What Clinton Scandal? Europe is Going to War Let’s Break open the Keystone Pipeline
This is a condensed breakdown of 15 hours of the first hour of Fox & Friends, The Five and Tucker Carlson for the week ending February 27, 2022.
Feb 28, 2022
by Juliet Jeske
This week Fox News took an abrupt turn and completely dropped the fake Hillary Clinton spy scandal to demand that Biden singlehandedly re-open the Keystone pipeline because somehow clean energy policies are to blame for the war in Ukraine.
The Breakdown
The week was all about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The topic dominated all others for obvious reasons.
The huge fake scandal dubbed “Worse then Watergate” that involved claims of Hillary Clinton secretly hacking into servers at the White House and Trump Tower was completely abandoned. There was absolutely no mention of it whatsoever.
This is how Fox News stacked up compared to a non-partisan news source, PBS NewsHour.
Europe Going Green Caused the War in Ukraine!
In each example in this clip over the course of last week the Fox personality tried to act as if they were spontaneously coming up with a brilliant idea regarding Ukraine, Russia and energy independence. When strung together it appears as if they are following a script of sorts.
I don’t have any proof that an actual script was assigned to these anchors but they might be following a directive from top Fox News managers. It’s hard to imagine they all came up with similar ideas spontaneously at the same time.
The Fox News channel the hosts decided that green energy policies in Europe were to blame for Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine – Europe had made itself too dependent on foreign oil through a series of green energy policies.
Just a week prior the same anchors complained bitterly about the price of gas, even plastering images from pumps in California, a state with steep State gasoline taxes.
A guest on Fox & Friends, Stuart Varney of Fox Business, even predicted long lines at gas stations full of people trying to fill up their tanks before another price spike hit. No gas lines materialized anywhere in the country.
The real story of the U.S. energy sector is a bit more complicated.
The Fox personalities all claimed if the U.S. were to re-open the Keystone pipeline and re-establish drilling leases on federal land then all of Putin’s dominance could be snatched away and peace would be restored. According to multiple Fox personalties all the U.S. government needed to do was to return to energy independence and the war would be swiftly over.
There is so much fantasy making in these statements it’s difficult to know where to start shattering their myths.
For starters the data for imports and exports of U.S. energy for 2021 has not been released yet. We may or may not have had a surplus in oil exports. So far the numbers point to an even larger amount of energy exports in 2021 than 2020.
As usual the problem with gas prices and energy independence is not nearly as easy as the Fox News anchors present. The trend towards energy independence really started in 2006 under the Obama Administration but the start of that movement can be traced all the way back to the 1973 oil crisis under president Nixon.
It wasn’t that we suddenly found huge deposits of crude oil under the ground. The surge in U.S. exports was largely due to hydraulic fracking and advances in technology that increased fossil fuel extraction.
The entire notion of energy independence is misleading.
Even when the U.S. was energy independent we still imported oil from other countries. Our exports slightly exceeded our imports by a very slim margin.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused problems in energy production and of course slowed down demand. What we are experiencing now is demand has gone back to pre-pandemic levels, but production is still lagging which has caused a spike in prices.
The other complete and total myth about the narrative Fox News has been pushing is the idea that green energy policies in Europe have increased dependence on Russian oil.
Germany was singled out as the main culprit of the problem. Germany does import most of its oil and natural gas from Russia. The part of the story they are leaving out of course is that Germany has never had large oil reserves.
During WWII one of the reasons why the Nazi army invaded Russia was to get more oil. If Germany didn’t have oil in the 1940s they certainly don’t have it now. Germany did shut down some of its nuclear plants, but oil and nuclear energy are not easily swapped. Most vehicles and other types of machinery are still reliant upon fossil fuels.
The main difference between the U.S. and Europe is that Europe has to go green or it could run out of affordable energy.
Germany also announced they are backtracking on some of their energy policies since Russia has invaded Ukraine. The proposed $11 billion Nord Stream 2 undersea gas pipeline deal with Russia has collapsed and in a speech on Sunday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz spelled out a new path to ensure Germany would meet rising energy demands while moving away from Russian imports.
The story is much more complicated and multi-layered than how Fox News protrays it. Even if the U.S. re-opened the Keystone pipeline there would we could not offer immediate help for Europe’s many energy problems. It will likely take several years for Europe to lose its dependence on Russia’s oil and gas.
The other myth that was perpetuated on Fox News was that any spike in energy prices were directly caused by decisions and fumbles by the Biden administration regarding the Ukraine crisis.
The way commodities markets operate any major disruption in the form of a natural disaster, extreme weather or political unrest are bound to raise energy prices. Biden could do everything right or nothing at all and the price of energy would still increase.
Sources that debunk Fox’s energy claims.
Is the U.S. Energy Independent? – Forbes
The United States Was Energy Independent for the First Time in 2019 Since 1957
U.S. Energy Indepence is Small Comfort in Ukraine Crisis – NYPost
Energy Independence in the U.S. – Politifact
Ukraine and the Mirage of Energy Independence – NYTimes
E.U. will unveil a strategy to break free from Russian gas, after decades of dependance – Washington Post
A War in NOT a Sporting Event
Overall the war in Ukraine was handled with a somber tone and sympathies for the Ukrainian people. At times though the coverage resembled an election night broadcast or sporting event.
The way anchors spoke about various battles was a bit sensational and off-putting. The use of a map at times trivialized the tragedy.
The best coverage came from correspondents reporting directly from the war zone.
At every possible opportunity President Joe Biden was blamed for everything and anything involving the war.
We’re Being Invaded! - Fox echos a white supremacist conspiracy theory.
In what had to have been the lowest moments of the Ukrainian coverage Fox News anchors compared the military invasion of Ukraine to immigrants crossing our Southern border.
The absurd and inappropriate comparison echoed The Great Replacement theory, a racist conspiracy theory promoted in extremist circles. None of the anchors, including Tucker Carlson, directly referenced the theory but the use of the term “invader” or “invasion” to describe mostly poor and unarmed migrant workers was extremely xenophobic to say the least.
Tucker Carlson especially has been known to use similar phrasing and terms towards immigrants in the past.
Clip of the week - Tucker flip-flops on Vladimir Putin
A clip of Tucker Carlson praising President Vladimir Putin was aired on Russian State owned television last week right before Russia invaded Ukraine.
The first half of this clip aired on Tuesday 2/22/22. Within 24 hours Carlson was lambasted by many in the media for his gushing defense of the Russian dictator. Within 48 hours Carson seemingly completely changed course.
Dubious Expert of the Week
The format of The Five is five news anchors sitting around while chatting about current events. A topic is brought up and each panel member puts in their 2 cents.
The panel usually includes one lawyer or legal expert and Dana Perino the former press secretary to George W. Bush. The other three personalities are rotated in an out with one chair reserved for a fairly conservative leaning liberal and the other two spots for seemingly any Fox personality who is free that night.
The format is deeply flawed as most of the anchors have no expertise or experience in whatever topic is being discussed. This might be an entertaining and easy viewing experience but it lacks in any real substance.
The Five is also shorter than most Fox News programs. Without commercials the show is usually only 35 minutes long.
In this short clip Geraldo Rivera openly admits that although he’s been a journalist for his entire career he doesn’t understand even basic information about NATO. I’m not sure why he felt so comfortable admitting to that on national television but an admission like this is typical for The Five.
Stories and topics ignored
Just like last week Fox News completely ignored quite a few extremely important stories. Some of this can be explained by the importance of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine but PBS NewsHour and other outlets still managed more diverse coverage.
Ahmaud Arbery Trial - The federal hate crimes trial of the men who murdered Ahmaud Arbery, a Black jogger who was gunned down by vigilantes. Although all three men were already convicted in state court they still faced federal hate crime charges.
The trial of three police officers involved in the murder of George Floyd - The three men in question were found guilty on federal charges of depriving Floyd of his civil rights and depriving him of medical care.
Women’s Soccer team settlement - The U.S. Women’s soccer team reached a $24 million settlement with the U.S. Soccer Federation as part of an equal pay agreement.
Biden’s pick for SCOTUS - Fox did cover this story but it was mostly Tucker Carlson bitterly complaining that the selection of Kentaji Brown Jackson was some sort of assault to the court and country itself. PBS did more than one extended segment that explored Brown Jackson’s background, education and experience.
By the numbers
Just like last week I took all fifteen hours and combined them into one monster-sized transcript. Here’s what I found.
They managed to mention Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (14 times) and Hillary Clinton (5 times) more than the president of Ukraine President Zelenskyy (4 times).
At one point an anchor even called Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez the most powerful person in the country.
For the week ending March 6th I’ll be covering Prime Time with Jesse Watters in addition to the first hour of Fox & Friends and The Five.