When Lou Dobbs led off his show Wednesday with "great news" about Trump's approval ratings where he inverted the approval and disapproval numbers, he knew exactly what he was doing and whom he was serving. When Donald Trump retweeted that and left the tweet, Dobbs' work was complete.
Today, Fox Business issued a lame video apology which said:
“It’s been a quite a start to the day for President Trump, though he did send out a tweet this morning from the Lou Dobbs show last night on Fox Business. That tweet featured a poll that was not entirely accurate, which Fox Business would like to correct. According to a poll from Georgetown University, 58 percent of respondents approved of the president’s handling of the economy. That portion of the graphic was right. However, the graphic also showed that 55 percent of the respondents approve of the president, that number is not correct. The 55 percent number was those who have an unfavorable impression of President Trump.”
It wasn't an inaccurate poll, Fox News. It was inaccurately REPORTED. Here's the whole poll for anyone to see.
As I said, Dobbs understood what he was doing. This was no different than all the other times Fox News and Fox Business have made "mistakes" on polls, charts or graphics to convince viewers of a thing which is patently false, but also the opposite of reality.
In a different universe, we would call this propaganda, pure and simple. Despite Fox Business' apology, Trump's tweet remains and has been liked over 100,000 times and shared over 26,000 times. Talk about "fake news."
Lou Dobbs is one of Trump's closest confidantes. He's right up there with Hannity. Trump gets him on the phone for his opinion during important meetings. He tells Trump to fire people and Trump does it. I'm willing to bet he's whispering sweet nothings in Trump's ear about Kris Kobach as Nielsen's replacement, too.
And clearly Dobbs has no regrets. Here's a quote which Trump apparently tweeted while watching him in real time Thursday afternoon:
No mention of his intentional lie to viewers the day before in that quote. Just more cheerleading.
Dobbs cannot pretend to be a journalist and serve as Trump's propaganda spinner on a daily basis. This last infraction is a bridge too far. It isn't enough for Fox News and Fox Business to say, "Oopsie." There has to be a price and a message, which is why they should either suspend Dobbs or fire him.
Agree? Let's share this and get some others to agree. Maybe we can make enough noise for someone to notice.