When O'Reilly wants to attack somebody or something, he sends out his creepy stalker Jesse Watters whose carefully edited videos serve to make those who are interviewed, especially scantily clad large breasted women, look stupid. While ostensibly just a vehicle for humor, Watters' topics, venues, and questions are extensions of his master's world view and serve to validate O'Reilly's ideological biases. The commentary of his subjects thus becomes the subject of scathing criticism (think Brown U students) in O'Reilly's follow up discussion with Watters. O'Reilly clearly has no affection for the ACLU which he thinks is a "terrorist group." So last night, in showing that there is no depth to which he will not descend, Watters might have clipped video in order to show that a female ACLU member supports infanticide and, ta-da, validate O'Reilly's hatred of the ACLU and pro-choice women. An anti-choice message on "partial birth abortion" was also included. Pretty slick...
Watters traveled to Princeton so that he could interview attendees at an ACLU conference. His audience was very savvy. When he asked one woman if she supported "the war on terror," she said, accurately, that this was a "loaded question." After ACLU Director Tony Romero said that the ACLU has no position on foreign policy, Watters worked in a favorite O'Reilly meme: "You're fighting the war on Christmas harder than the war on terror." Watters tried to show that a law professor, who said that captured ISIS members should be accorded attorneys, was "bending over backwards to make things more comfortable for ISIS barbarians." When another person, in responding to a question on ISIS, opined that there are Christian extremists in America, Watters, who had no problem with O'Reilly's attack on an abortion provider who was eventually murdered, took umbrage with this. He said that this wasn't a "valid comparison." His subject snapped back, "Well, the people who are killed are just as dead."
There was some discussion on penalties for drug possession. In channeling O'Reilly's attitudes towards the war on drugs, Watters told a woman, who advocated for reasonable sentencing, that she was "wrong." She didn't think that his "but I like you so I'm gonna let that slide" comment was amusing. The conversation turned to abortion. He asked the aforementioned woman if "there should be any restrictions place on abortion in this country." The video cut to another woman who "challenged" pro-lifers to adopt unwanted children.
Here's where things got interesting. Watters then asked if the first woman supported "partial birth abortion" which is not the correct medical term, but one made up by the National Right to Life Committee. After what appeared to be a cut, the woman said "infanticide has been, you know, a quiet but well known thing." Watters said "that doesn't make it right." In the Fox Nation transcript, this is how the comment appeared: "infanticide [in the form of partial-birth abortions] has been a quiet but well-known thing." But because we only see the final cut, we can't say for sure that the woman was equating abortion with infanticide. Watters is trying to portray the infanticide comment as her answer to his question about so called partial birth abortion. But we can't say that it immediately followed because there seemed to be a cut in the video. Rather than a response, the comment seemed like part of something else. However, he gives the impression that not only does the woman use the term "infanticide" for "partial birth abortion"- but that she is uncaring about it. And coincidentally, that is exactly how O'Reilly loves to portray "baby killing" pro-choice women.
During the follow-up O'Reilly dismissed the ACLU folks as not credible. Mini-me, on cue, reinforced the meme: "You don't want these people running things." (Right, we want ideological zealots like O'Reilly) Watters smirked as he claimed that "they want to give lawyers to ISIS" and "release ISIS butchers after the war" [that's what we do with POW's Jesse]. He was appalled by one woman's comment that drug offenders should get job training which is "crazy stuff." O'Reilly saved the main propaganda message for last: "But the worst was the infanticide lady because she was basically saying, hey it happens [Watters chimed in "it happens'] so it's OK." Watters provided validation: "There's a gray area and that's really touchy and I really didn't know where to go with that one."
"Infanticide Lady" - really? Again, the video looks edited but I can't say for sure. But if it was, forget pretty slick - how bout pretty disgusting?
BTW, I'm a card carrying member of the ACLU and proud of it!