks Cable

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» 85 comments

Thursday, we reported on a Fox and Friends story that contained enough whole cloth to start its own garment district. Among other things, Fox and Friends falsely reported that a WikiLeaks diplomatic cable showed that President Obama proposed a visit to Hiroshima to apologize for the WWII atomic bombing of that city, and of Nagasaki. We contacted Fox News about the inaccuracies in the story, and they promised us that they would “address” the story Friday morning.

In their initial reporting, Fox’s morning trio combined to deliver such false claims, about the leaked diplomatic cable, as:

  • “President Obama wanted to apologize” for Hiroshima.
  • The White House had a great idea. Let’s apologize for dropping that bomb on Hiroshima.
  • A Japanese official “stopped it.”
  • Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka said, “We don’t want any apology for that.”
  • Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka said, “We sort of need to keep the nuclear threat alive.”
  • Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka contacted the White House and said “Let’s not apologize for Hiroshima.”

In fact, the leaked cable didn’t say any of that, and was actually quite clear as to how the subject came up. Vice Foreign Minister Yabunaka was already discussing proliferation issues (he favored “something like dismantling all plutonium-based programs at the outset in exchange for normalization of relations” with North Korea), and he brought up the possibility that the public, particularly anti-nuclear activists, might expect a presidential visit to Hiroshima, and maybe even an apology. Far from saying “We don’t want an apology for that,” Mr. Yabunaka said that such a visit would be “premature.”

Rather than issue a correction, though, co-host Steve Doocy said, Friday morning, that “There was never a plan for President Obama to apologize to Japan,” adding, “we should have been clearer about that, and we’re sorry for the confusion.”

That’s a bit like The Chicago Tribune saying, “We should have been clearer about Dewey not defeating Truman.”

Still, they did manage to work the words “we’re sorry” into it, which has to make you wonder if that apology was President Obama’s idea. Let me be absolutely clear: it was not.

Here’s the clip. from Fox and Friends:

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  • Anonymous

    How about a story about Mika emptying a couple of boxes of cereal into the trash this morning on Morning Joe?

    Joe told Mika that she was not getting his Lucky Charms .

    This disgraceful waste of food was shocking and she needs to apologize for this display !

  • Anonymous

    Fox and Friends clarifies it’s false reporting

    “We get paid a lot to do that every day”

    Clear enough!

  • Anonymous

    Oooh, Gretchen Carlson is so voluptuous and veracious. She is a regal, ravishing reporter, and a wonderful role-model for young ladies everywhere. She is the personification of apple-pie Americanism. Real men adore her.

  • Anonymous

    Real men named Woody Johnson and Peter Hardwood.

  • TruDat

    Now if MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow will just apologize for her weeks long story about the hanged liberal census worker.  She purported for weeks that the hanging was probably done by some wacky conservative.  In fact, it was ruled a suicide and the lefty was trying to defraud an insurance company by making it appear a murder.

    Still waiting for the apology, or at least Tommy writing about Maddow’s falsehood.

  • Anonymous

    They are not a real news show anyways, so they can make up shit all they want.  Remember, the real news supposedly happens between 9 and 1, then 3 to 5 weekdays (or thereabouts).

  • mosesdinoark

    Proof positive: FOX LIES.

  • Jonathan Cantor

    Don’t worry steve doocy if I wanted actual knowledge of Obama policy I doubt I would listen to you know matter how many “sources” you have. Former Bush officials don’t count. I know its hard to accept. How long ago did you decide to see your journalistic integrity? Was it hard to do or were you promised perfectly coiffed hair in return? 

  • wawoo

    Boy , talk about changing the subject. Back on task, Doofy Doocy at last told the truth,”We’re sorry.” They certainly are.

  • Concerned Citizen

    Tommy, waiting with bated breath for your fact checking on the other cable news channels reports particularly MSNBC. I’ll wait…..

  • Anonymous

    The con brain works in overdrive to defend and deflect when presented with facts that contradict their own “reality.”  They can help it; they were born that way (unlike the gays who chose to be that way – eww).

  • Anonymous

    HA TruDat….whatever you do, don’t hold your breath. 

  • Anonymous

    I guess I missed the part of the Tommy article that gives the numerous examples of the administrations world apology tour.

  • Hypocrisyjoe

    So Fox and Friends “apologized” for their false reporting. Should be interesting to see what those who defended them yesterday have to say about it today.

  • mosesdinoark

    Fox & Friends must implement DADT, right?  I mean Steve Doocey..helooo honey badgers!

  • Rex the Wonder God

    Bet she smells.

  • Rex the Wonder God

    Fool.

  • http://mediamatters.org/ Leedog

    They won’t care how ignorant they looked!! The Republicons here would defend Fox News to the end, even if Fox News mentioned the world was flat… they would still believe it!!

  • http://mediamatters.org/ Leedog

    After the failed Bush Administration and their policies, this country had a lot of explaining to do!! Obama never apologised once, he was just pointing out how his administration would be different!!

  • http://mediamatters.org/ Leedog

    They’re not even good liars because they get caught all the time!!

  • Anonymous

    Mis-direction!

  • Rio

    I take it you are NOT a journalist, whew!  I bet he doesn’t stay awake at night worrying about where you get your news or if you could understand it where ever it came from.

    Take a look around here, you are just another “mook” in the tired old bash FOX mediate pool.

  • Anonymous

    Then they will correct the story like, Ed “has” , Maddow, Hardball, etc.,… wait what was your point,… oh yeah , it didn’t apply!

  • Ginid8ze98

    I think everyone should stop treating Fox & Friends like they are the news, or news-related, or news magazine like.  They don’t even reach the Law & Order news level of being inspired in part by a true incident, but fictional and not depicting any actual person or event.

    Fox & Friends is just propaganda with a side of eggs and grapefruit juice.  They put out something in the morning that makes conservatives happy, and make liberals mad.  It shouldn’t be judged by some sort of journalism standard.  It’s not supposed to be informative, just entertaining and on message.

  • Anonymous

    “Fox” never lies, give one example of anything they’ve ever lied about! And the beat goes on!

  • Anonymous

    When will we get an apology for Fox News network?

  • Mencius

    So I guess Doocy & pals making up a story that would’ve taken about 2 minutes of work to have gotten right in the first place, then offering a pseudo 20 second apology before quickly moving on, is cool by you. So cool that it’s time to keep believing whatever Doocy tells you about the “dirty drug addled hippies” at OWS. I mean… you can trust Ol Doocy, am I right? Just tell me what to believe Dooce and I’ll never pick up a book again!!!

  • wawoo

    Gretchen strikes me as a human iguana with a blonde wig. She and the “Turtle”, Mitch McConnel may be alternate life forms from the reptile universe here to start the takeover.

  • Mencius

    Don’t get these right-wingers started on the reptile people. They could talk about the New World Order of the Lizard People for days. 

  • TruDat

    Ingester of semen.

  • Rio

    Somebody call the WAAAmbulence! lol

  • http://mediamatters.org/ Leedog

    How mature of you to reply like that!!

  • Rex the Wonder God

    Bet she has to dooce at least once between every commercial break.

  • Rex the Wonder God

    Fool.

  • Tucsonense

    example-they lied yesterday

  • Exgoper

    Ah, yes — The World Apology Tour, also known as Ridiculous GOP Talking Point #174. 

  • Rufus Danegro

    And there’s tiny eddie  putz freaking out and changing the subject! What a predictable tool!

    LOL

  • Anonymous

    who hurt you in your past?  honestly, what perceived liberal hurt you so bad that your best defenses are either

    (1) a deflection of the topic at hand;
    (2) some “your mom!” level of retort a la “ingester of semen” in response to someone calling you a fool**;
    (3) possibly going after someone’s username when your own is questionable since neither are real words, but slang.

    **an absolute truth.  (see any posting done by TD in response to a posting of his).

  • http://twitter.com/BlueSaboteur Rob Leon

    The three Right Wing  village idiots on Faux and Fiends make me howl with laughter.   They thought they’d gotten away with yet another bold face- lie about the Obama Admin.  

  • Joseph Bernard

    “We should have been clearer”? Flatout making up a story about a President planning to apologize for the end of WWII – an unthinkable act by ANY Prez – is not a “lack of clarity”. They made that shit up.

  • Anonymous

    That was my impersonation of a “tea”!

  • TruDat

    I can say one thing positive about you left-wing morons; your usernames are accurate.

  • Lallen422

    A display of journalistic integrity like no other. Good work, Fox News.

  • Lallen422

    This explains a lot because that story about Obama apologizing made NO SENSE! Leave it to Faux News.

  • Anonymous

    Hey Tommy Christopher:  another bullsh*t story from you.  I noticed you didn’t mention none other than JAKE TAPPER’S piece on this subject a couple of days ago. 

    Let me refresh your memory.  Here’s the title:

    “Japanese Government Nixed Idea of Obama Visiting, Apologizing for, Hiroshima”

    Here’s the first couple of sentences:

    “In September 2009, US Ambassador to Japan John Roos reported to the
    Obama administration that the Japanese government did not think it was a
    good idea for President Obama to visit Hiroshima to apologize for the
    US having dropped an atomic bomb on that city, a secret cable published
    by Wikileaks revealed.

    Roos wrote the cable after his August meeting with Vice Foreign
    Minister Mitoji Yabunaka, reporting to Secretary of State Hillary
    Clinton that the Japanese government felt “the idea of President Obama
    visiting Hiroshima to apologize for the atomic bombing during World War
    II is a ‘non-starter.’ While a simple visit to Hiroshima without fanfare
    is sufficiently symbolic to convey the right message, it is premature
    to include such program in the November visit.”

    Here’s the link for the lazy: 

    http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/10/japanese-government-nixed-idea-of-obama-visiting-apologizing-for-hiroshima/

    So is Jake Tapper of ABC News now part of the Fox News cabal, or should we expect an apology from YOU about why you’re singling out Fox on this???  I won’t hold my breath, as I’m sure there are some mental gymnastics from you on the way as to why “Fox was worse” or some such nonsense.

  • Lallen422

    LMAO Mitch McConnell does look like a turtle. At least Gretchen still has her own nose unlike most of the Fox women

  • Lallen422

    Hank Williams Jr. Does fancy Gretchen LOL

  • guest

    “We should have been clearer”  but this is how Fox News works, everybody knows what we don’t know, we make up  I mean we have Bill O’reilly, nuff said..

  • Lallen422

    Mika I don’t get what her purpose is on that show, to annoy everyone or just be the token female?

  • Rio

    #175  Strasbourg,  France:  “In America there is a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world…America has shown arrogance and has been dismissive, even derisive.”

    #176  Strasbourg, France:  “In dealing with terrorism, we can’t lose sight of our values, that’s why I closed Guantanamo.”

    #177  Al Arabiya News:  “My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy.  We sometimes make mistakes, we have not been perfect.”

    #178  Summit of the Americas:  “While the United States has done much to promote peace and prosperity in the hemisphere, we have at times been disengaged, and at times sought to dictate our terms.”

    #179  Summit of the Americas:  “Too often the United States has not pursued and sustained engagement with our neighbors.  We have been too easily distracted by other priorities, and have failed to see that our own progress is tied directly to the Americas.”

    #180  Speech to the Turkish Parliament  “The United States is still working through some of our own darker periods in our history.”

  • Zermatt2

    Fox and Idiots are truly a sorry lot.

  • Tedderman

    The old adage, “crazy like a fox” could not be made more clear than in the actions of the Fox morning crew.
    Spend an entire segment discussing the lie of a Presidential apology, putting the message out to their minions, while giving only a few moments to say”sorry” for the lie.  The lie has already been told, it cannot be untold.
    default9134 {“method”:”validate”,”params”:[],”id”:1,”jsonrpc”:”2.0″}

  • Anonymous

    ‘…There was never a plan for President Obama to apologize to Japan’ Steve Doocy

    Well, there goes the Fox & Friends integrity and credibility nose diving…again!

  • Anonymous

    FUX NEWS changing a story to show the President in a negative light?………Of Course!!

  • Anonymous

    FOX NATION ALERT: OBAMA RUNS OVER PUPPY!

    two days later…at the bottom of the page…

    Fox News wants to clarify that Obama never actually ran over a puppy, but that he could have possibly run over a puppy, and although we never clearly stated this was theory, we never mislead anyone either.

    Welcome to Fox Nation.

  • Anonymous

    They should go with something easy and verifiable like……..Glenn Beck is a nut job!  No mistake and no apology!

  • http://twitter.com/runforfun54 Ilene K

    Whaaaaaatttt?  Stop the presses… Fox APOLOGIZED for it’s “misconstrued” comments??? Who I guess it’s true that even a blind squirrel gets a nut now and again.

  • ForFoxSake

    Hey, Glenn Beck is now posting at Mediaite!

  • Exgoper

     YAWN.

    The only place on earth where these qualify as “apologies” is in the empty few inches between your ears.

    No sale.

  • ForFoxSake

    “We have not been perfect.”

    Holy shit! Obama is a MONSTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Anonymous

    Flash: the following headline is straight off the New York Times

    OBAMA WALKS ACROSS THE POTOMAC RIVER TO VISIT ARLINGTON 

    The next day on FAUX News, they will show a picture of Obama walking on water and the story line will be:

    OBAMA CAN NOT SWIM

  • Anonymous

    If you read the notes, Tommy is splitting hairs (surprise!) and in fact, it must have been discussed because it’s too lame to have come out of nowhere.  

    Tommy seems to have Fox on speed dial.  Now, Tommy – are you going to comment on Jake’s story or just ignore it?  

  • Anonymous

    Doesn’t truth just piss you off?  Could have gone with the “outrage” from Tommy – seems to fester well in here.  

  • Limpbaals

    I think he was referring to her mental capacity and not her looks… Your brain must be truly powerful if you deduced that she does not look like an iguana. I congratulate republicans for producing such fine stock.

  • Bob Uda

    That’s strike two for Fox & Friends.  Strike three and they all are out of there to be replaced by a new team.  Strike one was the Hank Williams, Jr., screwup.

  • ForFoxSake

    It’s all connect-the-dots and innuendo — the same schtick that Beck has been doing for years. The same schtick that finally got him kicked off of Fox News because even THEY couldn’t apologize for it any more.

  • http://www.thefoldblog.com thefold-Chris

    True enough Bob.  On Monday they were forced to distance themselves from Hank Jr. and now today they are issuing apologies for lying about President Obama.  Fox has turned into a bunch of tree hugging hippies.  This is quite amazing.

  • Anonymous

    I’m not surprised, they make things up all the time. 

  • Anonymous

    This was nothing but an understable misquote which was corrected quickly and professionally.

  • Anonymous

     what about Jake’s story? 

  • Anonymous

    not so fast skippy.  It’s just tommy splitting hairs.  

    Read Jake’s story.

  • Anonymous

     did you read the story?  Tommy’s inflammatory headline is sort of …..nuts.

  • Anonymous

    how was the hank williams story a screw-up?

    Do you know how long Steve has been working for Fox?

    do you realize that Tommy is flogging this “non-story” for whatever reason.  

  • FreeMike

    Did you even read it??  From Jake’s article:

    “A senior White House official asserts to ABC News that there was never any plan for the president to apologize for Hiroshima.  The cable does not state that the idea was from the U.S. Rather, Roos writes that Yabunaka thought that following President Obama’s call earlier that year for a world free of nuclear weapons, anti-nuclear groups would speculate as to whether he would visit Hiroshima.”

    There it is!  Clear as day!  Obama’s idea to apologize!  And he was going to take away their nukes!!

    Aside from the misleading title, this article actually verifys that Fox and Friends just scanned the cable for “red flag” words (Obama…apologize…Japan…proliferatio..prolif..proliferat…ah, whatever)  and ran with their story.

  • Jonathan Cantor

    Might be true, might not. I know I read enough sources to get the facts and that I’m not just a pretty hair piece to make accusations my interns write. 

  • Joseph Bernard

    What a bunch of idiots. There is NO version of this story that implies anything other than that the Japanese government was aware of the hopes and dreams of the anti-nuke groups, and felt compelled to assure the administration no apology was expected. The Japanese cooked up the entire scenario.

  • Anonymous

    Seek, I have to reply to you because “FreeMike”‘s post doesn’t have a reply option, but this is for him. 

    Um, did you notice the headline at the top of the story that these comments from the WH were added AFTER the original story appeared?  And doesn’t it stand to reason that Tapper would retract the story if HE believed the WH’s “senior official”? 

    Dude…at some point you have to admit reality instead of just pushing your “anything to defend Obama” mentality.  Get a grip. 

  • Tex45

    I guess there are some lies even too big for Fox News.

  • Jeff Weiss

    Mr. Douchey is a busy man and has a steak dinner to get to! He can’t be bothered with facts or apologies

  • labman57

    When informed by FOX News management (which had recently come to the realization that their unabashedly biased, propaganda-promoting commentators had become an industry joke) that they would have to issue a clarification, the Three Stooges of F&F replied: ”Since when …?”

  • Anonymous

    So you won’t let the lie go. Just because somebody else also lied about it, that makes it true to you.
    Loser!

  • Anonymous

    Look, just because you’re an ass who can’t handle the fact that Christopher is trying to pin this on Fox vs. other mainstream reporters, it doesn’t change the facts.  Tapper reported this, and quite prominently.  He hasn’t retracted it.  So why, then, would Christopher try to lay this all at the feet of Fox?  Because he’s an extremely biased columnist.  God forbid he go after Jake Tapper.

    So, loser?  You take the cake, kid.  Time for you to grow up.

  • Anonymous

    Too funny…you just can’t handle the truth, kid.  Time for you to grow up and get out of your parent’s basement.

  • Anonymous

    OK. So it shouldn’t get personal.
    Point: Fox did apologize. That says it all.

  • anonymois

    i suspect all this fox apologising about bullshit truthiness has a lot to do with
    the video that went viral with the crowd chanting fox new lies

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