Bill O'Reilly can't quit John Edwards
Reported by Chrish - January 24, 2008
Last night 1/23/08 Bill O'Reilly ramped up the indignation about a straw man issue of his creation (Hmm, where have we seen this before?) and misrepresented John Edwards' commetns about homeless veterans, all to hammer the candidate he so publicly hates. It's just gravy for O'Reilly that he's creating yet another faux issue, a distraction that puts him at the center of attention and boosts his all-important ratings.
With video.
In fact, he teased last night that he and Col. David Hunt are working on "a big package for veterans" that they'll reveal in a couple of weeks - just in time for sweeps, how fortuitous!
In the Talking Points Memo O'Reilly played a clip from David Letterman's show, where he and Edwards discussed the feud. Edwards stated that he talked about homeless vets and O'Reilly accused him of exaggerating (see the timeline here) and he and Letterman agreed that O'Reilly has a hard time with the truth. O'Reilly continued to accuse Edwards of exploiting homeless vets for political points, in spite of the earlier clip of Edwards actual remarks, where he merely pointed out that a few are getting very rich in America while there is still poverty and homelessness, including 200,000 US veterans - which is a national disgrace. Support the troops indeed.
Colonel David Hunt and Carrie Lukas of the conservative Independent Women's Forum were guests for the Top Story. Poor Ms. Lukas tried to get a word in edgewise and wanted to make the (ridiculous) point that homelessness among veterans is not a federal issue but should be handled locally by charities, but O'Reilly rudely shouted her down after 45 seconds (out of 6:15) and verbally duked it out with Hunt, who was not answering to O'Reilly's liking.
Hunt is an advocate for homeless vets and seemed to agree with Edwards that this is a disgrace; O'Reilly replied that in theory that's fine but reality is different. Only one person answered the Factor's call to contact them for aid! And that person said economics didn't play into his situation. Could it be the homeless vets are all watching Keith Olbermann instead? Or maybe they don't have teevee and cable under their bridges, ya think??? What a maroon.
O'Reilly wanted to talk about a "cynical politician and a dishonest talk-show host" and wants Hunt to be outraged over the alleged exploitation, not homelessness among vets and what to do about it.
O'Reilly is emphasizing that homelessness is a problem brought on by addiction and mental illness, not economics. This is the straw man argument because John Edwards never said it was, he merely pointed out that there is huge and growing disparity in wealth in this country, and some of our finest and noblest are living on the street while oil companies accumulate obscene profits. He would enact policy changes to address what he sees as a moral wrong. Llike everything (ask Cavuto!) it can all be traced back to money and "Boom! That's a big business story," but O'Reilly has spun this into a whole 'nother story. (Clumsily, I might add, because his hatred of Edwards is so well-known his motives in reporting on him are immediately suspect)
