Barney Frank appeared on The O’Reilly Factor last night to rebut Bill O’Reilly’s attacks on him in the aftermath of the Boston bombings. You may recall that two nights after the bombings, O’Reilly spent three segments attacking Frank for having politicized the attacks. Or, to put it another way, playing the victim so that he, O’Reilly, could use that as an excuse to smear Frank for political gain. O’Reilly was deliberately vicious, saying at one point that he and Dennis Miller should go to Frank’s house, drag him outside and humiliate him. But tonight, in a face-to-face confrontation with Frank, O’Reilly insisted his only interest was in Americans “coming together.” And Frank mostly let him get away with it. 

In a giant act of the pot calling the kettle black, O’Reilly accused Frank of being polarizing. O’Reilly said, “In a time like this in Boston, and you’re from Boston, I wanted to see – and I called for on the air – all Americans to come together. Alright? Not only to support the grieving families but also to show the world that we’re a united front and you’re not gonna come in here to our house and intimidate us. By your rhetoric, by your rhetoric, you’re dividing people 24 hours after, when I think we should have all, all of us in the public eye, been trying to unite people.”

At first, I was hopeful Frank would nail O’Reilly when he pointed out that O’Reilly had turned political, himself, pretty quickly and then dryly noting, “I didn’t know you were opposed to polarizing. I couldn’t tell that from watching your show much of the time.”

But really, the kind of rank polarizing ad hate mongering O’Reilly has been ginning up – and is part of a larger, similar scenario at Fox News - needs to be called out loud, clear and with an absolute refusal to condone it in any way. To do otherwise – and then not shine an unflinching spotlight on O’Reilly’s ridiculously dishonest claim to want to be a uniter, not a divider – just lets him get away with what he surely knows is pure baloney designed to avoid responsibility for his own divisiveness. You know, the kind of tactic he savagely attacked the mother of the bombing suspects for the previous night. And the kind of “gibberish about deadly terrorism” he has promised to go on a jihad against.

In a bullyboy voice, O’Reilly lectured Frank for having “cast aspersions on those people who want smaller government and lower taxes.” As if casting aspersions is not the Fox News stock in trade. Yet, Frank let it go.

Frank further helped O’Reilly’s agenda by agreeing he thought President Obama should have called the Boston bombings Islamic terrorism. “These were people inspired by Islamic terrorism. I think people ought to be very clear about that. And I think that’s a legitimate public policy debate to have,” Frank said.

But Frank should know that Fox doesn’t give a fig about legitimate public policy debates! Had President Obama called it “Islamic terror,” they’d have complained he jumped the gun. Or didn’t say it soon enough. Or something. Because Fox is a political machine 24/7 under cover of a news operation.

Even worse, Frank let O’Reilly press him on why President Obama didn’t say it. Does Frank really think it matters what President Obama calls it? Or, more importantly, that O’Reilly in his heart of hearts (assuming he has one) thinks it matters? Come on! This network is spewing poison during a vulnerable time for our country and Frank is sitting there pretending to have an adult political argument with a guy who seems to think that the most important aspect, and the only worth discussing, to fighting a war on terror depends on what words you use to describe it!

“I don’t think it’s dividing the country” to have that argument, Frank said.