Geraldo Rivera was on The O’Reilly Factor last night where he continued to blame Trayvon Martin’s hoodie for his death. Bill O’Reilly at first acted as though he were merely probing Rivera’s thoughts and why they caused such an uproar after he brought up the subject in both a Fox Latino column and on Fox & Friends earlier in the day. But soon O’Reilly made it clear he was in solidarity with Rivera because O’Reilly, too, had been misunderstood over his comments about the way a rape and murder victim had dressed – comments that O’Reilly now refashioned.

Rivera objected to any interpretations that he blames Martin. No, Siree, Rivera blames the way Martin dressed. In fact, Rivera could hardly wait to make the point. The segment began with a discussion of minorities being stopped and searched by New York City police. Rather than question what is reasonable suspicion upon which to base a search, Rivera suggested that dressing a certain way is a legitimate reason to be searched.

I’m telling you, half of it is the way young men look. What is a reasonable suspicion? It’s based on a subjective judgment. If a cop looks at three kids on the corner and they’ve got those hoodies up – and this is where I got in trouble with the Trayvon Martin case. If they’ve got those hoodies up, and they’re hanging out on the corner, the cops look at them and say, ‘Hmm, hoodies. Who else wears hoodies?’ Everybody that ever stuck up a convenience store, D.B. Cooper, the guy that hijacked the plane…the Unabomber – who wears these hoodies?

Of course, plenty of people wear hoodies who are not criminals. News Hound Alex unearthed a nice cache of photos of Rivera himself wearing hoodies – and yes, the hood was up in several photos.

O’Reilly brought up the Martin case directly. “So what you did on Fox & Friends this morning was that you said that your children – you would tell them …not to wear certain clothing because it attracts attention from not only law enforcement but maybe some other bad guys and that this Trayvon Martin who we talked about in the Talking Points Memo had this hood on, right, and that’s – you think might have attracted the attention of this shooter, Zimmerman.

Rivera answered, “My thesis is, parents don’t let your kids go out wearing these damn hoodies because they could attract the attention, not only of the cops, but of nut jobs, apparently, like this George Zimmerman. And when they see and respond, it is a stereotype, it is repugnant, it is all the things that offend us, but it is real life. It is reality.”

One of the disturbing facets of Rivera’s “crusade” is that nobody really knows what happened yet. I’m not sure we even know how Trayvon Martin was dressed beyond the hoodie. Nor do we know the actual impetus that led shooter George Zimmerman to shoot. And yet, here’s Rivera ready to lead the charge over an item of clothing he has declared was “as much responsible” for Martin’s death as Zimmerman. And it just happens to be an item of clothing favored by young minorities. At a time when the African American community – along with much of the rest of the country – is feeling acutely sensitive about the subject of race. Who, outside of white Fox viewers, does Rivera think he’d be reaching with this kind of talk right now?

“So why are people getting mad at you?” O’Reilly asked. Which showed that he was either clueless or feigning ignorance.

“Because they feel I’m blaming the victim for his own demise and I am not,” Rivera insisted.

“I hate this because I have so much in common with Geraldo, who is a loon,” O’Reilly joked. He went on to compare Rivera's situation to the outcry that occurred after he suggested that provocative clothing worn by a rape and murder victim incited the attack.

“This is exactly what happened to me,” O’Reilly said, when he discussed the murder some years ago of a young girl from New Jersey, “wandering around the meat packing district, by herself with no shoes on. And I said, ‘That’s not wise. That’s not a good strategy for anyone. If you’re gonna come into the city… get blown out of your mind with alchohol, and wander around at four in the morning, you’re gonna get hurt.’”

Well, that may be what O’Reilly meant at the time but it’s not what he said. What he actually said was:

So anyway, these two girls come in from the suburbs and they get bombed, and their car is towed because they're moronic girls and, you know, they don't have a car. So they're standing there in the middle of the night with no car. And then they separate because they're drunk. They separate, which you never do. All right.

Now Moore, Jennifer Moore, 18, on her way to college. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning. She's walking by herself on the West Side Highway, and she gets picked up by a thug. All right. Now she's out of her mind, drunk.

And the thug takes her over to New Jersey in the cab and kills her and rapes her and does all these terrible things to her.

O’Reilly went on to tell Rivera he wasn’t criticizing the young lady. “I was telling a cautionary tale,” he said, “which is exactly what you’re doing.”

Video below via Mediaite.