Last night's broadcast of the O'Reilly Factor (5/19/11) provided ample evidence–if more were needed–of Bill O'Reilly's bigotry. He started by trying to explain why Barack Obamais unpopular in Muslim countries: The answer is complicated but does reflect my opinion that there is a Muslim problem in the world. The United States and the West are largely secular societies that do believe in human rights. The Muslim world is centered on religion and may Muslims believe if you don't worship Allah you are an infidel and therefore you don't deserve human rights. In fact, in certain parts of the Muslim world [...]
Mar
23
2011
O'Reilly Factors Code Pink
By 4 Comments
One of the peculiar things about the Fox News Channel is that they actually do invite progressive guests onto some of the shows. Last night on the O'Reilly Factor (3/22/11), we saw Code Pink's Medea Benjamin talkingabout Libya. Of course, there's a political point O'Reilly is trying to make; in this case, he was contrasting Benjamin's anti-war position to the pro-war positions expressed by some Obama-friendly MSNBC hosts. O'Reilly's got a point there. (This is not something I'm used to saying.) But never fear–he's still perfectly capable of making his own completely absurd arguments. Like this: O'REILLY: They have succeeded [...]
Mar
22
2011
Bill O'Reilly: Saving the Libyans He Wanted to Starve
By 7 Comments
On September 17, 2001, Fox host Bill O'Reilly gave his list of countries the United States should attack, including Libya: Target three is Libya and Qaddafi. Again, he either quits and goes into exile or we bomb his oil facilities, all of them. And we mind the harbor in Tripoli. Nothing goes in, nothing goes out. We also destroy all the airports in Libya. Let them eat sand. A decade later, O'Reilly supportsthe airstrikes onLibya because Qaddafi is attacking civilians (3/21/11): O'REILLY: But Qaddafi's carpet bombing guys who are driving around in old Chevys with pistols, he's killing them. You [...]
Mar
22
2011
Libya, Lockerbie and the Fox/MSNBC Convergence
By 32 Comments
U.S. airstrikes in Libya have brought renewed focus on the 1988 explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Some are making the argument that the U.S. could–and should–be getting revenge for this act a mere 22 years later. Last night (3/21/11), one cable news host said this: Given the fact Americans died on that 747 over Lockerbie, I'm all for this mission…. I'm an American. You're an American. We all have opinions. I have always believed thatQaddafi was a terrorist. Let's look at the tape again of flight Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Do you need any [...]
Mar
18
2011
Ann Coulter on O'Reilly: Radiation Is Good for You
By 14 Comments
At a time when the Japanese prime minister is describing his country's nuclear crisis and the growing threat of radiation exposure as "very grave," it must have been comforting for Fox News watchers to turn on the O'Reilly Factor last night (3/17/11) to see Ann Coulter telling them that radiation is actually good for you. Yes, Coulter told O'Reilly viewers, the evidence was right there in the media, including in the newspaper she'd once hoped would be targeted with a terror attack: I'm citing a stunning number of physicists and from the New York Times and the Times of London, [...]
Mar
16
2011
On Islamist Terrorism, WSJ Entitled to Its Own Opinions–But Not Its Own Facts
By 19 Comments
A recent Wall Street Journal editorial (3/11/11) defended the Peter King hearings on Islamist terrorism against "our friends on the left [who] are busy portraying them as the McCarthy hearings and Palmer Raids rolled into one." The editors argued that in fact, the focus on Muslims is justified based on the facts: Since 9/11, there have been more than 50 known cases, involving about 130 individuals, in which terrorist plots were hatched on American soil. These include plots to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, an office tower in Dallas, a federal court house in Illinois, the Washington, [...]
Mar
11
2011
O'Reilly's Amnesia on Right-Wing Terror
By 29 Comments
While defending Rep. Peter King's (R.-N.Y.) congressional hearings on domestic Muslim extremism, Bill O'Reilly (3/9/11) scoffed at the notion that the biggest domestic terror threats in the U.S. come from the "radical right" and not from homegrown Muslims. After playing a clip of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Mark Potok making that argument, O'Reilly responded: Are you kidding me? The radical right? The last terror act assigned to them was the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995. In reality, acts of political violence connected to the far right are a regular occurrence. To make his claim, O'Reilly even had to overlook [...]
Mar
02
2011
Bill O'Reilly's Public Opinion Solution: Don't Poll Union Members
By 32 Comments
You had to assume that there would be folks in the media who wouldn't like the recent CBS/New York Times poll that found strong public support for public workers. Sixty percent of those polled oppose stripping public workers of collective bargaining rights; 56 percent opposed cutting pay or benefits of those workers in the name of deficit reduction. Fox's Bill O'Reilly has a solution to this problem: Union households shouldn't be polled. As he explained last night (3/1/11) And the New York Times headline today reads "Majority in Poll Back Employees in Public Sector." But the poll is misleading because [...]
Feb
28
2011
Who's the Source of O'Reilly's 'Nonpartisan' Pro-Walker Poll?
By 6 Comments
On his Fox News show Friday, self-described "union guy" Bill O'Reilly was touting the results of a newpoll finding that Wisconsinites are backing Gov. Scott Walker: According to a new poll by WisconsinReporter.com, a nonpartisan group, 71 percent of Wisconsinites believe that Gov. Scott Walker's union cutbacks are fair.71 percent. And 69 percent of Wisconsin residents believe state workers have better benefits than private sector employees. That finding would seem to at odds with other polls of Wisconsin residents.But who is this "nonpartisan" group, anyway?If you go to the WisconsinReporter.com website, the "About"page is blank. TPMuckracker fills in the details: [...]
Jan
21
2011
Fox News Is Outraged by Nazi Analogies–and Other Big Lies
By 26 Comments
It is bizarre to see Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly denying that pundits from her network compare people to Nazis–contrasting this reticence to Rep. Steve Cohen (D.-Tenn.), who said calling healthcare reform a "government takeover of healthcare" was "a big lie. Just like Goebbels." In fact, such comparisons are common currency on Fox News and in much of right-wing media, as FAIR has documented (Action Alert, 1/16/04; FAIR Blog, 4/2/09, 8/9/09, 4/28/10; Extra!, 3/10). Fox's Glenn Beck, a leader in this trend, compared the auto bailout to "the early days of Adolf Hitler" (4/1/09), said that Barack Obama's plans to [...]
Jan
11
2011
O'Reilly: The Real Problem Is MSNBC
By 11 Comments
Last night (O'Reilly Factor, 1/10/11), Bill O'Reillytalking to Brit Hume: O'REILLY: We have a network, an entire network that's built around attacking Fox News and right-wing people. That's all they do at MSNBC. They have nothing else. HUME: How's that working out for them? O'REILLY: It's not working out for them. But it does mean that I have to have 24-hour security. That I have to worry about my children being assaulted. OK? That's what it means. You talking about nuts? These people ignite those nuts all day long. I don't see the equivalency of talk radio. I said that [...]
Dec
22
2010
Rove, O'Reilly Combine Their Ignorance to Battle Jon Stewart
By 6 Comments
Last night on Fox News (12/22/10), Karl Rove and Bill O'Reilly attempted to defend GOP opposition tothe James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010, whichwould providehealth care for 9/11 Ground Zero workers. In his final broadcast of the year (12/16/10), Comedy Central's Jon Stewart devoted the entire show to lambasting the Republican opposition.Stewart's attention to the issue seems to have pushed other media outlets to pay attention to this issue. (With any luck, we'll remember this the next time there's a "debate" aboutpeople watchinga comedy show instead of "real" news.) Rove and O'Reilly'sdefense of GOP intransigence is hardly [...]
Dec
06
2010
Bill O'Reilly Defends Press Freedom–While Musing About Jailing Bill Moyers
By 21 Comments
Fox host Bill O'Reilly warned viewers on December 3 about "a disturbing development at the FCC": Commissioner Michael Copps has been criticizing the failure of the media to provide citizens with substantive political information and discussion. O'Reilly zeroed inon thesecomments Copps made in a BBC interview (12/1/10): I think American media has a bad case of substance abuse right now. We are not producing the body of news and information that democracy needs to conduct a civic dialogue. We are not producing as much news as we did five years, 10 years, 15 years ago. We have to reverse that [...]
