As part of our continuing look at Bill O'Reilly's attacks on Colorado's Democratic and openly gay Speaker of the House, Mark Ferrandino, News Hounds' Priscilla found a jarring snippet in yesterday's Denver Post. It quotes O'Reilly's first guest who went after discussed Ferrandino as saying that her accusation - that Ferrandino voted against "Jessica's Law," which would mandate sentencing for child molesters, because he cares more about the molesters than the victims - were words put in her mouth by Fox News producers.
In her recent appearance on the The O'Reilly Factor, Colorado Republican lawmaker Libby Szabo gave this "explanation" to O'Reilly about why she thought Ferrandino had killed the bill:
“They’d rather protect the victim (sic) than our poor, defenseless children from the predators that are after them.”
But in yesterday's Post, there was the following:
Several days after the show aired, the Denver Post asked Szabo to explain her comment about Ferrandino protecting someone. She said that’s what Fox told her when she did a “pre-interview” with the network prior to the show.
So was Szabo truly coached to accuse Ferrandino of caring more about molesters than victims? If so, that doesn't just completely undercut O'Reilly's dubious contention that he repeatedly mentioned Ferrandino's homosexuality in the context of his voting record - and not to suggest he had any proclivity for perverts - but it means that Fox was so intent on turning Ferrandino into a sexual villain that it put words in the mouth of its own guest.
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