In case you missed it, Fox Newsies could not stop clutching their pearls over the news that Al Gore's Current TV had been sold to Al Jazeera. Supposedly this just verifies their accusations that Gore is Un-American (or else he wouldn't have sold to that America-hating network) and a hypocrite because a) Al Jazeera is based in oil-rich Qatar and b) he reportedly tried to close the deal by the end of the year in order to save tax money.
The "controversy" was all over Fox yesterday. It was deemed so significant that Papa Bear Bill O'Reilly used it as the Talking Points commentary that opens his show. In other words, the most important news of the day.
"Is Al Gore a hypocrite?" Bill O'Reilly "asked" in his opening. As if you even needed to know what was coming to know what the answer would surely be.
While Fox News never tires of accusing the left of class warfare, O'Reilly began by saying that Gore was born "with a silver spoon in his mouth" and "maybe, maybe it should have stayed there." A classy way of referring to a former Vice President, eh?
O'Reilly went on to say that with "all the comforts," Gore "became a champion of the left, cashing in big time on the global warming issue." Well, if anyone should know about cashing in on a cause it's Bill O'Reilly. If only Gore had fought the War on Christmas instead, he'd be a Fox News hero!
O'Reilly went on to sneer that Gore and his partners reportedly "wanted to close the deal last week to avoid the higher capital gains tax this year." Thinking he had a big gotcha, O'Reilly played a clip of Gore saying two months ago that he supported higher taxes for the wealthy.
It strikes me as quite likely that Gore could have had legitimate reasons for doing this. For one, maybe his partners wanted to dodge the tax hike and he went along. For another, perhaps Gore owned Current as part of some entity that was going to pay higher taxes. Thirdly, for all we know, Gore already pays a higher rate of taxes. But O'Reilly didn't bother to do any investigation. Why ruin a good smear with facts?
But even if the entire intent was to lower Gore's tax bill, that doesn't make him a hypocrite. Gore is in a high income group who supports higher taxes on the wealthy. It's not as if this one deal is going to put him in a low-income tax bracket.
"And it even gets worse," O'Reilly said with a malicious smile. "Al Gore sold his cable network to - wait for it - Al Jazeera, the anti-American network out of Qatar, which recently ran a documentary sympathetic to Osama Bin Laden." O'Reilly then played clips from that documentary. First, we saw a clip of journalist Robert Fisk (not identified on the screen) saying, "He was very conscious of his appearance, he would touch his kafir and his robe." Someone else, presumably a U.S. official judging from the flag behind him, said, "When he looked me in the eyes and he was answering my questions, he had the tone and manner of an old uncle."
That's sympathetic to Bin Laden? Just because they weren't demonizing him at every turn? People said similar things about serial killers like Ted Bundy, who was described as charming, articulate and intelligent.
"Ah, an old uncle who is a mass murderer," O'Reilly said scornfully. "Now, when you think about it, this is really stunning."
Yes, it is, Bill, but not for the reasons you are making it out to be.
"Talking Points believes Al Gore has shamed himself simply by selling to Al Jazeera... Now, I'm not for censoring Al Jazeera, that's what they do in the Islamic world. We're better than that here. But this is just sleazy, Al. This is disgraceful."
Better than that? You mean instead of censoring you demonize non-stop? Why don't you ask the family of Dr. George Tiller, whom you referred to over and over as "baby killer" until he was murdered, about how you are "better" than a censor? Or the upstate New York paper which dared to print the names and addresses of gun owners in the vicinity, a recent target of yours and Fox, which now has to have armed guards as a result of the ensuing death threats? Or Sandra Fluke whom you made out as some kind of slut after she had the audacity to advocate on behalf of birth control coverage in health insurance plans?
O'Reilly claimed that Gore would not come on The Factor - and he's probably right about that, but not for the reasons O'Reilly said: "Because we have problems with hypocrites in the No Spin Zone and Al well knows it."
I'm one who believes that Democrats should go on Fox - when they can confront the agenda. So there's nothing I'd like better than to see Gore go on "I'll retire and quit investing if my taxes go up" O'Reilly and blast him.
Because no matter how much red, white and blue gets waved on Fox News sets, it's hard to think of any network that spews more hatred towards its fellow Americans than the birther-loving, liberal-smearing, race-baiting, anti-Democratic Fox News. So for Bill O'Reilly to stand there and make the focus of his show an attack against a former vice president for making a business deal with his TV network - and then accuse anyone else of hostility toward America is about as hypocritical as you can get.