So MTV got a hold of me over the whole “FOX is pulling the video from YouTube” business and I gave a decent little interview in my humble opinion. But the real big thing to me was FOX’s response about the video being pulled.

A Fox News spokesperson told MTV News on Tuesday afternoon that “our Internet division used poor judgment in asking this to be taken down. We’re thrilled the Wallace/ Clinton clip received so many hits on YouTube.” The spokesperson could not say, however, when or if the clip would be allowed back on YouTube. A YouTube spokesperson had not returned calls for comment at press time. (As of 2 p.m. EST on Tuesday, the clip was still being blocked on YouTube.)

As of now it’s back up, so keep your fingers crossed. The thing that got me was that it seems like they made a mistake. All right, fine by me. The point is they saw the error of their ways and it’s back in circulation. Still, I find it odd that this was the one video that was asked to be taken down.

A retracted angry comment to FOX for their good judgement in un-pulling the video.

Here you go. C-SPAN had the full press conference and you can see what happened. A woman asked Bush if it was true that he had zero meetings on bin Laden prior to 9/11, this is his answer:

[youtube]BjB9uMUM6xI[/youtube]

As you watch, constantly ask yourself what his words have to do with answering the question. It’s a simple “yes” or “no” question, yet here he is invoking the 9/11 reponse, the Iraq War, the upcoming elections, wiretapping, and the British terror plot. Yet, he says nothing about something as simple as “did you talk about bin Laden somtime before 9/11?”

There’s a press conference going on right now, with Karzai and Bush. A woman asked if it was true that he had no meetings concerning bin Laden prior to 9/11. Bush’s non-response was basically “well I’m not going to comment” and then he launched into his rhetoric about wiretapping and staying the course.

Video later, because MSNBC isn’t afraid to have their news actually circulated without filter.

Behind the Iraq War report and the Clinton interview, there’s still a war going on over in Afghanistan. I’m sure most of you remember hearing about that. Well, Bush and Afghani president Hamid Karzai met to discuss the war. There’s a lot to be concerned about, but the opening paragraph sets it all off:

President Bush was meeting Afghan President Hamid Karzai Tuesday at the White House to show support for a government that is facing the worst violence since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban five years ago.

Once again, the violence in countries we have invaded is worse years later. We criticize the Iraq War, aside from its obvious lack of necessity, because of the poor post-war strategy. Afghanistan is arguably in worse shape. The Taliban we sought to remove is moving back in and al Qaeda might be hiding next door in Pakistan.

This is a man who thinks that using force on Iran would be a good idea. Great, just leave us with one big stripe of chaos across the Middle East.

Whew, fun day. I came up with an analogy of sorts. An old house I lived in as a kid had bats up in the attic. Now and again one would come out, scaring the hell out of myself and everyone else in the house.

Now, there are two kinds of people when it comes to a bat in the house. One type of person will realize the nature of a bad and act based on that, and open up the door, flicking on the light so the bat flies right out. The other person will flail around the house with a baseball bat or a tennis racket, smashing things and messing up the house worse than the bat ever would have done.

At the end, the former person will have left little damage behind and will know how to deal with another bat. The latter will only know how to flail around again and mess up the house further. America is our house, terrorists are our bats, and tragically our republican-led Washington has their favorite baseball bat firmly in hand.

So what’s up with you guys?

I remember writing about this a while ago, but here it is again. Although it isn’t happening quite yet, the Iraqi parliament is discussing how to best go about splitting Iraq up into multiple states.

Political leaders Sunday brokered the deal that would delay until at least 2008 dividing Iraq into constitutionally allowed autonomous states, easing concerns that Shiites could form semi-independent regions and control billions of barrels of oil, Iraq, The New York Times said.

The brain child of George “Uniter not a Divider” Bush, and that’s what it’s come to. They’re postponing the separation of the nation until they can figure out how to do it best. That they’re even debating this shows you how bad things have become. Sigh.

On the other hand, it might work provided Turkey doesn’t get involved as John of AMERICAblog has theorized. If it brings peace and we can get our soldiers home, I’m happy.

[tags]iraq[/tags]

Only FOX, I swear. While the video of Olbermann a few weeks back was taken down by Google Video because they had squirreled out that I was not the creator of the content, YouTube had let me use news videos from various sources with no problems.

So imagine my surprise when I check my email today and see the following.

Dear Member:

This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Fox News Network, LLC claiming that this material is infringing:

And this message popped up when I tried to visit the video’s page:

This video has been removed at the request of copyright owner Fox News Network, LLC because its content was used without permission

Again, keep in mind that I have CNN and MSNBC videos up as well, some with mild popularity. But of course a few days later FOX comes after me and complains. Now, I don’t have a problem with copyrighted material being prevented from spreading for free. That’s fine. But it only makes sense in the case where its circulation determines the creator’s income.

News, ideally, should be free to spread. News organizations should not have a problem with old news circulating freely. You’ll pay for a movie to watch it a few times, you’ll buy a ticket to a movie that came out last year. You’ll turn to a TV show that you’ve already seen just because you like it.

But that’s not why you turn to news stations. You turn on FOX or CNN to see things you haven’t before. That’s the point of news. You want to see what’s going on NOW. The purpose of news is to have it circulated. This video is an interview, would they have told me to remove the transcript from my site had I uploaded that? Same information, but now you have to read it instead of watch it.

Generally, news organizations don’t really have the time to replay old episodes, and this 30 minute interview of which half I had uploaded will never be seen in its entirety on FOX ever again. It’s not like they’re relying on rerun ratings.

There are only two reasons for a news organization to want that video taken down, because they plan on selling it or because they don’t want people to see it. I doubt heavily that this interview will ever be sold because of how bad it makes them look. Can I assume that they want it down so no one will see how much of a smackdown Clinton gave Wallace? The transcript is there, but it’s different in text than in video.

Curiously, digging around on FOX’s site itself doesn’t yield the full interview either. You can get bits and pieces, but not the full thing. It’s gone AWOL. And the one bit you can get starts right off with Clinton on the offense, forgetting the full lead-in.

You can search for the video on YouTube yourself. Click on any of the results, you’ll see the same message. FOX hasn’t done this with the O’Reilly clips, none of the other bits from FOX that litter YouTube. They went through and reported every single instance of this video being circulated. It’s as if they’re trying to erase the actuality of it in order to facilitate their talking heads’ distorting it.

So, I say this with all objectivity: fuck you, FOX.

UPDATE: It appears that FOX has relented as the videos are once again live. So what’s the reason for that? Did they decide that it wasn’t that big a deal? Or did they have a problem with the negative PR this was assuredly getting? With the swarm of hits I’ve gotten here from Reddit/Fark/Digg, plus an interview coming up on MTV.com, I can’t help but wonder if I had a minor effect in this decision.