tv FOX News Watch FOX News June 30, 2012 11:30pm-12:00am EDT
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that this is a politically motivated thing. and america's trust in tv news has dropped. any surprise there. in a public and uncomfortable pay, nbc dumps ann curry from the ang corps seat. >> it's not easy to say, but today is my last day as a regular co-host on the today. >> jon: judy miller, richard grinle, spokesman for the last four ambassadors to the u.n. jim pinkerton, contributing editor, and daily beast columnist kirsten powers. i'm jon scott. fox news watch is on right now. ♪ >> this is a day for the history books. the u.s. supreme court has said the obama health care law is constitutional and therefore, the law of the land. >> tonight, health care reform is the law of the land.
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>> it was the most important single effort of the obama administration and today, it became the most important supreme court decision of the past several years. >> the supreme court's ruling on obamacare. president obama's signature legislative achievement, his health care law, survived today. >> tv news coverage there of the supreme court's health care ruling and here are some the newspaper headlines, from the l.a. times, health care law stands, robert sides with liberal justices in a major victory for obama. from "the washington post," health care law upheld, roberts joins liberal wing of court and says mandate is a tax. from the chicago tribune. landmark decision upholds health care law, roberts casts surprise swing vote. from the new york times, justices both 5-4 uphold health care law, roberts in majority. victory for obama. so, jim, what about the headlines? do they tell the whole story here? >> well, they tell us that
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justice roberts is growing, eyes of the media. years ago some wise guy in d.c. coineded the phrase to describe the process for which the new york times reporter linda greenhouse was discouraged to move to the left in her direction and sure enough, "the washington post" on friday, a nice puffy picture of john roberts. the right wing and nows' on his way to the-- before the decision, chris mathews on mnnbc says that john roberts could be compared to a civil war era supreme court judge who upheld the dread scott slave act. the same chris mathews after this, praises roberts as bold, defiant, and a hero who upheld obamacare. >> yes, i'm beginning to feel that thrill up my thigh. and look, here is a bias, so obvious.
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chief justice roberts agrees with the liberals and upholds the president's signature legislation and suddenly he's a hero, but that's not the way the legal immediate yar covering t the immediate media see his as specious and about-face and jeffrey smith on a legal scholar who was a first amendment scholar, jeff stone, forgive me, said, you know, justice ginsburg took him apart and called his reasoning horrible broccoli or broccoli horrible. and i think that ultimately, when people step back and look at what he has done, a great many media analysts are now going to have to focus on the fact that he switched rationals to do a very political thing. he did not want the supreme court to knock down this signature piece of legislation. but some conservative media say he just narrowly reads the
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constitution and said that, essentially, if the congress and the administration want to pass bad law it's not up to the supreme court to fix it. >> well, movement conservatives are very, very angry and actually very few conservatives coming to his defense, only a couple that i can think of. so, you know, but in terms of the media coverage, i think that tv clips you showed were very accurate. this is historic, this is a victory for obama on the substantial, the political issue is a different thing. you look at the newspaper headlines there's a bias, a clear bias, actually it's not really true that he sided with the liberals. he ruled with them, but it was different in there. >> how was he treated by conservative press, in particular? >> i think the conservative press clearly gets the politics of this. justice roberts gave obama a win on the legal grounds, but he really saddled him with a terrible scarlet "t", if you
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will. he has to go into the campaign season with the label of a taxer, and i think the conservative media gets that. they would much rather have the political win than this legal win and i think that it's going to be reflected as the romney campaign speaks out, but the press missed that. they only focused on the legal aspect all we heard was the political aspects of judge roberts and what his court was going to mean politically because he was, as jim says, a conservative goon up until-- >> and then from nbc's david gregory, we have this. >> health care reform was passed, on a party line vote. what happens if it is struck down in part or in whole by a 5-4 decision? that not underscore how digs functional our government is, the major institutions that our governments are, that's a nightmare scenario i think for the political class in this
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country. >> he has spoken publicly about how on big controversial decisions a 5-4 majority on the court overtime undermines the supreme court and only fuels the view that our major political institutions are too polarized. he's taken a big step here, he's going to be cheered for that by some on the right and left, criticized i'm sure as well by some of the right. >> jon: so we got a 5-4 decision and the liberal media seem to love it. >> of course, because the liberal media love it, but that's-- this is what we're not hearing yet, that's the political impact of this decision, it's going to be huge, i think. i'm a little surprised that romney did not take advantage of the moment. he did talk about the elements of-- that he would have in his plan. he said he was going to repeal it, of the next, first day in office and david from wrote, good luck with that.
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>> jon: what about the opinion some in the media expressed this could be a win-win for mitt romney? >> well, as kirsten and rick both allude to, you know, columnists were pretty-- charles krauthammer and george will sort of made the arguments has roberts declared this to be the biggest tax increase in the history of the universe and obama has to wear it and a lot of be observers noted the polls show by 15 or 20 point margin the people of america still oppose obamacare as a thing, and if the next four months obama's defending it, that's a negative for him. so, how does this change the way the media cover the race for president, kirsten? >> you see i'm move the camp being upheld with a best case scenario. everybody has a position, if it was struck down, he wouldn't have to defend it. it's part of the debate not voting on 6% name it as a top
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issue, but still a part of the debate. no way that obama can get away from his central issue and the media look, are on his side, on this for the most part and saying that they're going to say now that it's constitutional, game over. >> jon: up next, another historic moment for the media this week. . >> this is no accident. this is no coincidence, it is a plan on the part of the republicans. >> democrats and the liberal press ignore the facts, as congress moves forward with contempt charges against attorney general holder. can the media pay ford to ignore the outcome? and when it comes to trust in the media, how do americans vote? answer is next on news watch.
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contempt of congress. holder is now the first sitting cabinet member to be held in contempt of congress. >> and bret baier breaking news, house of representatives, voted to hold eric holder in contempt of congress refusing to turn over documents related to the fast and furious scandal. here is holder's reaction. >> and makes feed ner the minds of some, but both a crass effort and a grave disservice to the american people. they expect and they deserve far more. >> that story, richard, got not much press because it came in the shadow of the health care ruling on thursday. did it get the coverage it deserves? >> you know, i don't think it got the coverage it deserved in the leadup. whether or not you think it's a witch hunt or a legitimate inquiry. wherever you find yourself on the political spectrum, there is no denying the fact that doj and the attorney general,
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stonewalled and gave erroneous information. that alone should push coverage from the liberal media. usa today put this on 5-a. it's really outrageous that the first time the attorney general or a cabinet secretary is put through this process and the media doesn't cover it. >> jon: kirsten, liberals and democrat says it's a witch hunt, but 17 democrats voted in favor of the contempt citing. >> and that's a minority, overall i'm sure there were people in difficult races and maybe a couple of people actually legitimately did it on-- >> but it was far from being a party line vote. >> this is a partisan investigation. i think what rich was talking about was important and that should have been covered and they did submit a letter that wasn't true and came from atf and clarified it. a lot has happened since then and the republicans continue to pretend we don't know what happened when we know exactly
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what happened. of course, he was investigated, someone died. they had a bad gun walking operation when they lost guns and right now they're going after holder, that's the partisan aspect of this. >> jon: jim, what about that? congress wants to see the documents, holder says no. should the media be pushing him to release? >> as you quote me all the time saying, information wants to be free and oddly enough the justice department doesn't seem to accept that. what is amusing the increasing spin, this is the n.r.a. against the national rights to life association and the new york times contribute to this, referred to the gun owners of america as a smaller group as quote, more strident than the n.r.a. it means that the n.r.a. in their minds is strident, the kind of words they wouldn't use on groups like planned parenthood. >> jon: and there's al sharpton, liberal activist who keeps singing a familiar tune. >> this reckless and morally
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reprehensible tactful act that is being proposed on thursday is certainly engineered and motivated by politics and the not law. >> jon: well, judy, is he alone in that feeling? >> well, he is predictable for sure, and whether it's trayvon martin or eric holder and even though he says he didn't think this was happening because eric holder is black, he says it has a racial effect. exactly what the racial effect is, i don't know, but now, i think the timing was unfortunate for the republicans because it looked political, whether or not it was political. >> jon: what about the theater of all the democrat-- well, i guess more than a hundred democrats walked out of the house and walked straight to the the microphones, richard. was that -- did that in effect dilute some of the importance of the story? >> absolutely. i think it did, and i think the media jumped on that as a -- as their way to show this was partisan. when you have all of these democrats walking out, it's a
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partisan theater. and they immediately jumped on that, we cannot forget the fokt that the media has not gone after the white house's role in whether or not there's a political coverup on these e-mails, and the media are not pushing this narrative and why did the white house have to protect the e-mail chain? nobody knows and the media is not going after the issues. >> yeah, we've got a dead law enforcement agent, we've got guns being allowed to go across the border to mexican criminal gangs. it seems like there are some very important issues here, kirsten, that the media ought to be pushing for answers about and the justice department-- >> i agree they have you had been covering this, gun walking an actually a common-law enforcement tactic, i know it sounds crazy to us, but it's something that the police departments are doing and atf long before barack obama was on the scene. what happened in the situation, incompetence and
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they lost the guns and this came out if you're following this. no question about it. doj apologized for it, shut down the program and appointed an investigation. i think the media should have been following this back when this was happening. at this point, i think it's-- i think it's totally partisan, you know, the reason they invoked executive privilege because they say it's deliberate documents, i don't agree with it, but it's their privilege. >> jon: we have more news watch to come. if you see something that you feel shows evidence of media violence, e-mail us at fox watch@foxnews.com. next, your trust in tv news is not what it used to be. >> when it comes to covering key issues, do americans have trust in the the news media? and nbc dumped ann curry from today. was it bad ratings or bad politics at the peacock network? details next see life in the best light.
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>> a recent gallup poll has bad news for television ne producers, america's confidence in what they do is dropping. confidence in the military ranks highest among many categories according to the confidence in institution survey that gallup takes. newspapers have fallen to 25% approval rating. television news has fallen to 21%, that's a record low and just 8 points higher than people hold congress in regard. jim, what do you make of that? >> well, i won't necessarily remember when this whole fight about media bias began and that was a woman edith efront, 1971, wrote a book and couldn't get it published and an obscure publisher put it
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out. an attack on cbs news and she was a brave figure and passed away in 2001. she deserves to be remembered for beginning this whole debate and now the data speak for themselves. >> jon: so, is television news getting that much less reliable, judy, or are people just taking out, i don't know, their frustrations or something? >> i think it's getting that much more partisan and i think that's what people in part are reacting to, they yearn for this supposedly golden era of walter cronkite which we now know according to new books is not quite so golden as it seems. people want something that no longer exists, they're not happy with what they're getting and they don't know why and lose confidence in the institution. >> there was a poll out from george washington university, took a survey out of congressional staff members and found that 95% of those staff members believe
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political bias in the media influences or shapes decision making in congress. 75% of republicans think, think news bias influences congress a lot. and democrats, 53%. why the disparity in numbers there, richard? >> honestly, i'm not sure. and no, i think the simple fact is that it's the truth. there's no question, i worked on the hill and when you see something in your local paper or in a national paper, it has an effect and it has an effect because congress has to raise money every two years, they're pushing for these issues, and it's a fast paced environment. our homes work for us.
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>>. >> today going to be my last morning of the regular co-host of today. i'll still be part of the family but i'll have a new title and new role. this is not i expected to ever leave this couch after 15 years but i am so grateful. >> jon: that is ann curry getting choked up over her departure. they will be over the network producing specials. that may be tough considering the very public manner in which she was pushed out of the anger share. same chair that was held by jane pauley and katie couric.
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from "new york times" media report, curry as name is trending and many blame matt for her ouster. mark, best wishes, don't feel bad you are in good company. they could fill yankee stadium. from the huffington post. >> jon: that is a wrap. thanks to our panel. >> judge jeanine: he was a police sergeant from illinois. tonight, drew petersen is nothing more than a murder suspect. eight years after her death, petersen is set to stand trial next month in the murder of thinks -- murder of his third
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wife. his fourth wife stacey peterson disappeared in october of 2007. hello, welcome to this special edition of justice. tonight we the case against due peterson, the murder of kathleen and the mystery of stacey's disappearance. >> did you kill your wife? >> no, i did not. neither of 'em. i'm showing what it is like to be drew peterson. >> judge jeanine: it began october 28th, 2007. when a 23-year-old mother of two from bolling brook illinois vanishes. stacey peterson, young, energy woman partied for four years to police sergeant drew peterson. she is his fourth wife. by many accounts their marriage has been on the
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