Bill O’Reilly loves to accuse African Americans of engaging in a “huge grievance industry” that “peddles victimization.” But that was exactly the kind of self-serving, race-baiting exploitation that O’Reilly engaged in Friday night when he did his best to rile viewers with accusations that President Obama is deliberately exposing Americans to Ebola because he cares too much about Africans.
Just like Fox’s Megyn Kelly turned news out of Ferguson into an excuse to racially attack Attorney General Eric Holder, O’Reilly turned Ebola into an excuse to go after President Obama – with deliberate racial overtones.
In his commentary Friday night, O’Reilly once again ignored the missteps in Texas, didn’t think about ways to make our health care system better, and didn’t point out that his viewers are more likely to die in a plane crash or from a lightning strike than from Ebola. Instead, he deliberately stoked public fears and dishonestly suggested that President Obama is putting everyone at risk.
O'Reilly called his Talking Points “Why the federal government is putting all Americans in danger.” In it, he said:
The Obama administration simply cannot handle the Ebola situation. The airport screenings are a joke. The lack of a West African visa ban is negligence. That’s the truth. But the liberal media, the Obama enablers, will not tell you the truth. Instead we have a “New York Times” editorial today saying, quote “Starting Monday in six states, and rolled out in other states soon after, travelers who visited the Ebola region will be required to report their temperature and any other symptoms to state or local health officials daily for 21 days—the maximum incubation period for the disease to develop. The officials will be responsible for finding and possibly detaining anyone violating these rules.”
…The “Times” continues quote, “The new measures surely make unnecessary a harmful ban on all travelers who have been in the three countries.” Sure. Just ask Dr. Spencer. He went through the screening. It didn’t work. That doesn’t matter to “The New York Times” because the countries involved are poor and largely comprised of black Africans. That’s why the Obama administration and the liberal press do not want a travel ban.
In fact, just yesterday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, explained on Fox (without any refutation) that Dr. Spencer had no symptoms when he re-entered this country and he posed virtually no risk to anyone. But O’Reilly keeps playing a doctor on television who knows better – and Fox News keeps letting him.
O’Reilly wasn’t through suggesting that the reason we’re all in such danger is because President Obama puts African lives over Americans’. O’Reilly also wants you to think Obama gives preference to Muslims and Hispanics, too. And, like any demagogue worth his salt, O’Reilly summoned the pitchforks along with the prejudices:
It is long past time for the American people, you, to rise up and demand the federal government do its job which is to protect us. The feds will not control the borders. They will not confront the ISIS terrorists in an effective way. And now they will not institute simple restrictions against this vicious Ebola virus.
… The longer the Obama administration delays these common sense protections, the angrier you, the American citizen, should get.
From the very beginning of this horrible story, “Talking Points” has called for effective restrictions. Now I’m demanding them. Give your Senators and your Congresspeople an earful. Tell them to do their jobs.
I’ve already contacted a senator and asked him to stand fast, counter and defeat this kind of fear mongering – and to work for real solutions, such as adequate health care for everyone, that will really save American lives.
You can find and contact your elected officials here. You can contact The O’Reilly Factor at [email protected].
Watch O'Reilly's Ebola racial hustle below, from the October 24 The O'Reilly Factor.