Liz Trotta is the former New York bureau chief of The Washington Times and is a contributor for FOX News Channel.
The author of Fighting for Air: In the Trenches with Television News, Trotta was the first woman to cover a war for broadcast news.
She began her career in journalism in 1965 working for the NBC affiliate in New York and won network recognition by taking on tough assignments including covering the Vietnam War and 1984 presidential candidate, George McGovern.
Trotta has worked for Hillman Periodicals; Inter-Catholic Press Agency; Long Island Press; Chicago Tribune; Newsday; NBC and CBS. She has taught Journalism at Stern College of Yeshiva University.
The winner of three Emmy awards and two Overseas Press Club awards, Trotta is a graduate of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Here’s Liz Trotta on FOX News this morning.
For those of you that can’t play YouTubes, here is what she said:
“and now we have what … uh…some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama …uh..um..Obama [after being prompted by the FNC anchor]….well both if we could [laughing]”
I consider this to actually be a crime. Seriously. Going on television and advocating that ‘we’ kill Barack Obama if we can is a crime. Isn’t it? Any lawyers want to weigh in on this one?
hat tip to Lauren S.
It would be a crime only if you can prove she intended to incite someone to kill Obama. That’s always the sticking point with speech that is criminal — was it intended to incite murder.rioting, violence, etc. It’s a tough hurdle to get over. I don’t think you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she intended to incite someone to kill Obama by this remark. It can arguably be interpreted as merely a low class, scummy attempt at humor. She never says outright that someone should kill Obama.
That said, her remarks are disgusting and beyond the pale, but Clinton’s “RFK assassination” comments very publicly blazed this trail and now the low roaders at FOX and on right wing talk radio are going to run their filthy mouths down this dark path as often as they please.
I understand the joking nature, but she did say that we should knock off Barack Obama.
Don’t they launch Secret Service investigations over stuff like this?
Or has this too been politicized in Bush Bizarro World?
Hell, just think of what happens when you make a joke going through security to get on an airplane. Shouldn’t this get as much attention?
Steven, I think it’s beyond the pale to compare this with what Hillary said. You may recall that I’m far from being a fan of hers, but Obama’s response seems to me the reasonable one. We undermine Obama and the whole party when we get caught up in this kind of gotcha propaganda against someone who is, after all, a Democrat and in most respects on the liberal side of the party.
As to the journalist wannabe, it is, as always, OK to say anything as long as you’re nuts and neo-fascist. If some Dem had said this about Bush or Reagan on a national network, what are the chances there would be criminal investigations?
Criminal investigations? Ha! They’d be declared an enemy combatant and dragged off to Gitmo before you can say “Wait, who let that liberal into this TV studio?”
Steven,
If something happens to Obama, any of his Secret Service protection (I wonder how their families would feel hearing this) or anyone in his company,
we know of another person who can be sued.
She is almost as disgusting as Hillary.
Someone needs to send to Olbermann
how about the Secret Service and the FBI?
The Secret Service should have a firm discussion with her and the producers of this show. But no more publicity should be given to her remarks.
There were people on dKos doing just that and also supplying contact info.
I doubt that it is a crime to talk about assassination unless you are conspiring with others to actually do it, but it is dangerous ground. Al Giordano referred to this essay/study about past assassinations and all were preceded by comments in the media interpreted by the nut jobs who carried them out as “permission” to do it. For this reason, I wonder if it’s such a good idea for anyone to be talking about it at all. The establishment is backed into a corner now and feels really threatened by Obama. Hillary helped get this dialog going for them in a way she can deny responsibility. But if the media keeps it up, Obama’s security could become a much bigger issue than it already was.
We are talking about the ‘Peoples’ airwaves here. This is Sunday…and this is Memorial Day weekend where as a nation we are indeed reminded of the value of those who have served this country well and lost their lives while serving. Get a clue Fox.
Good point. But this was on Fox News (the cable channel.) Cable channels are not regulated as strictly as the over-the-airwaves broadcast stations. If this had happened on the show “Fox News Sunday” which is broadcast on all Fox Broadcast affiliates, we would all have a very valid FCC complaint against our local Fox affiliates and the national network for airing what we interpreted as speech intended to incite a political assassination. That could lead to some hefty fines at minimum, if enough people complained.
got ahead of myself there.
Looks like somebody has been busy over at wiki on her
It’s amazing how quickly people add stuff to Wikipedia. Too bad they didn’t include a link to the video.
OT but Ferraro is claiming Obama is the one who ran a dirty (i.e., sexist) campaign and that millions of women hate him so much that they will abandon the Democratic nominee to vote for McCain in November, including herself.
LINK
Talk about voting against your own self-interests…McCain has an abominable record on reproductive rights, voted against the Lily Ledbetter act for equal pay, and called his own wife and trollop and c-word.
I have totally effing had it with the irrational Hillary supporters out there at this point. And I think Hillary’s sore loserdom is doing more to hurt women than help them.
I couldn’t agree more.
Btw – Fox got it wrong in the article above – McGovern ran in 1972, not 1984!
Hillary’s supporters are largely post menopausal women who don’t give a shit about reproductive freedom. Feminism is just another form of tribalism for them.
As a post-menopausal woman with daughters & a grand-daughter, I care very much about reproductive freedoms being available to them even though I no longer need them myself. But then, Hillary turned me off early by leaving her name on Michigan & Florida’s ballots and I’ve supported Obama ever since. My main fear is that her sour grapes will help hand the presidency to McCain and that will mean at least one more conservative justice on the Supreme Court which will spell the doom of everything women have been fighting for be it the right to choose or equal pay.
My thoughts exactly.
Sorry, I should have phrased that a lot better. It just bothers me to have feminism associated with Clinton supporters who give it a bad name and act in decidedly anti-feminist ways.
Clinton’s many failures should not be attributed to anything other than the Senator herself. And the DLC.
He ran in 1984, too.
I’m with you on this one BooMan. If it isn’t illegal it should be. Frankly advocating killing anyone is beyond the pale and should be grounds for dismissal, let alone a presidential candidate.
Who are the sponsors? A quick few notes to them re this and they’ll ask Fox to dump her in a hot second. Sponsors don’t want that kind of publicity!
Excellent idea. Someone somewhere must have a tape or a TiVo of the entire broadcast.
I think Trotta’s statement is very carefully worded and doesn’t directly advocate assassination. Note the critical part: “…some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama…uh..um..Obama….”
As someone above remarked, Hillary opened this door repeatedly and the media is now reporting it. I’m with Keith Olbermann on this.
I don’t know. I think it is pretty direct. You just have to put the subclauses together.
[if we could] [knock off Osama …uh..um..Obama] [well both]
She clearly advocated the killing of Obama and put it in the same category of desirability as killing Osama bin Laden. It’s seems very direct to me.
Yes, it was said in a joking manner, but advocating the death of a sitting U.S. Senator is not legal just because it is couched in joke-ese. I think this is a criminal act, and it definitely should me met with the strongest possible rebuke.
You may be right. Wish we had some lawyers weighing in?
Steven is a lawyer.
Well, a retired lawyer. Again, the issue of intent is very hard to prove in cases like this, especially when the standard of proof is so high (beyond a reasonable doubt). Also, when first amendment freedoms are concerned a lot of leeway is given to the person who made the statement in question.
Now if she had straight out said that someone should kill Obama and called for people directly to do so, something on the line of: “Obama must Die! I urge you in my audience to get your guns and ambush him whenever and wherever you can!” the intent to incite murder would be pretty clear. There simply isn’t any alternative reasonable explanation for that hypothetical statement. Here, there is an alternative explanation, which much as we may find it repulsive, and as tasteless and offensive as it is, is still protected speech.
isn’t there actually a different standard for public officials that for ordinary human beings? I mean, isn’t their some statutory law related specifically to federal officials?
I agree with your legal analysis, and I don’t think she was intending to provoke anyone. But I still think that there is a different standard for threatening public officials. The Secret Service has been known to be quite aggressive about any assassination speech.
I’d have to research it, but I don’t know if this would be prosecuted under any threat statute since she makes no direct threat against Obama, more just a statement of wouldn’t it be nice if kind of thing. It would, however be well worth the time for the Secret Service to “investigate” her and Fox if only to keep her and them from repeating such crap in the future.
This is probably one of the the statutes that is relevant: Link
This statute is also relevant:
State law typically makes it a crime to threaten someone with murder or physical harm also. The question here is whether what she said constitute a threat to murder or harm. I don’t think that it does on its face..
At the very least her name should be placed on one of the lists that Ted Kennedy found himself on.
I’m sure Liz was tickled about that too.
May her crows go home to roost.
That would be well-deserved. In fact, the entire Faux “News” corporation has probably earned that at least.
Steven D’s analysis is 100% right, Boo. The closest thing that could apply here is incitement, which is a very high standard to meet. If I still had my mass comm law casebook, I could provide some examples that were far more egregious than this remark that were found not to be incitement.
It is horribly tasteless and offensive but not criminal. And that’s a good thing in my estimation. Do we jail anyone who has ever said spontaneously, “someone should kill Bush”? Should we jail Hillary Clinton for invoking RFK’s assassination? What if someone got the idea from her statement and then acted on it, killing Obama? Jail her then? You can find distinctions in those examples, but looser standards can lead us down the infamous slippery slope.
Aren’t you a lawyer, too? Although I recognize that there are many types of lawyering, just as there are many types of biology and I know only a little bit about the ones not directly tied to my research.
Boo-
Jesus’ General recently found an instance of a right-wing blogger indirectly advocating the assassination of Obama and he reported it to the Secret Service. He kept screen shots, which was wise because the blogger quickly removed it. They took it seriously and investigated it. I don’t know what the outcome was, but they did look into it. You have all of the evidence laid out right here in this post. Perhaps you should drop them a note.
It makes me sick.
I want Obama to be president, and I want him to live well past the end of his two terms. If the first happens and the second doesn’t, I hope that Hillary Clinton, Faux news, and right-wing bloggers who’ve hinted at the A word all sleep poorly every night for the rest of their lives.
I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t see this going anywhere legally. I don’t think statements made even arguably in jest are or should be legally actionable. But let’s just bookmark this and have it ready. Next time the Fox bloviators start screaming over a “General Betray-us” ad or something similar, we are just ready to throw it into their faces. Try and get it visible to the MSM, so they will actually have to try to defend this while thrashing in operatic outrage over some much less significant offense.
Though there was a large outcry, I’m not aware that there were any legal ramnifications to his “dream” of violence. I’m not a lawyer but my instincts say that Limbaugh’s statement was more criminal than Trotta’s tasteless joke.
One person on Huffington’s post about the riot topic did make this still-relevant comment:
I’m hopeful–but not expecting–that eventually there will be a legal response to both Limbaugh and Trotta.
I think HRC’s remark about the former Senator of NY was insensitive, inopportune and incredibly shallow, as is the present Senator of NY herself.
But, I don’t think it was meant to solicit or inspire any nefarious action against Senator Obama. Injecting this view into the thread is extremely divisive at this point in the campaign. Face it, if the Democratic Party splits, McCain has a real chance at winning in November.
I think we need to step back and reassess. Things are getting a bit too overheated in the pond so I recommend caution.
The press is FREE to lie to you and with a compliant FCC, now apparently, the press can advocate assassination.
Is it “legal?” No. Is it subject to selective prosecution? Yes.
I think of Arizona’s “Sheriff Joe” saying the local Phoenix communities can’t tell him which laws to enforce.
He lies, “We enforce all the laws.”
In reality he is as selective as every other law enforcement organization in its enforcement.
As is the FCC these days.
IANAL, but, I can read plain English.
What Liz Trotta said there is neither a call for anyone’s assassination nor a recommendation of it. Her words, as they stand in the citation aren’t illegal.
She may be, yes, a stupid woman who quips thoughtlessly about assassination, but her words are
“and now we have what—uh—some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama—uh—um—Obama—well both if we could [laughing]”
an OBSERVATION about what SOME OTHERS are saying, or even less, an observation about a set of INTERPRETATIONS about HRC’s real or intended meaning.
That’s still not (yet) illegal in the budding police-state which are the (dis)United States of Goddamn America.
For pity’s sake.
I agree with Juan Cole’s excellent article on the Shawn – Trotta fiasco. http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=http://www.juancole.com/2008/05/lotta-take-obama-out.html
This pair is truly pathetic.
Fox News is surely the spawn of hell.
Back in 2004, a high school band was rehearsing Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War”. (http://www.freemuse.org/sw7880.asp)
Well, a fellow student called the Secret Service on them, claiming that they were threatening the President. The Secret Service questioned the band-leader for 20 minutes as well as a teacher that had organized an anti-war demo the previous weekend.
At no time did the band even utter the President’s name, or even the office he holds.
So the threshold is low – if you are a Democrat.
If you are a Republican on National TV, you can say almost anything about Dems and get praised for it.
Well said and written. I agree with you completely.
The Secret Service investigated, not prosecuted. I’ve heard similar stories. Logically speaking, the threshold for investigation is much lower than the threshold for prosecution.
I have no problem with the Secret Service simply interviewing people anytime they get a complaint.
No prosecutor in his right mind would bring such a case. Don’t let your emotional support for your guy impact your judgment.