Paging Dr. Ablow, paging Dr. Ablow. In what seems to be a leap from garden variety cognitive dissonance, Bill O'Reilly now seems to have a serious dissociative personality disorder. O'Reilly, whose ratings seem to be directly proportional to the intensity of his personal attacks, couched in what could be considered "hate speech," is now urging "the folks" to "reject and shun those who spew hate." WTF??????????
During his "Talking Points Memo," about "hate speech and the IRS scandal," O'Reilly expressed appropriate concern about the hatred being spewed on talk radio which, of course, is spewed from right wing talkers but whatever...Bill, whose past anti-choice commentary has, IMHO, demonstrated a nasty streak of misogyny, spoke of how Facebook is having a problem dealing with comments that encourage domestic violence and rape.
He jumped to the so-called IRS "scandal" in which conservative groups were held to what they feel was unfair scrutiny. O'Reilly proclaimed that the IRS "abused the Tea Party and other conservative entities" because "some people inside the IRS apparently hate conservatives and want to hurt them." And of course his barcalounger brigade, who want the government out of their Medicare, have even more reason to hate the IRS when the reality is that this "targeting" could have been efforts by low level IRS staff to effectively sort through the abundance of applications for tax exemptions filed by conservative groups since 2010. The facts of the matter still haven't been resolved so to say that "some people at the IRS hate conservatives and want to hurt them" is both unfounded and presumptuous.
O'Reilly then described two kinds of hatred, "the internal kind which all of us struggle with and the actual demonstration of malice, trying to hurt other people because you hate them" and claimed that the latter is on the rise in the US. He noted that Facebook has issued a statement in opposition to hate speech defined as "direct and serious attacks on any protected category of people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or disease." For O'Reilly, this isn't enough as he then asked if that means that those who don't fit this definition will be able to be smeared. After saying that this is "wrong" he asserted that hate speech is easy to identify because - ready for it - "IT IS BASED ON PERSONAL ATTACKS DESIGNED TO INJURE."
But there's more - "The sad fact is there is an audience for that but in a noble country, hate speech and those who traffic in it should be rejected and shunned. And in a just country, the abuse of federal power to punish conservatives or anybody else should be a crime."
So has Bill O'Reilly had a "road to Damascus" conversion or is it something that reflects a serious personality disorder? At the least, he does seem to lack self-awareness. By his definition, he should be rejected for numerous personal attacks on people with whom he doesn't agree. His jihad against the murdered abortion provider, Dr. George Tiller serves as, perhaps, the penultimate example of Bill demonstrating malice and trying to hurt someone. While O'Reilly would claim that he isn't trying to cause injury, he'd have to be pretty stupid (and he is not) not to realize that the victims of his fatwas will be harassed. Prior to this Facebook situation, I don't remember O'Reilly being concerned about domestic violence and sexual assault. Has he spoken out yet about the real scandal of sexual assault in the military? But now that beloved tea party groups who, unmentioned by O'Reilly, got their tax exempt status, were supposedly being targeted, he's against hate speech. Rather than a "road to Damascus" O'Reilly is on the road to nowhere!
O’Reilly once pointed out on his radio program, years ago, that of his 10 producers, 8 of them were Liberals and the other 2 he didn’t know what they were. Can anyone believe that considering that the vast majority(IMO, over 95%) of his segments are Liberal bashing. I doubt very much that all those Liberal producers would be getting there segments right from Newsmax, WorldNetdaily, Media Research Center, and all the other far-right media sources that O’Reilly is using.
If O’Reilly would lie about something that is so easily refuted, why would anyone, even right-wingers, believe ANYTHING that man would say?
Yep, BOR absolutely hates Colmes political leanings and, unfortunately for BOR, his repugnant behavior towards Colmes ruins his claim of being “fair & balanced” and “non-ideological”. All one has to do is watch/listen to how he treats and speaks to/speaks of liberals on his show to see that he is not what he claims to be. And BOR’s excuse that he had to act like that towards Colmes because he wasn’t answering his questions is a load of hogwash. Colmes was answering questions. BOR just didn’t like his answers so he resorted to the dirty trick of moving the goalposts on Colmes (which only served to highlight BOR’s dishonesty).
BOR doesn’t hesitate to repeatedly interrupt, yell at, jab fingers at and just act in an overall disrespectful manner to many of his liberal guests. And even when a liberal isn’t actually sitting there with him, he still takes pot shots at them by saying things nasty things about them or how he wants to take them out and “trash” them (Juan Williams) often under guise it just being a joke. BOR doesn’t make disrespectful, disparaging “jokes” about his conservative guests or GOP politicians. Back when he had his stooopid “Pinheads & Patriots” segment, he rarely offered up the Pinhead award to conservative idiots (despite there being plenty of pinheady behavior on the right) but seemed to have no problem finding a liberal to hang the label on.
One of BOR’s major problems is that he deliberately overlooks conservative idiocy, bad/invasive/unconstitutional policy, bogus arguments and flat-out lies in order to place constant focus on what he perceives to be wrong with liberals. Too bad BOR just can’t bring himself to rake conservatives over the coals for their bullish!t like he does libs because there’s plenty of it on the right that deserves to be pointed out. BOR doesn’t do it because he agrees with them on an ideological basis and, thus, doesn’t want to do harm to them by offering up the same harsh criticism that he levels at liberals and/or BOR is too cowardly to stand up to the GOP political machine ingrained at FOX “news”.
I think you could argue that Political affiliation could be included in that list, albeit a lesser form of hatred. Just ask Alan Colmes. O’Reilly probably doesn’t hate Colmes, but he certainly hates everything that Colmes believes regarding his political leanings. No question about it, O’Reilly has come unglued since his wife decided that the money wasn’t worth the humiliation of staying with that pig.
Fifty years ago I was in a geography class in Florida where the teacher gave us an outline map of the USA and asked us to fill in the names of the states and their capitals. The fourth time he gave us that map, there were still 2 or 3 students who didn’t even get Florida right. Yes, Florida.
I’m more in the camp that he is has deep issues with self-awareness/the ability to be honest with himself and others about the kind of person he is. The guy has a bad temper, a mean streak and a retaliatory nature which has often caused him to make considerable use of what he now qualifies as hate speech. Sorry, BOR, but your rant reeks of disingenuousness. If you would recount for the folks some of the hateful things you’ve said and apologize for them, I would reconsider my conclusion (but I’m not holding my breath).
BOR’s refusal to call out the vileness/hatred spewed at the left on his own network and at FOX Nation shows that he is not actually interested in curbing hate speech. While BOR may claim he wants all the hate speech to stop, from his own past hateful words directed at those on the left and his defense of hatefulness from right (such as Allen West), it’s clear that he is far more interested in calling out hate speech directed at conservatives.
http://thinkprogress.org/media/2011/07/22/276489/bill-oreilly-defends-allen-west/?mobile=wt
http://mediamatters.org/research/2006/02/27/oreilly-i-dont-do-personal-attacks-here/134965
