98.9 FM The Answer shared this image last week following Secretary of State Clinton's appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. During the hearing, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin questioned Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the attacks that took place on September 11, 2012 at the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya.
Debunking this particular Internet meme was a piece of cake. Both the written transcript and the video of the exchange between the two is easily accessible online.
In addition to misquoting the Secretary of State, whoever created this meme got the question wrong, effectively misquoting Senator Johnson as well.
Here's the question as it was asked:
"But Madame Secretary, do you disagree with me that a simple phone call to those evacuees to determine what happened wouldn’t have ascertained immediately that there was no protest? That was a piece of information that could’ve been easily, easily obtained?"
And here's the portion of the answer which contains the phrase, "what difference does it make":
"With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans," Clinton responded, raising her voice at Johnson, who continued to interrupt her. "Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk last night who decided to kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator."
98.9 FM The Answer's tag line on facebook is "Intelligent, Conservative, Talk Radio for Columbus". I acknowledge that both adjectives are somewhat subjective, but Merriam Webster defines intelligence as:
"(1) : the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations : reason; also : the skilled use of reason(2) : the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (as tests)."
As I alluded to earlier, it did not take much time or intelligence to locate the correct quotes for both parties referenced in this meme as they are both readily available from a variety of online sources.
98.9 FM The Answer's deliberate choice to misquote and misrepresent is an insult to the intelligence of its audience. The creator of this meme does not believe that members of the audience are capable of reading and/or listening to the words of both parties and drawing an independent conclusion.
Between the time it was posted to the radio station's timeline last Wednesday and today, there have been 27 "likes" and 4 comments. So what is the audience response?
- Doh!
Hope her child is never put in that category "why does it matter now".
What a fool she is.
Liar, skank, liar, filthy murder.- This is one scary woman. I pray she is not the first woman president.
- Marsha I agree, but as the sheeple of this country continue to elect Obama her election is inevitable. This is why they get elected: they promise handouts and a false sense of national security as they know nothing about foreign issues. Sad thing is that the whole reason for a president in the constitution was for foreign issues and national defense. Not to promote handouts to all his Chicago 'alive' voters.
In light of this response, one might draw the conclusion that 98.9 FM knows its audience pretty well and achieved the desired effect.
Perhaps if these individuals had read for themselves -- or watched the video for themselves -- perhaps they would still feel angry and frustrated. Perhaps they would still want to call names rather than engage in meaningful dialog. Perhaps their viewpoints on Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama are unalterable.
Still, I would like to know "what difference does it make" to the message if the composition of the meme offered an accurate representation of both the question and the answer. The image would be far more wordy and therefore far less effective at riling up the masses.
Toning down the rhetoric and eliminating propaganda could only help the purpose of the investigation as stated succinctly by the Secretary of State: ". . . to find out what happened and do everything we can to keep it from happening again..."
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