From Fox News' transcript of Obama's July 7 interview with Garrett, with the portions of Obama's answer Hannity omitted in bold:

GARRETT: In your speech this morning, you said the Cold War reached its conclusion because of the actions of many nations over many years. Mr. President, are the Russian sensitivities so fragile that you can't say the Cold War was won? The West won it? And it was led by a combination of Democratic and Republican American presidents?

OBAMA: Well, listen, the -- I think that you just cut out Lech Walesa and the Poles. You just cut out Havel and the Czechs. There were a whole bunch of people throughout Eastern Europe who showed enormous courage.

And I think that it is very important in this part of the world to acknowledge the degree to which people struggled for their own freedom. I'm very proud of the traditions of Democratic and Republican presidents to lift the Iron Curtain.

But, you know, we don't have to diminish other people in order to recognize our role in that history.


After airing the cropped clip, Hannity said:

HANNITY: Unbelievable. Now, that's interesting, because Lech Walesa, the leader of the Polish Solidarity Movement, said this about the end of the Cold War; he said, quote: "We in Poland took him, Ronald Reagan, so personally. Why? Because we owe him our liberty. Now this can't be said often enough by people who lived under oppression for half a century."

Mr. President, if I were you, you may want to consider hitting the history books maybe before your next foreign trip.

lmao.


"But, you know, we don't have to diminish other people in order to recognize our role in that history." (this is basically saying you dont have to be an asshole to the rest of the world)

HANNITY: "Unbelievable"

Even the edited version of this isn't that damning for president Obama. Of COURSE the people in Eastern Europe fought diligently against oppression. Does acknowledging that warrant the "Hit the History books" comment?

What an ass.

Moron.

I wonder what would happen to Fox if their base finally woke up and realized they were being strung along this whole time, with Murdoch and his Faux News playing to their fears and supposed "superiority". But that's what Faux News is counting on I guess; the base not being smart enough to realize it.

hannity = *terrible

Adding video to channels (Terrible) - requested by SlipperyPete.

Even with his edit, I don't think he made his point, President obama seemed very gracious to acknowledge the eastern european effort in helping to bring down the wall!

I love the framing of the original question too:

GARRETT: In your speech this morning, you said the Cold War reached its conclusion because of the actions of many nations over many years. Mr. President, are the Russian sensitivities so fragile that you can't say the Cold War was won? The West won it? And it was led by a combination of Democratic and Republican American presidents?

Seriously? What journalism school did you go to? Let's just say for the sake of argument that the entire topic of "why didn't you say we won" is important. If you were a real journalist, mostly interested in trying to reveal the answer, wouldn't you ask it more like this?

NetRunner: In your speech this morning, you said the Cold War reached its conclusion because of the actions of many nations over many years, carefully avoiding characterizing the end of the conflict as a victory for the United States. Don't you believe that the United States did in fact prevail in that conflict? If so, why didn't you say that in your speech this morning?

It's still incisive, it's still challenging, and at the same time doesn't make it look like you're a partisan hack who's just trying to trump up a bogus charge about the President being ignorant or disloyal to his country.

Ultimately Obama would've answered the question I phrased the same way, though it would have given him less wiggle room to imply that my question's frame was somehow excluding the actions of other countries...

Personally though, if I'd had an opportunity to ask Obama questions while on a mission to Russia, I would've talked about the plans for setting up missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, what's being done to secure "loose nukes", whether we can expect Russia to help us diplomatically in preventing Iran from building nuclear weapons, and maybe toss in a few things about environmental or trade policy...

I sure as shit wouldn't waste my time trying to accuse him of hating America because he didn't speak to the Russians as if he was some conquering emperor who came to receive the pleas of mercy from a defeated, evil, foe.