Media Matters is a left-wing propaganda machine created by Clinton sycophant David Brock. Positioned as a non-profit organization designed to target “dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.” So, imagine my surprise when my appearance on Fox News Tuesday became one of their multitudes of “outrages” posted and distributed to their legion of followers in the mainstream media.
First, here’s the video of my appearance and the transcript from the portion Media Matters took issue with:
LARRY O’CONNOR (HotAir.com editor at large): Yeah, retread Tuesday in Florida, right? By the way, Simon — I just want to be clear here — “enabling the digital economy,” is that the 2016 version of inventing the internet? That’s the first time I have heard that one about Al Gore’s great achievements. Listen, this is, to me, this shows that they’re not partying in Hillary headquarters the way we saw in Saturday Night Live this last Saturday. If they’re really concerned about millennials going third party, that means they think this is going to be a close election and they think Florida is going to be close. I just find it a little distasteful, just a couple of days after Hurricane Matthew hit Florida, and I think the death toll in that state was five, that we’ve got Al Gore making the case, the false claim that global warming is the cause of hurricanes considering we just had the longest drought of hurricanes. Isn’t that a little politically gross to be going down there and making that case right after the hurricane hit the state? I don’t like it, I don’t think Floridians will like it.
FRANCIS: There are people out there who believe in that theory, right, Simon? There arepeople in southern Florida who feel like the reason why a lot of their beaches are disappearing and things are happening and you’re seeing this sort of dramatic weather —
O’CONNOR: I’m talking specifically about hurricanes. We had the longest drought in American history.
ROSENBERG: I don’t know that we’re going to solve this debate on this show right now, but certainly I think that if you — I spent time in South Florida, I’ve worked in political campaigns down there. There is enormous concern about rising sea levels and climate change in South Florida. It is one of the most important issues in all of Florida politics. Larry is just wrong on this one, I think. Larry is often correct and smart and right, not on this one. I think this is a pressing issue for Florida voters.
So Media Matters took my factual statement that we have just experienced the longest drought of hurricanes in the past decade in American history and my belief that it was unseemly for Clinton to campaign in Florida by linking hurricanes with global warming considering that state is still cleaning up from Hurricane Matthew from 3 days ago, and turned it into this sub-headline:
HotAir.com’s Larry O’Connor Calls It “Politically Gross” That Clinton Is Making The Case For Climate Action In Florida
Beyond spelling my name correctly (which I really appreciate, I hate “O’Conner“) they completely misrepresent what I explicitly said and repeated in the interview.
I just find it a little distasteful, just a couple of days after Hurricane Matthew hit Florida, and I think the death toll in that state was five, that we’ve got Al Gore making the case, the false claim that global warming is the cause of hurricanes considering we just had the longest drought of hurricanes. Isn’t that a little politically gross to be going down there and making that case right after the hurricane hit the state? I don’t like it, I don’t think Floridians will like it.
After host Melissa Francis re-directed my statement on air and re-phrased it, I interrupted (something I rarely do on television) and made it clear that I was specifically talking about the false predictions that global warming would make hurricanes like Katrina “the new normal.”
FRANCIS: There are people out there who believe in that theory, right, Simon? There are people in southern Florida who feel like the reason why a lot of their beaches are disappearing and things are happening and you’re seeing this sort of dramatic weather —
O’CONNOR: I’m talking specifically about hurricanes. We had the longest drought in American history.
But, that was all ignored to serve Media Matters and their intimidation techniques. Pundits beware! If you deviate from the prescribed talking points on issues like global warming you will be outed as a denier.
By the way, this exchange on Fox News took place about an hour before Mrs. Clinton appeared with Gore in Miami. I was merely speculating that she would falsely link Hurricane Matthew with global warming. However, she didn’t let any of us down. With Gore, the man who has made hundreds of millions of dollars on the global warming industry sitting behind her, she directly linked the five people killed by Matthew in the panhandle state and the 21 people killed elsewhere in the Southeast, to “climate change.”
