I think that Chris Matthews and others may have been taken in by the first footage released showing the Fox News contributor, Steven Crowder, being punched by a union supporter in a scuffle outside of the Capitol builing in Michigan. Both Salon and the New York Times are reporting this morning that Crowder edited the tape to omit the fact that union guy had been knocked down before he got up and took a swing at Crowder.
The Times reports
Unfortunately for Mr. Crowder, a look at the video broadcast on the Sean Hannity show appears to show quite clearly that he left out an important section of the footage when he put together his edit. A section of the Fox News broadcast preserved by the Web site Mediaite shows that Mr. Hannity’s producers at Fox News started the clip five seconds earlier than Mr. Crowder did. What the extra footage reveals is the man who punched Mr. Crowder being knocked to the ground seconds before and then getting up and taking a swing at the comedian.
There is one more anomaly in Mr. Crowder’s edit of the footage shot by his associates. The still frame he used for the clip’s title image on YouTube, which offers a much clearer image of the man punching him, was obviously shot by a second camera, from an entirely different angle than the rest of the footage he presented of the man hitting him. If Mr. Crowder wants to clear up the mystery of exactly what happened just before he was punched, it might make sense for him to release any footage of the incident shot from that second angle.
Poor Chris was trying to be so even handed by decrying the union supporters for condoning violence.
I think that as the Republicans become more and more anti-union in the states and even more obstructionist in Congress, things will only get uglier. And perhaps this is good for the other side giving workers and unions a wake-up call.
It is now being reported that Crowder has admitted punching the union protester.
Photograph: A still from the Crowder video.
FortLeft 