Did an embezzlement scandal force Sarah Palin to resign?
Did an embezzlement scandal force Sarah Palin to resign?
Max Blumental reports on The Daily Beast that Sarah Palin may have quit her job today because she was trying to avert a major, yet-to-be-disclosed corruption scandal. The gist of the rumor is that an Alaska building company called Spenard Building Supplies (SBS) was awarded a contract by Palin to build a hockey arena in Wasilla, AK, and in return, SBS helped construct Palin’s home:
Many political observers in Alaska are fixated on rumors that federal investigators have been seizing paperwork from SBS in recent months, searching for evidence that Palin and her husband Todd steered lucrative contracts to the well-connected company in exchange for gifts like the construction of their home on pristine Lake Lucille in 2002. The home was built just two months before Palin began campaigning for governor, a job which would have provided her enhanced power to grant building contracts in the wide open state.
SBS has close ties to the Palins. The company has not only sponsored Todd Palin’s snowmobile team, according to the Village Voice’s Wayne Barrett, it hired Sarah Palin to do a statewide television commercial in 2004.
Though Todd Palin told Fox News he built his Lake Lucille home with the help of a few “buddies,” according to Barrett’s report, public records revealed that SBS supplied the materials for the house. While serving as mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin blocked an initiative that would have required the public filing of building permits—thus momentarily preventing the revelation of such suspicious information.
Just months before Palin left city hall to campaign for governor, she awarded a contract to SBS to help build the $13 million Wasilla Sports Complex. The most expensive building project in Wasilla history, the complex cost the city an addition $1.3 million in legal fees and threw it into severe long-term debt. For SBS, however, the bloated and bungled project was a cash cow.
Alaska bloggers have reported in recent weeks that “a long simmering embezzelment/IRS scandal is still being looked at by the feds.” In her press conference today, Palin asked the public to “trust me with this decision and know that it is no more politics as usual.” But she also bemoaned “political operatives” who have “descended on Alaska” to investigate “all sorts of frivolous ethics violations.” Palin said this “politics of personal destruction” was one of the key motivating factors behind her decision today.
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Personal Finance Disclosures Reveal Leading F-22 Defender Phil Gingrey Owns Boeing Stock
Personal Finance Disclosures Reveal Leading F-22 Defender Phil Gingrey Owns Boeing Stock
Last week, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) and VoteVets Chairman Jon Soltz sparred on MSNBC about reinstating funds for new F-22s. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has called for capping production of the F-22 Raptor, a fighter that has never seen combat in the Iraq or Afghanistan theaters. Despite the fact that the OMB recommended a veto if the defense authorization budget contains new F-22s, members of Congress in the House Armed Services committee, lead by Gingrey, slipped the funding in anyways. In his debate with Gingrey, Soltz said:
The Congressman cares about the Lockheed Martin stock price, and I care about the men and women who fight on the group. And this weapon system does nothing for us.
Watch it:
Indeed, Gingrey’s 2008 personal finance disclosure reveals that the Congressman owned between $50,000 to $100,000 in Boeing stock, a company that joined with Lockheed to manufacture the F-22. Gingrey’s latest personal finance disclosure report, filed late this year and posted online this week, shows he still owns Boeing stock, but it has dropped in value to $15,000 to $50,000. Because Lockheed Martin is Boeing’s partner in building the F-22, Gingrey does have an actual incentive to see an additional $369 million in unnecessary spending for new F-22s.
Bachmann has no plans to appear on controversial radio show.
Bachmann has no plans to appear on controversial radio show.
Radio host Alex Jones has stirred up considerable controversy over the years, talking about FEMA concentration camps, promoting 9/11 conspiracies, and comparing President Obama to Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Yesterday, several media outlets reported that Jones said Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) would soon be appearing on his show. “She’s on next week,” he said. Watch it:
The City Pages in Minneapolis/St. Paul contacted Bachmann spokesman Dave Dziok, who said that the rumors weren’t true, and she has no plans to go on the show. “I can tell you unequivocally that she is not scheduled, nor ever was,” he said in an e-mail response.
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank calls Nico Pitney a ‘dick’ after heated debate on CNN.
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank calls Nico Pitney a ‘dick’ after heated debate on CNN.
Last week, the Huffington Post’s Nico Pitney (who is also a former member of ThinkProgress) found himself in the center of controversy after President Obama called on him at a press conference. One of the harshest pieces came from the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, who called Pitney a “planted questioner.” Today the two faced off on Howie Kurtz’s “Reliable Sources” segment on CNN. Pitney called some of Milbank’s past reporting “pathetic,” and Milbank claimed that Nico had “worked in collusion with an administration.” Watch it:
The discussion was evidently so heated that Milbank called him a “dick” at the end of the segment, as Pitney writes on Huffington Post:
The only thing that surprised me was when Dana turned to me after our initial sparring and called me a “dick” in a whispered tone (the specific phrase was, I believe, “You’re such a dick”). Howie Kurtz wrote on Twitter that he didn’t hear it, which is understandable — he was doing the lead-in for the next part of the segment on the ABC White House special. But it happened (I urge Howie to watch the video of the panel during the ABC intro) and it was frankly pretty odd.
Republican SC lawmaker: GOP needs to ‘lose the stinking rot of self-righteousness.’
Republican SC lawmaker: GOP needs to ‘lose the stinking rot of self-righteousness.’
Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) was one of President Clinton’s harshest critics in the 1990s, an “impeachment ‘manager’ who attacked the moral failings of the president.” However, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Inglis says that while he has since recognized that nobody’s perfect, his party is still clinging to its “self-righteousness”:
But with his governor now felled by similar temptations, Inglis sees an opening for the Republican Party, a chance to “lose the stinking rot of self-righteousness” and “to understand we are all in need of some grace.”
This is not “Bob Inglis 1.0,” the one that was a “self-righteous” expletive, he said in an interview with Washington Wire today. [...]
Indeed, Sanford’s political fall could be a saving grace for what remains of his governorship, Inglis suggested. “This may be an opportunity to extend a little grace to other people, to realize that maybe it’s not 100% this way or that way,” Inglis said.
Inglis also said that while he voted against the stimulus package, he opposed Sanford’s decision to reject the funding. He said that he told the governor, “for goodness sake, take the money.” (HT: TPM)
Sanford’s Adultery May Be Criminal Under South Carolina Law
Sanford’s Adultery May Be Criminal Under South Carolina Law
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) didn’t just “let down a lot of people” when he spent the last week in Argentina with his mistress, he may have committed a crime. Under South Carolina law:
Any man or woman who shall be guilty of the crime of adultery or fornication shall be liable to indictment and, on conviction, shall be severally punished by a fine of not less than one hundred dollars nor more than five hundred dollars or imprisonment for not less than six months nor more than one year or by both fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the court. . . . “Adultery” is the living together and carnal intercourse with each other or habitual carnal intercourse with each other without living together of a man and woman when either is lawfully married to some other person.
Fortunately for Sanford, it is not entirely clear that the South Carolina justice system has jurisdiction over an apparent crime that he committed while traveling abroad in Argentina. His lawyers might also argue that he cannot be convicted of criminal adultery because he and his Argentine lover were not engaged in “habitual carnal intercourse” — Sanford maintains that he only traveled to Argentina to see his mistress on rare occasions.
Nevertheless, Sanford himself explained at yesterday’s press conference that “God’s law indeed is there to protect you from yourself, and there are consequences if you breach that.” As it turns out, Sanford may need to be more afraid of the consequences that stem from breaching the antiquated laws of South Carolina.
(HT: David Corn)
Family Research Council removes Sanford’s picture from Values Voters Summit website.
Family Research Council removes Sanford’s picture from Values Voters Summit website.
Previously, the website for the Family Research Council’s Values Voters Summit 2009 featured a picture of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, advertising that he was a potential speaker. But Pam Spaulding points out that following Sanford’s announcement of an affair, his picture was quickly removed from the website.
Before:
After:
Will Republicans ‘Ask Questions’ Of Sanford, Rather Than ‘Circle The Wagons For One Of Our Tribe’?
Will Republicans ‘Ask Questions’ Of Sanford, Rather Than ‘Circle The Wagons For One Of Our Tribe’?
After days of speculation and misinformation, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) today admitted that he had spent the past week in Argentina — not on the Appalachian trail, as his staff originally told the press — with a woman with whom he has been having an affair.
As the New York Times notes, the press conference “began rather oddly, with Mr. Sanford rambling about his love for the Appalachian trail, his exhaustion from a legislative battle over the federal stimulus and a need to get away from the public eye.” Sanford, who is married and has four children, eventually admitted that he has been having an affair with an Argentine woman. He also announced that he would be resigning as head of the Republican Governors Association. Watch it:
While serving as a U.S. congressman, Sanford was incredibly critical of his colleagues’ marital misdeeds, including the affairs of former congressman Bob Livingston and President Bill Clinton:
“The bottom line, though, is I am sure there will be a lot of legalistic explanations pointing out that the president lied under oath. His situation was not under oath. The bottom line, though, is he still lied. He lied under a different oath, and that is the oath to his wife. So it’s got to be taken very, very seriously.” [Sanford on Livingston, CNN, 12/18/98]
“We ought to ask questions…rather than circle the wagons for one of our tribe.” [Sanford on how the GOP reacts to affairs, New York Post, 12/20/98]
“I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally (to resign). I come from the business side. If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he’d be gone.” [Sanford on Clinton, The Post and Courier, 9/12/98]
“The issue of lying is probably the biggest harm, if you will, to the system of Democratic government, representatives government, because it undermines trust. And if you undermine trust in our system, you undermine everything.” [Sanford on Clinton, CNN, 2/16/99]
Sanford has also been an opponent of same-sex marriage, saying in 2004, “As Jenny and I are the parents of four little boys, we’ve always taught our kids that marriage was something between a man and a woman.” [The Post and Courier, 2/11/04]
There will be an effort to impeach Sanford, a Republican strategist with ties to South Carolina tells me. "He's going to have to resign. It's South Carolina." His rivals in the state legislature were among those fanning the flames of "Where the hell is he?"questions yesterday.
Ensign receives ‘round of applause’ from GOP colleagues.
Ensign receives ‘round of applause’ from GOP colleagues.
Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) reportedly received a “round of applause” from his GOP colleagues today at the weekly conference lunch, his “first meeting with them since the sex scandal that cost him his leadership position.” “All I can say for sure is that it [Ensign's speech] was very, very sincere, very heartfelt and very well received in our caucus,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), who was at the meeting. Ensign’s welcome is similar to the reaction Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) received, when “he was welcomed back to a closed Republican Senate luncheon with a loud standing ovation” after admitting his involvement with an escort service run by the DC Madam. However, Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) — who faced charges of “lewd” sexual conduct in a men’s public restroom — faced calls to resign.
Hannity Reluctantly Calls On Ensign To Resign
Hannity Reluctantly Calls On Ensign To Resign
On his Fox News show last night, Sean Hannity touted a poll showing that Sen. John Ensign (R-NV), who admitted to an affair with a campaign staffer last week, has a higher favorability rating than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). “Ensign remains more popular than another Nevada politician whose popularity is remarkably low,” said Hannity.
In the next segment, however, Democratic strategist Bob Beckel called out Hannity for seemingly “defending John Ensign” despite being “a big family values guy.” “Here’s a guy that cheats on his wife, not just with somebody, but somebody on his staff who’s married. Now what do you think?” asked Beckel. Hannity reluctantly admitted that he thinks such behavior warrants a resignation:
BECKEL: Excuse me. Excuse me for a second, Mr. University Prager. I want — I want him to answer this question.
HANNITY: My answer is, if you’re going to be a family-values candidate and a family-values politician, and you don’t live up to that, I think you should resign.
BECKEL: Well…
HANNITY: I don’t know where he stands.
When Beckel said he wanted to “let the record show that that you called for John Ensign to resign,” Hannity tried to hedge his words again, saying “I don’t know where he stands on the issues.” Watch it:
Hannity claims to not know where Ensign stands on “family values” issues, but as ThinkProgress has pointed out, Ensign has previously positioned himself as a protector of “the institution of marriage.”
In 2007, Ensign called on then-Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) to resign after he in an airport men’s restroom on disorderly conduct charges, but he declined to call for Sen. David Vitter’s (R-LA) resignation after he acknowledged an affair involving prostitution. In July 2007, Hannity said that Vitter should resign as well.
Transcript: More »
Rove: I’m Horrified That A News Network Would Be A ‘Cooperating Partner’ Of The White House
Rove: I’m Horrified That A News Network Would Be A ‘Cooperating Partner’ Of The White House
On Wednesday, Fox News’ Sean Hannity brought on former Bush White House adviser Karl Rove to gripe about ABC’s upcoming “Questions for the President: Prescription for America,” which will feature President Obama answering “questions offered by audience members ’selected by ABC News who have divergent opinions‘” on health care. Rove called it “unprecedented access to the White House and more importantly an unprecedented use of the White House.”
Last night, Rove was back on Fox News — this time with Greta Van Susteren — and argued that it was improper for ABC to get the access, considering that former ABC reporter Linda Douglass is now working in the White House:
ROVE: If it’s not crossing a line, it’s getting comfortably too close to a line of where a news network becomes a cooperating partner of and an adjacency to the White House communications shop. And I think the presence of a former ABC reporter as the communicator-in-chief inside the White House on this issue also raises questions about how it ended up in the hands of ABC.
Watch it:
It’s hard to take Rove’s outrage seriously. After all, Fox News’ Bret Baier received “unprecedented access” to the White House (as well as Air Force One and Bush’s ranch in Crawford, TX) in February 2008 for a “documentary” on President Bush. Baier said that the piece offered “a President Bush you’ve never seen before.”
In October 2007, Baier also hosted a special titled “Dick Cheney: No Retreat,” which was “a rare glimpse into the life of the vice president.” Of course, in the period leading up to Fox gaining such extraordinary access, who was the White House press secretary?
Tony Snow…who had previously worked for Fox News.
Transcript: More »
Jim Cramer: ‘I think everybody wishes that Obama would just kind of go away for a little bit.’
Jim Cramer: ‘I think everybody wishes that Obama would just kind of go away for a little bit.’
Today on MSNBC, CNBC commentator Jim Cramer discussed a New York Times poll that shows many Americans want the Obama administration to address the growing budget deficit. Cramer claimed that Americans aren’t buying into health care reform right now because “it just means tax increases, and there’s got to be someone who pays for it.” According to Cramer, the solution that “everybody” wants is for Obama to “go away”:
But until we get the economy moving again, I think everybody wishes that Obama would just kind of go away for a little bit.
Watch it:
If Cramer looked closer at the poll, it also shows that 57 percent of the American public approve of what Obama is doing on the economy overall. Of course, Cramer is someone who claimed that Obama’s policies have resulted in “the most, greatest wealth destruction I’ve seen by a president” and is known for his irresponsible financial cheerleading (e.g. “Bear Stearns is not in trouble“). Maybe it’s not Obama who Americans want to “just kind of go away for a little bit.”
Transcript: More »
Obama: ‘I’ve got one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration.’
Obama: ‘I’ve got one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration.’
During an interview with President Obama that aired on CNBC yesterday, chief Washington correspondent John Harwood said, “When you and I spoke in January, you said — I observed that you hadn’t gotten much bad press. You said it’s coming.” Harwood added that since then, Obama still hasn’t received much critical press and wondered if his administration isn’t being “sufficiently held accountable.” Obama, however, disagreed:
OBAMA: It’s very hard for me to swallow that one. First of all, I’ve got one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration. I mean, you know, that’s a pretty…
HARWOOD: I assume you’re talking about Fox.
OBAMA: Well, that’s a pretty big megaphone. And you’d be hard pressed if you watched the entire day to find a positive story about me on that front.
Watch it:
Seeming to undermine the premise of his question, Harwood said after the interview that Obama has “gotten slapped around pretty good on our network for a while” too.
FLASHBACK: Obama Promised To End ‘Secret Meetings’ And Make The White House The ‘People’s House’
FLASHBACK: Obama Promised To End ‘Secret Meetings’ And Make The White House The ‘People’s House’
MSNBC reports that the Obama administration has denied its request for the names of individuals who have visited the White House since the Inauguration. Additionally, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington announced today that it is suing the Department of Homeland Security after the non-partisan organization was denied a request for records of visits of “leading coal company executives.” The Obama administration’s explanation:
The administration ought to be able to hold secret meetings in the White House, “such as an elected official interviewing for an administration position or an ambassador coming for a discussion on issues that would affect international negotiations,” said Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt.
The Bush administration made the same arguments, which were ruled against twice in federal court. In fact, before his election, Obama promised that he would end the Bush administration’s practice of holding secret meetings in the White House, which is supposed to be “the people’s house”:
– In 2006, Obama critized Cheney’s secret energy meetings: “When big oil companies are invited into the White House for secret energy meetings, it’s no wonder they end up with billions in tax breaks.” [1/26/06]
– In 2007, Obama promised on his first day to: “launch the most sweeping ethics reform in history to make the White House the people’s house and send the Washington lobbyists back to K Street.” [6/22/07]
– In 2008, Obama told Wisconsin voters: “This change will not be easy. It will require reforming our politics by taking power away from the lobbyists who kill good ideas and good plans with secret meetings and campaign checks.” [9/22/08]
The day after the Inauguration, Obama issued a memo saying, “my Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government.” Obama had a long record of increasing accountability and transparency in government before he entered the White House. By opening up access to the White House visitor logs, Obama has an opportunity to fulfill his promise of making the White House the people’s house.
News Corp. forms ‘diversity community council’ in response to chimpanzee cartoon controversy.
News Corp. forms ‘diversity community council’ in response to chimpanzee cartoon controversy.
During the debate on the economic recovery package shortly after President Obama assumed office, News Corp’s New York Post ran a cartoon likening Obama to a dead chimpanzee. After protests and extended criticism, the Post editorialized that they apologize “to those who were offended by the image” while News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch later issued a personal apology. Now, the company has formed a diversity council in response the controversy:
News Corp. has agreed to form an external diversity council after meeting with civil rights groups about a New York Post cartoon that critics said likened President Barack Obama to a dead chimpanzee.
The company will form a “diversity community council” in New York City that will meet with senior company executives twice a year, NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous said Wednesday. It also will include a statement of commitment to diversity in its annual report.
Representatives from the NAACP, Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, the National Urban League, and 100 Black Men of America met with News Corp. executives on May 19, but it is unclear how diverse the council will be.
Von Spakovsky: Still Fabricating Facts, Still Suppressing Votes
Von Spakovsky: Still Fabricating Facts, Still Suppressing Votes
Further demonstrating that no conservative can be so disgraced that they cannot later be published in the Wall Street Journal, Bush-era vote suppression guru Hans von Spakovsky has an op-ed in today’s WSJ claiming that the Justice Department has “spent the last several months misinterpreting key voting rights laws for nakedly political reasons”:
Exhibit A: Justice’s inexplicable dismissal of a civil lawsuit for voter intimidation against the New Black Panther Party. The Black Panthers weren’t content to endorse Barack Obama. They sent their members to the polls last November to “patrol election sites.” Fox News aired a video of two Black Panthers in military-style uniforms in a Philadelphia precinct. One of them was carrying a nightstick. . . . But instead of following through and getting an injunction to prevent this behavior in future elections, the department, now under Mr. Holder, dismissed the lawsuit against all but one of the defendants (the nightstick holder).
Exhibit B: Justice recently stopped Georgia from implementing a key provision of the Help America Vote Act. Passed in 2002, the act requires states to verify the accuracy of information voters provide on their registration forms by comparing it with state driver’s license and Social Security records — a sensible requirement.
Both of Spakovsky’s exhibits have no basis in reality. Although his tale of Black Panthers patrolling polling sites sure sounds intimidating, the real facts are nothing like von Spakovsky claims.
Two African-American men did show up at a polling place dressed as stereotypical Black Panthers, but the Philadelphia District Attorney says that she took no action because there were “no complaints and no evidence” of any wrongdoing. Similarly, Zack Stalberg, Executive Director of the nonpartisan poll monitoring organization the Committee of Seventy, says that the two strangely-dressed men were “off-putting, not quite intimidating.” Indeed, the sole basis for any allegations of voter intimidation are statements by two poll watchers from an organization called “Democrats for McCain.”
In other words, the Justice Department dismissed their claim against the Black Panthers not for some nefarious purpose, but because there wasn’t any reliable evidence showing that the Black Panthers violated the law. Now that Spakovsky no longer works there, the DOJ actually requires evidence before it brings a case.
Spakovsky’s claim that the DOJ “stopped Georgia from implementing a key provision of the Help America Vote Act” is also false. In truth the DOJ halted an illegal voter suppression scheme that systematically screened out “thousands of citizens who are in fact eligible to vote.”
Under the Georgia scheme, new voter registrations were compared to federal and state records to screen for non-matching names, dates of birth, driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers and to screen for proof of citizenship. Thousands of eligible voters, however, were screened out because a state employee mistakenly entered the wrong information into a database. Once screened out, a voter had to jump through hoops before they could vote:
[E]lection officials can require these individuals also to appear at the county courthouse or office building, not at the voter’s convenience, but rather on a week day, during normal business hours and, pursuant to state law, with only three days notice.
Moreover, African-Americans were sixty percent more likely to be screened than white voters, and Asian and Latino-Americans were twice as likely to be falsely screened as non-citizens, a textbook violation of the Voting Rights Act.
The bottom line is this: during his disgraceful tenure at DOJ, Spakovsky routinely approved state voting practices that were later struck down by federal courts. He manipulated election law to benefit Republican candidates; he retaliated against career attorneys who stood in the way of his illegal efforts; and he even gave cash awards to career attorneys who towed the party line. Now that he is powerless, he is continuing his anti-voter crusade from the pages of the Wall Street Journal.
Murdoch: ‘If we weren’t fair and balanced, we wouldn’t have the number one network in news.’
Murdoch: ‘If we weren’t fair and balanced, we wouldn’t have the number one network in news.’
Today, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch sat down with Fox News host Neil Cavuto for a softball interview. At one point, Cavuto asked Murdoch if he feels like Rodney Dangerfield — “not getting that respect” — even though Fox is “pretty much the envy of the world right now.” When Cavuto asked about perceptions that Fox isn’t fair and balanced, Murdoch said that those allegations were “obviously not true”:
If we weren’t fair and balanced, we wouldn’t have the number one network in news — by a very wide margin. People believe we’re fair and balanced, and they love us.
Watch it:
There’s no proof that the American public is tuning into Fox because it genuinely believes the network is fair and balanced. After all, a 2008 poll found that just three percent of O’Reilly’s viewers identified themselves as liberal. Twenty-four percent called themselves moderates, and 66 percent said they were conservative. Similar numbers were found in the survey for Hannity’s show. Media watchdog group FAIR has called Fox “the most biased name in news,” and a Fox News vice president admitted that the network’s job was to be “the voice of opposition” to the Obama administration.
O’Reilly Apologizes For False Attack On CNN
O’Reilly Apologizes For False Attack On CNN
On the Fox News this week, host Bill O’Reilly complained that he was “shocked that an Army recruiter in Arkansas got gunned down by some Muslim terrorist in the United States, and I can’t find any info about it.” Purporting to show “blatant media bias in America,” he criticized CNN specifically, claiming the network had largely ignored the story. According to O’Reilly, “only Anderson Cooper at 10:00 covered the story. No one else.” However, yesterday, CNN’s Rick Sanchez took O’Reilly to task for his misbegotten “media bias” claims, showing a lengthy clip of day-long CNN coverage of the shooting:
SANCHEZ: Bill O’Reilly says he only saw it once. And since he only saw it once, well then, that must be the truth. It doesn’t matter what really happened, it doesn’t matter what the record shows. All that matters is what Bill thinks he saw.
Watch it:
Last night on The Factor, Bill O’Reilly announced he had a “rare correction” to make. O’Reilly said that a “snide, surly guy on CNN” (Rick Sanchez) corrected the record about CNN’s coverage. “I was wrong. My apologies to CNN,” O’Reilly said. Watch it:
O’Reilly Responds To The Tiller Murder: ‘No Backpedaling Here…Every Single Thing We Said About Tiller Was True’
O’Reilly Responds To The Tiller Murder: ‘No Backpedaling Here…Every Single Thing We Said About Tiller Was True’
After yesterday’s brutal shooting of George Tiller, a Kansas doctor who administered abortions, many anti-choice groups quickly condemned the murder and attempted to separate themselves from the actions of the killer. Even Operation Rescue, which made Tiller a special target of its harassment over the years, denounced the killing as “vigilantism” and a “cowardly act.”
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly had also singled out Tiller in the past. According to Salon, O’Reilly first discussed Tiller on Feb. 25, 2005, and subsequently did 28 more episodes mentioning the doctor. When Fox News announced that O’Reilly would be making his first comments on Tiller since his murder, some journalists believed that O’Reilly would “most certainly decry” the killing.
At the top of his Talking Points segment, O’Reilly did briefly say, “Americans should condemn the murder of Dr. George Tiller,” but he then quickly segued into more attacks on Tiller. He also used the opportunity to attack his critics, saying they were trying to “exploit” the incident to attack Fox News. In particular, he singled out the writings of Helen Kennedy of the New York Daily News, Mary Mapes on the Huffington Post, Mike Hendricks of the Kansas City Star, Markos Moulitsas of DailyKos. O’Reilly blasted liberals who were “very very sympathetic” to Tiller and said one of the first things that he thought of when he heard the news of the killing was…himself:
When I heard about Tiller’s murder, I knew pro-abortion zealots and Fox News haters would attempt to blame us for the crime, and that’s exactly what has happened. [...]
No backpedaling here, madam [Mary Mapes]. Unlike you, I report honestly. Every single thing we said about Tiller was true, and my analysis was based on those facts. [...]
Now, it’s clear that the far left is exploiting — exploiting — the death of the doctor. Those vicious individuals want to stifle any criticism of people like Tiller. That — and hating Fox News — is the real agenda here. Finally, if these people are soooo compassionate — so very compassionate, so concerned for the rights and welfare of others — maybe they might have written something, one thing, about the 60,000 fetuses that will never become American citizens. Or am I wrong?
Watch it:
Besides repeatedly referring to the doctor as “Tiller the Baby Killer,” what are some of the factual statements O’Reilly has made about Tiller over the years?
– “If you want to kill a baby, you hire Tiller. You’ve got to pay him $5,000 up front, and he’ll kill the baby.”
– “No question Dr. Tiller has blood on his hands.”
– “Dr. George Tiller destroys fetuses for just about any reason, right up until the birth date.”
– “This man executes babies that are about to be born.”
– “This is the kind of stuff happened in Mao’s China, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union.”
In the past, O’Reilly has sent out producer Jesse Watters to ambush Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-KS) and ask her about Tiller. Although many people disagreed with what Tiller did, as President Obama responded, such differences “cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.” “[T]he same bullet that killed George Tiller also shattered the moral underpinnings of the movement that inspired its firing,” wrote Hendricks.
O’Reilly Defends Cherry-Picking Comments To Attack Blogs
O’Reilly Defends Cherry-Picking Comments To Attack Blogs
On Wednesday, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly attempted to demonstrate that the blogosphere is full of extreme hate-mongers. To do so, he pulled random comments from both ThinkProgress and Michelle Malkin’s Hot Air blog. However, he never noted that they were comments. Instead, he attributed them as official posts by the blogs:
ThinkProgress, another crazy website on the left: “It will be so funny seeing a bunch of old white guys questioning her during the Senate hearings.” Nothing racist about that. You know, these people — as I said on the conservative guy — they don’t think that they’re racist. They don’t think that they’re bigoted. But you know, it’s so obvious they are.
Malkin went on Fox and Friends the next day and responded that her site was “smeared” by O’Reilly.
Last night, O’Reilly responded to the criticisms, saying that he “should have been more precise” and identified that the remark was made by a “civilian” not by Hot Air’s staff. (O’Reilly never acknowledged that he similarly smeared ThinkProgress.) However, he then went on to defend his actions:
O’REILLY: Wow. Miss Malkin is upset, because I did not identify the Hussein comment was made by a civilian, not her or her staff. And that’s true. I should have been more precise.
But we often cite hateful civilian comments on blogs and say they should be edited, as we do on BillOReilly.com. That’s the point. The Daily Kos traffics in hatred all day long. It’s not enough to say, “I didn’t do it.”
And pointing out hateful things on any Web site is not a smear.
Watch it:
As ThinkProgress editor Faiz Shakir explained yesterday, “The comments policy of this blog — like most blogs on the Internet — is to allow postings from people with whom we agree and disagree. … Those comments do not always reflect the positions and views of the site’s editors and authors. As long as commenters abide by our terms of use, they are free to post whatever they’d like, even things which offend Bill O’Reilly’s sensitivities.”
But by O’Reilly’s logic, he himself should be held responsible for hoping that Hillary Clinton falls “into a moat filled leeches and (gulp) rats” and speculating that “it’s time to burn down the capitol building like Hitler did with the Reichstag building.” As Hot Air writer AllahPundit noted, “if the O’Reilly Factor can’t figure out the difference between a blog post and a comment, they have no business opining about the Internet at all.”
If O’Reilly is sincere in his belief that he “should have been more precise” in identifying the source of the comment on Hot Air, we expect that he will do the same next time he highlights something written on ThinkProgress, DailyKos, or any other liberal blog.
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