"When your guy left town, Dubya - who nobody asked him to come back by the way at the Republican convention - unemployment was well past ten percent and skyrocketing."
So falsely said MSNBC's Chris Matthews to conservative talk radio host Roger Hedgecock on HBO's Real Time Friday (video follows with commentary):
Well past ten percent? Hardly!
According to the Labor Department, the unemployment rate was 7.8 percent in January 2009 when George W. Bush left office. It didn't get to ten percent until October of that year:
This is an indisputable fact. There's no grey area here. Unemployment was at 7.8 percent in January 2009.
Yet Chris Matthews, a long-time commentator for NBC News who infamously bragged about Obama giving him a thrill up his leg while proudly claiming right after the 2008 elections that it was his job to make the new president successful, went on national television Friday and said "unemployment was well past ten percent" when Bush left office.
Is this the caliber of reporting NBC News wants?
Consider that this is the same so-called "news outlet" that earlier this year was caught editing George Zimmerman's 911 phone call to make him look like a racist.
A few months later, long-time NBC staple Andrea Mitchell played a selectively-edited video on her MSNBC program that depicted Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney as an out of touch moron.
Show your friends and neighbors what you think of the liberal media.
Buy a "Journalists for Obama" T-shirt to let them know where you stand!
Is this the behavior of a news outlet or a propaganda arm?
Do the executives at NBC News support one of their employees going on a nationally-televised program speaking undeniable falsehoods?
Maybe they should be mindful of Gallup's poll released Friday finding the public's distrust in media is at an all-time high.
Members of the press speaking verifiable untruths on television go directly to undermining the public's trust in the media.
If NBC News wants to be taken at all seriously, it needs to immediately address what Matthews said Friday.
No company in any industry should tolerate its employees misrepresenting the truth to the public.
In fact, in any other industry in this country, such behavior would result in serious repercussions to the offending party up to and including termination.
Are so-called "journalists" above this nation's truth requirements in dealing with the public all because they're toeing the Democratic Party line?
