O’Reilly compares Markos Moulitsas to David Duke.
O’Reilly compares Markos Moulitsas to David Duke.
On Fox News’s The O’Reilly Factor last night, Bill O’Reilly attacked Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas by calling him “one of the most despicable Americans in the country.” Noting that Moulitsas writes a column for Newsweek, O’Reilly compared him to white supremacist David Duke:
And Newsweek magazine, by the way, has legitimized [Moulitsas] by giving him a columnist position. I talked to the editor by email, and I said I can’t believe that you’re — that’s like hiring David Duke. Again, I use Duke too much, but I have to — the level of hatred coming out of that website is unprecedented. Isn’t it?
Watch it:
Last year, O’Reilly attacked the YearlyKos convention — which was named after, but not sponsored by Moulitsas — by saying it was like “a David Duke convention.”
O’Reilly’s meltdown: ‘F*ck it! F*cking thing sucks!’
O’Reilly’s meltdown: ‘F*ck it! F*cking thing sucks!’
Between 1989 and 1995, Bill O’Reilly hosted the entertainment program “Inside Edition.” A new behind-the-scenes video from his time there has surfaced, showing O’Reilly flipping out because of a teleprompter malfunction. “I can’t read it! There’s no words on it!” shouts O’Reilly. Watch it:
(HT: JulianWan)
O’Reilly: ‘It’s Bull’ That Torture Doesn’t Work
Last night, in an interview with Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly praised the Bush administration “for doing a good job protecting Americans after 9/11″ and attributed its success to its “aggressive manner” of protection, including “Guantanamo, water boarding three times, and other things.” (Recall, in 2005, O’Reilly declared he would “order the execution” of everyone at Guantanamo if he could.)
O’Reilly then questioned Clinton’s opposition to torture, insisting that if the U.S. had “an al Qaeda big shot” in custody, he would “dunk him into water” — i.e., waterboard him. When told that torture does not produce “high quality” information, O’Reilly cried, “That’s bull!”:
O’REILLY: I believe the Bush administration has done a good job in protecting Americans after 9/11. … And they’ve done so in a very aggressive manner, Guantanamo, water boarding three times, and other things, OK? If we get an Al Qaida big shot who won’t talk, I’ll dunk him into water if there is, we believe — our intelligence agency believes there is an imminent attack. You won’t dunk him in the water, you won’t, I will. […]
CLINTON: But if you actually talked to the people who were in the rooms with these guys, what they will tell me is that you do not get the high quality…
O’REILLY: That’s bull. It’s just bull. Michael Scheuer, who was the head of the bin Laden unit, sat there and said we broke these guys by waterboarding. It’s bull.
Watch it:
O’Reilly has long championed torture. He said that waterboarding isn’t “fatal” and “doesn’t leave a lasting injury,” and that people who oppose torture are “putting us all in danger.” Last October, he claimed that the Abu Ghraib scandal “was blown out of proportion.”
Of course, many experts — O’Reilly’s own opinion notwithstanding — agree that torture is ineffective. In Feburary, FBI Director Robert Mueller said his agency rejected using waterboarding, and Lt. Gen. Michael Maples of the Defense Intelligence Agency said torture was unnecessary. Another former FBI agent said the entire idea of a “ticking time bomb scenario” like the one O’Reilly cites is “a red herring” his agency had never encountered.
If those experts aren’t enough, perhaps O’Reilly should simply listen to his hero Gen. David Petraeus, who unequivocally rejected torture last year:
Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. That would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary. Certainly, extreme physical action can make someone ‘talk;’ however, what the individual says may be of questionable value.
After all, as O’Reilly himself said, “Petraeus is beyond reproach in my eyes.”
O’Reilly: ‘We Didn’t Invade Iraq’
Yesterday, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly made the incredible claim that the United States never invaded Iraq: “We didn’t invade Iraq.” He added, “It was a declaration of war, it was a declaration to enforce the first Gulf War Treaty.” Watch it:
Despite O’Reilly’s revisionist history, the United States did invade Iraq. The U.S. military forcefully entered the country in order to overthrow that nation’s leader. That’s an invasion. During a 2006 speech, President Bush discussed his administration’s “two major invasions as a part of the war on terror.”
Even O’Reilly himself has, in the past, admitted that the United States invaded Iraq:
– “I’ll submit that most folks still have no idea why the Bush administration invaded Iraq.” [1/28/08]
– “Iraq was invaded to create a friendly country between Iran and Syria, thereby pressuring those nations into a more sensible foreign policy.” [3/6/06]
O’Reilly’s “first Gulf War Treaty” claim is also questionable. During a March 15, 2004 interview, former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix challenged O’Reilly on this exact point:
O’REILLY: [W]e liberate Iraq — liberate Kuwait, all right, and then we have a treaty, and the treaty says U.N. weapons inspectors are allowed to do X, Y, and Z, and 17 times Saddam says — violates those. Now you can understand why the United States government might be a little teed off about that. […]
O’REILLY: But do you understand that when you have 17 violations of a treaty, a war treaty, that you basically have to take action?
BLIX: Well, you’re talking about a war treaty. It was a cease-fire. It was not a war treaty.
O’REILLY: Oh, come on. Now don’t play semantics here, sir.
BLIX: Second — all right. I’m trying to be precise. You are imprecise.
O’Reilly’s claim is almost as unbelievable as Wolfowitz’s statement earlier this week that the U.S. “occupation [of Iraq] ended in June of 2004.”
Transcript: Read the rest of this entry »
O’Reilly issues correction after claiming Moyers doesn’t pay staff’s health insurance.
O’Reilly issues correction after claiming Moyers doesn’t pay staff’s health insurance.
Last month, Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly attacked Bill Moyers on his TV show, calling him “a charlatan who epitomizes the left-wing media in this country and doesn’t even pay his employees’ health insurance.” But last night, O’Reilly ate his words and issued a correction:
First, one correction. A few days ago I said that Bill Moyers does not pay health insurance for some of his employees. The Moyers people say that is not true, and at this point, I believe them. I regret the error. We’re not fans of Mr. Moyers, but he does deserve to be treated fairly.
Watch it:
O’Reilly claimed he made his mistake only “a few days ago.” But, in fact, his false attack against Moyers occurred over a month ago.
O’Reilly Attacks Moyers For Interviewing Rev. Wright: They Should ‘Take A Long Vacation, Perhaps In Iran’
O’Reilly Attacks Moyers For Interviewing Rev. Wright: They Should ‘Take A Long Vacation, Perhaps In Iran’
On PBS’s Bill Moyers Journal last night, Moyers interviewed Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, whose controversial remarks created a political storm last month.
Reacting to advance excerpts of the interview, Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly attacked Moyers on his show last night, calling him a “far left PBS guy” who is “extreme” and “pathetic.” At the end of his Talking Points Memo segment, O’Reilly suggested that Moyers and Wright should “take a long vacation, perhaps in Iran.”
Watch it:
Later in the show, when O’Reilly asked former House Speaker Newt Gingrich if he could “figure” Moyers out, Gingrich called Moyers “a hard left sympathizer for anybody who dislikes America”:
O’REILLY: Can you figure this guy out, Moyers?
GINGRICH: Sure. Bill Moyers is a hard left sympathizer for anybody who dislikes America. And Reverend Wright’s sort of his perfect interview. He doesn’t lay — from what I’ve seen so far and the things that I’ve read tonight from the interview tonight, he doesn’t lay a glove on him.
Closing his discussion of Moyers with Gingrich, O’Reilly previewed a segment with Bernard Goldberg on his Monday show, saying “we’re going to wait and see the whole interview before we really hang Moyers, but Bernie’s warming up.”
Snow: I would ‘walk over broken glass’ for Bill O’Reilly.
Snow: I would ‘walk over broken glass’ for Bill O’Reilly.
Yesterday, CNN announced that former White House Press Secretary Tony Show would join the network as a “conservative commentator.” As Think Progress noted, Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly warned Snow in October about working with CNN, saying “it’s going to get bloody” if Snow joined “the devil over there.” Now, in an interview with Politico, Snow says that he bears no ill will toward Fox. “Make no mistake, I love the folks at Fox,” said Snow, adding that he would “walk over broken glass” for Bill O’Reilly.
Boston newsman protests Bill O’Reilly’s Emmy Award.
Boston newsman protests Bill O’Reilly’s Emmy Award.
Barry Nolan, a local Boston news reporter, is mounting a campaign to protest the fact that Bill O’Reilly will be awarded an Emmy Award by the Boston/New England Chapter next month. Nolan insists that O’Reilly is “a mental case” who shouldn’t be held up as an example of journalistic integrity:
“I am appalled, just appalled,” Nolan told the Track. “He inflates and constantly mangles the truth…and his frequent target is the ‘left-leaning’ media - the ones who do report the news fairly. And those are the same people who will be sitting in the room honoring him.” […]
“I hope people will express their displeasure to the board of governors and they’ll rescind their decision,” he said. “It’s morally unacceptable.”
Nolan plans to attend the May 10 ceremony, and he’s invited Keith Olbermann as his date.
O’Reilly Disgusted By Transgender Couple: ‘Imagine A Poor Kid Getting Born Into That Family’
O’Reilly Disgusted By Transgender Couple: ‘Imagine A Poor Kid Getting Born Into That Family’
The media have been fixated on the story of Thomas Beatie, a man who “used to be a woman before undergoing gender reassignment surgery.” Beatie married a woman and is now six months pregnant.
Yesterday on Fox News, Bill O’Reilly — clearly disgusted — railed against the media’s coverage of Beatie, exclaiming, “[D]o you want a 13-year-old watching this kind of stuff and you’ve got to explain all this crazy stuff?” From his exchange with right-wing pundit Bernard Goldberg:
O’REILLY: Yes. It’s hard to keep track, Bernie. It is. Imagine a poor kid getting born into that family, going, hey –
GOLDBERG: That’s — that’s the real tragedy.
O’REILLY: Of course.
Watch it:
There’s no evidence that the child born to Beatie and his wife will be psychologically damaged, as O’Reilly claims. According to a fact sheet by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry:
Current research shows that children with gay and lesbian parents do not differ from children with heterosexual parents in their emotional development or in their relationships with peers and adults. It is the quality of the parent/child relationship and not the parent’s sexual orientation that has an effect on a child’s development. Contrary to popular belief, children of lesbian, gay, or transgender parents:
* Are not more likely to be gay than children with heterosexual parents.
* Are not more likely to be sexually abused.
* Do not show differences in whether they think of themselves as male or female (gender identity).
* Do not show differences in their male and female behaviors (gender role behavior).
Transcript: Read the rest of this entry »
I keep thinking that Joe and Mika and Willie are reasonable tolerant, hip people-- and then I see this morning's show, where the pregnant trans man's appearance on Oprah is used as grounds to cite this as "one of the reasons why 81% of Americans feel the country is headed in the wrong direction" (Joe); and "disgusting" (Mika) (!). Maybe by now, I shouldn't be surprised by Joe and Mika showing astoundingly little empathy or compassion for our community, but it still gave me a morning "jolt," especially on a day when Martin Luther King's legacy was a major topic.