Bill O’Reilly got called out by the Denver Post for his “bigoted, fact-challenged” attack on Colorado’s openly gay and Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives for suggesting that his sexuality had something to do with his opposition to a child molestation bill. And, just as he did after getting called out recently for his vicious attack on Alan Colmes, O’Reilly waffled and changed his story.
As you may recall, Bill O’Reilly is on a mission to ram down Jessica’s Law, a law that provides harsh mandatory sentences for child molesters, in every state, whether the state wants it or feels it’s necessary or not and regardless of whether O’Reilly lives there. Recently, O’Reilly picked on Colorado for killing the bill, ignored the reasons why and personally went after the openly gay Speaker of the House for killing it. Then he sent stalker ambusher producer Jesse Watters to berate Ferrandino – even after he explained why the bill was killed.
The Denver Posts’s Curtis Hubbard wrote:
In the interview with Szabo, O’Reilly pondered the reasoning behind the bill’s demise. His only hypothesis was an error-filled declaration that showed all that is wrong with cable punditry.
“Now this Ferrandino” (he pronounced it Fair-nan-dino), “I understand he is the, what, the first openly gay House speaker in Colorado? He was a fervent gay-marriage person. He objected when gay marriage was first tabled because they sent it into the same committee to kill it that he sent Jessica’s law in. All of that true so far of this guy?”
Hubbard later noted: O’Reilly’s fear-mongering should offend all Coloradans. He was saying “gay,” but what he wanted his listeners to hear was “pervert-pedophile.”
Monday night (3/11/13), during his regular segment with Bernard Goldberg, O’Reilly insisted it wasn’t so.
Continuing his personal attacks on Ferrandino, O’Reilly accused him of having done “everything” to “sabotage” Jessica’s Law. For good measure, O’Reilly sneered that Ferrandino “looked like a complete fool” in the interview with Watters.
O’Reilly argued:
We described the speaker as “openly gay” because Americans don’t know who he is and that description is used in almost every article ever written about him. And the reason we brought up civil unions is because Ferrandino objected to that vote being sabotaged by Republicans a few years ago, then he turned around and used the same technique to table Jessica’s Law.
After saying he supports civil unions, O’Reilly said he brought up Ferrandino’s sexuality “to put into perspective who he is. People don’t know who that guy is. So I had to tell people.”
Yeah, just like O’Reilly “had to” tell people Alan Colmes was lying.
So would O’Reilly feel it necessary to “tell people” “who that guy is” if he were heterosexual? Goldberg didn’t go there but he thought O’Reilly was wrong to bring up Ferrandino’s sexuality – but only because it gave “ammunition” to the left to attack.
O’Reilly later said:
It matters that he is openly gay because he did the same thing to Jessica’s Law that he objected to on the civil unions situation… You have to basically get behind the motivation of the man, and his motivation is very narrow. He’s got only a couple of things he wants to do in there that he feels passionate about, but the kids apparently he doesn’t feel passionately about because he sabotaged it. And that’s all. I’m trying to put the man in some kind of perspective.
Sorry, Bill, that may have been what you meant but it’s not what you actually said. Let’s revisit.
In the first discussion about Ferrandino’s decision to kill the bill, O’Reilly asked a Republican Colorado representative, “Why don’t they want to protect the chidren?” Suggesting that’s the motivation. O’Reilly then vowed to find out why, despite Ferrandino’s refusal to come on the program. O’Reilly said menacingly, “His life is gonna take a turn for the worse. I’m gonna hold this guy, Ferrandino, personally responsible.”
That, alone, suggests some kind of hate above and beyond a rational disagreement over someone’s legislative activities. But wait, there’s more. Ferrandino actually explained why he killed the bill when Watters ambushed and asked him:
The DA’s actually have opposed Jessica’s law, so have victims rights groups in Colorado. In 2009, the D.A.s came out in opposition to the bill. They haven’t supported it still. But we have very strong laws.
Rather than refute those facts (probably because he couldn’t), Watters interrupted and started berating Ferrandino by saying, “You actually don’t have strong laws” and giving snippets of information about cases he refused to provide further details about. So of course, Ferrandino couldn't respond.
By the way, let’s mention how ironic it is for Watters to have developed this deep concern for law and order given that Fox Nation – which he edits – is such a cesspool of threats to the president and others that we have repeatedly reported them to the Secret Service.
But to get back to Ferrandino, The O'Reilly Factor repeatedly suggested that it was his morals (or lack thereof) that drove his decision to kill the bill – while ignoring and dismissing Ferrandino’s own stated reasons. Those reasons, the lack of support from prosecutors and victims' rights groups were affirmed in the Denver Post article and never addressed by the O'Reilly Factor. The "no spin zone" was too intent on assassinating Ferrandino's character. And the only part of Ferrandino’s character that O’Reilly pointed to was his open homosexuality. Maybe O’Reilly didn’t mean to connect the dots but he all but traced the lines for his viewers.
O’Reilly’s demonization of Ferrandino was even more explicit after the Watters ambush, when he brought in, of all people, Colorado talk show host Michael Brown, aka “Heckuva job, Brownie,” the ex-FEMA director for George W. Bush. O’Reilly said:
He (Ferrandino) put it into a committee that he knew was going to kill it, yet the same guy that you are looking at, he’s with gay marriage, he’s a big gay marriage guy. He’s big marijuana legalizer. There he is.
And when I worked in Colorado more than 30 years ago Jessica’s Law would have passed like that when I was there. It wouldn’t even have been close, alright? But now, as you said, you have this influx of people from the outside who want to impose a secular paradise much like they have in Boulder, Colorado where the university is. And that’s infected the entire state.
There’s no question but that O’Reilly wasn’t just talking about Ferrandino’s sexuality as a point of hypocrisy but as part of an effort to denigrate.
O’Reilly also baselessly accused the Post of “working together” with the Democratic Party because, apparently, they both accused O’Reilly of bigotry. Because, obviously, it couldn't be an obvious conclusion that many would arrive at.
Hubbard is going to be on The Factor tonight. Stay tuned.
And, in other late-breaking news, it was finally learned that water IS, indeed, wet and that the sun IS really a great big nuclear furnace. Or, to put it another way, just business as usual in the hypocritical lying world of Bill O’Reilly.