A little late on Franken v. Hume

Since I am not a regular reader of Media Matters or Al Franken's blog, I only today discovered that Al has worked himself into something of a lather over a comment made by Fox News anchor Brit Hume on the February 4, 2005 broadcast. So that I do not step on anyone's toes, I first learned of this brouhaha at The Corner, then read more at Villainous Company and Tech Central Station. The following is, therefore, a summary, but please review these websites for more information.

On the "offending" broadcast, Hume said the following:

"Senate Democrats gathered at the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial today to invoke the image of FDR in calling on President Bush to remove private accounts from his Social Security proposal. But it turns out that FDR himself planned to include private investment accounts in the Social Security program when he proposed it.

"In a written statement to Congress in 1935, Roosevelt said that any Social Security plans should include, 'Voluntary contributory annuities, by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age,' adding that government funding, 'ought to ultimately be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.'"

This was picked up by Media Matters, a liberal media "watchdog" designed to "correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." Media Matters, in its story on Hume's comments, omitted the first paragraph of the remarks, and accused Hume of making false claims about FDR's plan.

Franken picked the ball up from there and began demanding Hume's resignation for, as Franken puts it, a "nasty form of dishonesty" for "manipulating Americans’ trust of FDR in order to build support for dismantling FDR’s legacy." Franken alleges that "Hume's claim was that FDR wanted to replace Social Security with private accounts," and goes on to claim that, in Hume's story, Brit "pulls two unrelated bits out of the FDR quote, and adds the wrods [sic] 'government funding' between them."

So what did FDR say in the speech? Here is the pertinent paragraph:

"In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles: First, noncontributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance. It is, of course, clear that for perhaps 30 years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions. Second, compulsory contributory annuities which in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations. Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans."

I don't see Franken's beef. FDR said that the federal government would assume one-half of the old-age pension plan, which ultimately would be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans. Hume did not say, as Franken claims and as VC points out, that FDR intended the private accounts to replace the system; those words came from FDR's speech (re: supplant -- "take the place or move into the position of"). What Hume said (which MM and Franken both ignored) was that "FDR himself planned to include private investment accounts in the Social Security program when he proposed it."

I don't want to be drawn into a debate over the merits of the current proposals. But that debate, by those who participate, should at least take place honestly and with full candor, especially so when one party accuses another of a "nasty form of dishonesty."