Apparently, Jon Stewart struck quite the nerve last week when he skewered Bill O’Reilly and other Fox News talking heads for their racist, race-baiting coverage of the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and the protests that followed. Last night, the empire struck back in the form of Papa Bear O’Reilly. And, of all things, he complained about Stewart’s partisanship. Yes, he did.
O’Reilly saved his attack on Stewart for the “Tip of the Day” segment near the end of each O'Reilly Factor show. But this “tip” would probably have been more appropriately titled, “Fox News Orwellian Doublespeak of the Day.”
Heather, at Crooks and Liars, noted that the segment showed only “a tiny portion of Stewart’s segment from last week which only featured O’Reilly and not (Stewart’s) criticisms of Fox in general and the fact that he went after at least a half dozen or more of the talking heads on his network.” And yet O'Reilly had the conservative-victim gall to complain about Stewart's supposed distortions.
O’Reilly claimed that Stewart “mocked me for coming back from vacation” in order to sound off about Ferguson. In fact, Stewart mocked O’Reilly for coming back from vacation to sound off about the media coverage of Ferguson and not because of outrage over Brown’s death, the militarization of the police, etc. To prove his sympathies for African Americans, O’Reilly played some clips of the (very brief) moments when he expressed sympathy for the Brown family. And, of course, left out the parts where he ranted far more passionately against “race hustlers.”
OK, that’s the kind of thing we expect from Fox and – sorry, Bill – O’Reilly. But then came this unintentionally hilarious tidbit:
So here is The Factor Tip of the Day:
When you hear something on a partisan-driven program, do not believe it… Distortions are how some people make a living.
Stewart’s going for the laugh. He doesn’t really care if it’s true or not. And his audience watching me – they don’t know, yuk, yuk, yuk.
Yuk, yuk, yuk, indeed!
Watch the irony below, via Crooks and Liars. You can watch O'Reilly's vacation-cut-short rant here and Jon Stewart's epic response here.
BOR: “I came back from vacation because I am furious. Furious about how the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown is being reported and how various people are reacting to it.”
THAT is why you came back so please don’t attempt to convince us that it was because you were irate about the shooting or that you were taken out of context.
And throwing in a bit of “what happened to Michael Brown should never happen to any American” doesn’t change the fact that you were MORE furious about the coverage/reactions than you were about a young man being shot dead in the street, you black-hearted a$$hole.
Score:
Stewart – 1
BOR – 0 (with whining and distortion)
’Nuff said.
