This page was last updated on July 23, 2010.
Fox News: Now that’s entertainment; Edward J. Hum; Beaver County Times; July 23, 2010.
Mr. Hum has written at least 50 letters since early 2005, including a 10-month hiatus from September 2007 to July 2008. It will be no surprise most of Mr. Hum’s letters have been no more than exercises in bashing President Bush and/or other Republicans. Mr. Hum’s letters are also flame-throwing exercises. I don’t know if Mr. Hum actually believes what he writes, or if he simply likes to stir things up to call attention to himself.
Mr. Hum frequently includes “fellow Republicans” or something similar in his letters and is one of a group of local Republican impersonators (The group also includes Messrs. William A. Alexander, Arthur Brown, William G. Horter, and George Reese.) who write claiming to be disgruntled Republicans. You have to give Mr. Hum “credit,” however, for going the extra mile to further his impersonation. As of September 2006, Mr. Hum was actually registered as a Republican despite the fact he’s no more a Republican than is Dennis Kucinich.
Given his body of work, for a while I wondered what Mr. Hum would use for subject matter now that Barack Obama is President. Mr. Hum wrote three letters in support of a government-run, taxpayer-funded healthcare monopoly (here, here, and here), then he reverted to his Bush-bashing habit, as in “Bush earns status as ‘most liberal.’” I guess some addictions are too tough to overcome.
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“Someone gave Fox News cut, edited and spliced ACORN tapes, including a supposed pimp-and-whore video shot in a studio.
“Fox ran these over and over until Congress put ACORN out of business.
“The California attorney general has looked at the original, uncut tapes and pronounced ACORN completely innocent.
“That means, fellow Republicans, that Fox will admit it was wrong about ACORN. On second thought, Fox is more entertainment than news. It won’t mention ACORN again.”
[RWC] In case you forgot about the ACORN scandal, please read my critique of “No excuses” to refresh your memory.
Mr. Hum’s letters have a history of fact problems and this one is probably the best/worst example to date.
I don’t know what Mr. Hum thinks he knows so I won’t call him a liar. That said, the letter is untrue from beginning to end. Mr. Hum is at a minimum guilty of not fact-checking a story he desperately wanted (needed?) to be true. It took me about 15 seconds to do a Google search (“ACORN California”) and find this story from back in April by the Los Angeles Times.
Finally, the California AG’s findings are old news. FNC covered the story when it broke nearly four months ago in early-April.
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