Another week, another Bill O’Reilly meltdown. And another rewriting of history of same. Tonight’s target: Curtis Hubbard, editorial page editor of the Denver Post, who called out O’Reilly’s “fact-challenged, bigoted” attack on Colorado’s openly gay Speaker of the House. Actually, O’Reilly already rewrote the history before the meltdown this time. But he rewrote it again as he also hurled insults such as “you’re a ridiculous person” with “a vile little column.” Unfortunately for O’Reilly, it didn’t seem to rattle Hubbard a bit. In fact, you’d have to say O’Reilly was the one who became unglued.
In case you missed it, this bone of O’Reilly’s contention began with his whether-they-want-it-or-not determination to get “Jessica’s Law,” a law that requires heavy mandatory sentences for child molesters, passed in Colorado. As it turns out, Colorado doesn’t want it. O’Reilly’s reaction was to mount two attacks on the Colorado Speaker of the House, for killing the bill, with suggestions that his homosexuality made him dangerously lenient and/or sympathetic to child molesters. As Hubbard aptly put it in his column, “(O’Reilly) was saying ‘gay,’ but what he wanted his listeners to hear was ‘pervert-pedophile.’”
Just as he did after his attack on Alan Colmes, O’Reilly has already tried to recast his attack on Speaker Mark Ferrandino and then columnist Hubbard as an altruistic effort. Tonight, a large graphic appeared on the screen, saying “PROTECTING KIDS IN COLORADO” as O’Reilly introduced his discussion with Hubbard.
O’REILLY: I described Ferrandino to the audience because the audience doesn’t know who the heck he is and I did it in the context of what his priorities are. His priorities are civil unions… and legalizing marijuana… and he’s a gay marriage proponent, as you know. So, I said, here are Ferrandino’s priorities, here’s what he spends his time on, alright?...
HUBBARD: But Bill, you didn’t introduce them as his priorities. And you can go back and look at the tape. You asked your (Republican) guest why he (Democrat Ferrandino) opposed Jessica’s Law and then you used his sexuality and his support for gay marriage as rationale for why he would oppose Jessica’s Law.
Hubbard is exactly right here. You can watch O’Reilly’s two attacks on Ferrandino here. But O’Reilly denied it. And with the grace and style we have become accustomed to from him, he started wagging his pen into the camera and attacking Hubbard personally. “See, you are ridiculous. You’re a ridiculous person. And a journalist? This is disgraceful.”
Kudos to Hubbard for remaining calm and unruffled throughout. And for staying on message. He stuck to his point: “The question remains, what does Representative Ferrandino’s sexuality have to do with passage of Jessica’s Law?”
Which made O’Reilly lose it: “I already explained that to you. If you can’t grasp it, I can’t help you.” He went on to call Hubbard’s “pervert-pedophile” analysis “a disgrace. It’s a disgrace in any column. It’s a smear. You’re a smear merchant.”
Well, Bill, it takes one to know one.
It seemed the calmer Hubbard remained, the more agitated it made O’Reilly. He finished up the segment with a flurry of finger jabbing and fulmination. “You need to look up Delbert Wallace Stiewert. You need to find out what that man did, what a Colorado judge gave him and then you need to come back on this show and tell me you don’t need Jessica’s Law.”
Hubbard said he knows about the case and is “happy to come back and discuss it with you any time.”
“Alright, very good,” O’Reilly said.
Well, that’s something I would totally look forward to.