Reply #134: This is an excellent example . . . of the basic legal rule . . .

[TaleWgnDg]

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This is an excellent example . . . of the basic legal rule . . . that if someone is to decide an accurate, true conclusion regarding a past event that was video taped and/or written transcript made then that entire interview be viewed (either as an uncut video from start to finish or as an accurate written transcript from start to finish) so that a sound, accurate, true and just conclusion be made. Here, obviously, the opposite was rendered by FOX NEWS (what a misnomer!), because FOX edited out some very pertinent and important information stated by President Clinton, all to the twisted bias of Fox News as it's fed to its audience and all for commercial (financial) gain to Fox News. It's not news; instead, it is an attempt to entertain but unknowingly as such to much of its audience. P E R I O D.

Simple, really.

The law, i.e., the legal recourse, to counter such misrepresentations (lies) to the public is so ill-defined and so over-burdensome that nothing is usually done about it. Thus, Fox News and other lousy so-called "information sources" continue to push their product of disinformation over non-broadcast and broadcast television and radio. In short, it sells and selling is their business, not news.

Sad, really, is the state of information that passes as "news" to many in America today. It flies in the face of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s "marketplace of ideas."

"Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or your power and want a certain result with all your heart you naturally express your wishes in law and sweep away all opposition. . . . But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas -- that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution."
(quoting Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in his famous dissent, Abrams v. U.S., 250 U.S. 616 (1919))
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=250&invol=616
bold-faced type added by TaleWgnDg

Justice Holmes would stand firm today, I am sure, for the free exchange of ideas. However, with the caveat that such ideas should be labeled as truthful or as untruthful. Never an "entertainment" sham to pass as truth as does FOX NEWS.

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