Speaking of Teresa, John, George Soros, MoveOn and Beelzebub
Reported by Marie Therese - August 5, 2004 -
The O'Reilly Factor. August 3, 2004. 8:12 PM to 8:16 PM EDT.
Guest: Daedre Levine, Democratic Strategist, teaches at Columbia University (N.B. This is a very long posting.)
O'REILLY: "Teresa Heinz Kerry continues her feisty ways on the campaign trail. Reacting to pro-Bush hecklers last night, she made headlines once again."
Clip of Mrs. Kerry responding to Republican chants of "Four more years!" with the line "Four more years of hell!". At the conclusion of the clip, O'Reilly laughs and says "I love her. I don't know why. I just love her."
But, ever fair and balanced, O'Reilly must immediately counter his compliment to Mrs. Kerry with a jab at Mr. Kerry: "Contrast that to John Kerry's appeal for civility."
Clip of John Kerry's Convention Speech (labeled July 28 instead of July 29):
KERRY: "The high road may be harder but it leads to a better place and that's why Republicans and Democrats must make this election a contest of big ideas not small-minded attacks. This is our time to reject the kind of politics calculated to divide race from race, region from region, group from group."
O'Reilly makes a reference to Mrs. Kerry's "Four more years of hell" by saying: "Alright, well, I assume the high road doesn't lead to hell, but who knows?"
Still needing to balance his nice comments about Mrs. Kerry, O'Reilly goes on to tell his viewers that "a lot of my friends and people say they can't stand Mrs. Kerry. I love her. I mean, I want people to react emotionally, sometimes, and not be zombies and, you know, Teresa on a campaign she reacts emotionally."
LEVINE: "Isn't that nice? She's like a breath of fresh air."
O'REILLY: "It is. I love it."
LEVINE: "She was dealing with hecklers in that situation."
O'REILLY: "Well, it wasn't hecklers. It was 'Four more years'. They weren't doing anything terrible." (With regard to the word "hecklers" please re-read Bill's opening statement.) "But, again, if her husband is gonna go out and give this big appeal to the high road, you can't have Teresa sayin' 'all of the Republicans are Beelzebub'. You know, you can't have it both ways, Miss Levine."
Now here's where Ms. Levine shows that she is out of her league. Not only does she miss a chance to zap O'Reilly with the fact that he himself used the word "hecklers" in his lead-in, she fails to call him on his outrageous morphing of "Four more years of hell" into "all of the Republicans are Beelzebub". He's upped the ante big-time and she's metaphorically still sipping tea with her pinky in the air!
LEVINE: "You certainly can't have it both ways but this is a political campaign...Surrogates on both sides, of which Teresa is one, are going to be able to attack the other campaign."
Having established that he's fair by saying he loves Teresa's "feisty" spirit, O'Reilly has now impugned both Teresa and John Kerry and equated "hell" with "Beelzebub". However, this is only the preamble.
O'REILLY: "I think it's a little disingenuous for the Senator - and I'm gonna ask him when he comes in here - to say 'I'm gonna take the high road' when George Soros and Democratic money is funding character assassins all over the place."
The requisite 'challenge-to-appear gauntlet' has been thrown down and O'Reilly finally gets to his real target: A private individual named George Soros who has donated a large chunk of his fortune to send George Bush back to Texas.
O'REILLY: "You know who they are and they're brutal. They're the worst I've ever seen. They make the Republicans look like Gomer Pyle. OK? So, he can say 'I'm gonna take the high road' - it's almost like Don Corleone sittin' in his Long Beach estate goin' 'I don't kill anybody'. And then the button men are runnin' all around. And that's exactly - and Kerry's gotta know that's goin' on. He's gotta know MoveOn.org and all those people are assassinating characters all over the place."
Like a good propagandist, O'Reilly doesn't bother to define who these "character assassins" actually are. It is so much more evocative to leave it to the prejudices of the viewers. If they hate Jews, why the internet spooks are Jews. If they hate Muslims, then they're Muslim. If they hate liberals, they're liberals, and so on.
Ms. Levine does her best to respond, first by agreeing with what he says, and then by trying to make a point about Republicans. He cuts her off at the knees.
LEVINE: "Right, well, and the Bush campaign has a really well-oiled machine that's going out every week after week attacking Kerry. 75% of the ads..."
O'REILLY (overtalks her so she can't finish): "Why don't you tell me where they are, so I can see them?"
LEVINE: "...75% of the ads that Bush has aired so far have been negative attack ads...."
O'REILLY (interrupts): "...concentrating on his record."
LEVINE (continues): "...I'm going to give you a point that you're gonna enjoy - as opposed to 27% of Kerry's ads. But the fact of the matter, even 1% of Kerry's ads being attack ads speak against the point he made in the speech."
Oh, my. She's now (a) pandered to him and (b) agreed with him. He goes in for the kill.
O'REILLY: "If Bush wants to attack Kerry's record in the Senate that's fine with me...I don't consider those attack ads."
LEVINE: "I agree with you 100%." (Say it isn't so, Daedre!)
O'REILLY: "I haven't seen any Bush ads that say John Kerry's the devil."
Notice what's happened. What started out as "four more years of hell" became "sayin' Republicans are Beelzebub" and, finally, "Beelzebub" becomes the "devil". O'Reilly implies that, unlike those nasty mud-slinging Democrats, George Bush would NEVER call John Kerry the "devil".
LEVINE: "There's a difference between mud-slinging and negative campaigning and you're absolutely correct." (She strokes his ego yet again!!) "But, there's also a difference between calling somebody out on their record, which is giving somebody an opportunity to say 'This is what I stand for, this is why I'm running' - and misleading the public by talking about votes that took place ten years ago out of context, bringing up quotes out of context."
O'REILLY (magnanimously....he knows he's bested her, so now he can be generous): "If that happens, I want you to call me right away. We're gonna do - we have the graphic made - 'misleading and unfair statements' - but it is undeniable that George Soros, the primary money man behind the Democratic dancin' around McCain-Feingold, has hired dozens of character assassins on the internet, ok?, to go out and do damage to anyone he doesn't like. I don't think the Republicans have done that and, if they have, I want you to tell me where it is."
LEVINE: "...But there have been ads that have been aired that talk about a 50 cents gasoline tax increase that Kerry...
O'REILLY (cuts her off): "Yeah but you're dodgin' my question."
LEVINE: "I'm not dodging you."
O'REILLY: "I don't care about those ads."
LEVINE: "Both sides are going to..
O'REILLY (interrupts): "And we will hold them accountable. But, once again, do you know of any conservative, right wing websites that do what MoveOn.org does?"
LEVINE: "Yeah. The George Bush Campaign website." (She gets in a zinger at last.)
O'REILLY: "I'm not buyin' that for a second, but listen and, if they start to do the character assassination - and not only do they do it on the website, but they run these people out to the David Letterman show and all these people just try to defame people they disagree with."
LEVINE: "Look. He [Bush] has no choice but to go negative because there's a volatile situation in Iraq. The economic situation in America is no better than when he took office, in many cases it's worse and his poll numbers are going down." (END of INTERVIEW)
In response to Mr. O'Reilly's request, here's a partial list of conservative right wing 527s that do what MoveOn.org does: Club for Growth, College Republican National Committee, Progress for America, GOPAC, Floridians Uniting for a Stronger Tomorrow, Floridians for Conservative Leadership, Republican Leadership Council, etc. (Source: Open Secrets.)
It's absolutely mesmerizing to watch this man operate. He has two advanced degrees and is worth tens of millions of dollars, yet he's convinced his viewers that he's just one of the 'folks'. (cf. Business Week, The O'Reilly Factory).
But - the internet scares him.
Let's hear a big round of applause for the Founding Fathers and the First Amendment!
