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Fox News broke out the editing machine again today, and this time the victim was Howard Dean. On Fox and Friends they played video of Dean saying, “We are now committed to a solution using the private insurance companies.” FNC turned Dean into a tea bagger by editing any praise for the bill and criticism of insurance company CEOs.

Here is the Fox and Friends video courtesy of Media Matters:

Fox News edited Dean’s comments so what aired was, “Decisions are being made about the long-term future of this country for short-term political reasons and that’s never a good sign. … You will be forced to buy insurance. If you don’t, you’ll pay a fine. … This is a bigger bailout for the insurance industry than AIG. And not one person — excuse me — a very small number of people are going to get any insurance at all. … This is an insurance company’s dream.”

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After they played Dean’s edited comments FNC legal expert Paul Johnson said, “[A] lot of tea party people, and Republicans, and Independents in the United States are saying, maybe, he’s really a patriot.”

According to Media Matters, Dean’s complete comment was, “Decisions are being made about the long-term future of this country for short-term political reasons and that’s never a good sign. There are some good things in this bill. The problem is we are now committed to a solution using the private insurance companies, and you will be forced to buy insurance. If you don’t, you’ll pay a fine. And 27 percent of the money that you put in will not go to your health care, it’ll go to CEOs who make $20 million. This is a bigger bailout for the insurance industry than AIG. And not one person — excuse me — a very small number of people are going to get any insurance at all until 2014 if the bill works.”

Fox News edited any praise that Dean offered the bill, and also his negative comment about insurance company CEO’s. When you read the full text, it is clean Dean doesn’t agree with Republicans and the tea baggers at all. Dean opposes the bill because it doesn’t go far enough. He wants real reform.

I still don’t understand how anyone can either trust Fox News or believe anything that they put on the air. It is one thing for a network to have point of view, but when that viewpoint extends to doctoring video, it becomes propaganda.

