Tonight on The Factor, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly offered a host of attacks on ThinkProgress and Center for American Progress President and CEO John Podesta that were rich with irony.
Ignoring the role of Fox News in smearing progressives, O’Reilly said Podesta is “driving the hate industry. … Podesta’s website is devoted to hurting any prominent person who disagrees with liberal politics.” He also falsely attacked Amanda Terkel, again, for “harming a rape victim and her family.” O’Reilly told his audience:
Why should you care about any of this? Well, because it’s your country. A well-coordinated, well-financed cabal attacking dissent is a pretty big story.
We agree, Mr. O’Reilly. Your “well-coordinated, well-financed” Harassment Machine that attacks dissent is a pretty big story. That’s why we need O’Reilly’s corporate advertisers to tell him to shut down his “ambush journalism.”
O’Reilly conceded our campaign is having an impact. “If you go to this ThinkProgress website,” the Fox News hatemonger said, “anybody who disagrees with Barack Obama in the public eye gets smeared and slimed. … They’ll go after your sponsors, they’ll go at your house, they’ll go after your family.” (No, in fact, we’re only going after your sponsors, Mr. O’Reilly. You’re the one going to our house to stalk us.)
Speaking of our ThinkProgress team, O’Reilly said, “They’re insects.” Watch a compilation:
In the lead-in to O’Reilly’s show, Fox host Shep Smith said, “I tell you who never screws up — and if he does, don’t even mention it. That’s this guy.” Indeed.
At the conclusion of the segment, O’Reilly’s guest Dick Morris conceded the central point that we have been asserting — that O’Reilly’s comments about rape victim Jennifer Moore were insensitive. Morris told O’Reilly, “You talk on the air for hours every day, you make one misstep out of hundreds of days, and they’re all over you.” But O’Reilly won’t even acknowledge he made a “misstep.”
Update:
Tonight, Keith Olbermann made O’Reilly his Worst Person, mocking his “panicky fear about being eclipsed by Glenn Beck’s success” and criticizing him for stalking TP’s Amanda Terkel. Watch it:
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Update:
,O’Reilly attacks us, saying, “They don’t want criticism. And if you do it, they’ll get you.” David Neiwert notes that O’Reilly has declared openly that he would “get” various entities who displeased him.