Are You Surprised That the Video of Comedian Steven Crowder Getting Punched in the Face By a Union Activist Was Misleadingly Edited?
This week's worthless, petty political controversy has taken an entirely predictable turn. As you may recall, conservative "comedian" and Fox News contributor Steven Crowder released video earlier this week that showed him getting punched in the face by a union activist during right-to-work protests in Michigan. Well, it turns out that Crowder's video was misleadingly edited to show him being punched, but not what happened immediately prior to the union member taking a swing at him. Even more hilariously, it was Sean Hannity's producers that slipped up and gave it away, as the NYT's the Lede blog points out.
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.
It's still unclear why the man who punched Crowder was on the ground, but Crowder did admit in an interview that he and other men had gotten into a tussle with the union activists as they attempted to tear down a tent erected by the conservative group Americans For Prosperity. In the video shown on Hannity, Crowder's attacker can clearly be seen getting up from the ground. Here is the clip, via Mediaite.
Crowder has naturally been unrepentant over his selectively edited video, because there's no way in hell he's gonna turn back now from milking his 15 minutes of echo-chamber fame. Then again, it's not like we should be surprised by this amateur hour stunt. Crowder is following in the footsteps of conservative folk hero James O'Keefe, but not even O'Keefe had to stand out in the freezing cold and get punched in the face in order to ascend to the top of Bullshit Mountain. And Greg Gutfeld, Fox News' other conservative "comedian" (no really, these people exist), didn't have to slum it at union protests either before getting his own show (which airs at 3 a.m. ET but ignore that part). Let's see where Crowder's master plan leads him next — I'm sure it somehow involves Tucker Carlson.
