The O’Reilly Factor used Martin Luther King Day once again last night to portray whites as victims of blacks. I’ve already posted about three other segments in which Bill O’Reilly played the white victim last night. In this one, the context was the Republican efforts to impose voter ID laws. O’Reilly forbid his guests, Monica Crowley and Alan Colmes, from debating such laws and insisted the discussion stick to the Obama administration’s decision to block the one in South Carolina on the grounds that it violated the Voting Rights Act. In other words, he laid the groundwork for another opportunity to race bait - and Crowley seized it without objection from O'Reilly.
Crowley had yet another outlandish conspiracy theory for Fox viewers: that the Obama administration's opposition to the SC law is an effort to commit or enable voter fraud. But after dropping that unsubstantiated bombshell (that even O’Reilly couldn’t swallow), Crowley became oh-so-offended at Colmes’ “outrageous” claim that voter ID laws are an attempt to stop Democratic voters. Never mind that it has been proven that voter ID laws negatively impact minority voters the hardest.
Like O’Reilly elsewhere in the show last night, Crowley’s main interest in MLK Day seemed to be the ways in which it’s unfair to people like her. She found it offensive, she said, that Democrats would complain about Republicans holding a debate on Martin Luther King Day. She was referring to an earlier MLK-Day-For-White-People segment in which Democrat Dick Harpootlian had tried to explain to an uninterested O'Reilly why he had been offended at the behavior of Republican candidates on MLK Day. Crowley didn’t even notice (and O'Reilly didn't correct her) that Harpootlian had explicitly stated he had not objected to the debate being held on that day but to the general lack of outreach to the black community made by the candidates.
But, Crowley was ready to find yet another conspiracy theory here. “I tell you, we’re going to see more of this because this is a not-so-subtle playing of the race card and for Democrats to be doing that on Martin Luther King Day is beyond the pale.”
Colmes, apparently, missed the Harpootlian interview, because he allowed himself to be co-opted into saying he had no problem with the debate being held on Martin Luther King Day – despite the fact that Harpootlian didn’t either.
Nevertheless, O’Reilly demanded that Colmes answer whether or not “it was smart” of Harpootlian to make the argument (the one he didn’t really make). Why ask such a question, unless to paint a Democrat as race baiting?
Crowley, on the other hand was actually race baiting right there on the set, and yet O’Reilly didn’t care a fig. She said, “But I think the bigger point is, you’re going to see more of this. Not coming from Barack Obama, himself, coming from other members of the Democrat Party, other people on the left… not so subtly playing the race card… Remember the New Black Panther Party with the voter intimidation case, in Philadelphia which Eric Holder and Barack Obama’s Justice Department dropped. Again, it’s tied into (unintelligible).”
Of course, Fox News’ phony New Black Panther “controversy” has been discredited. But O’Reilly either didn’t know or didn’t care. Nor did he object to THAT race baiting. In fact, when Colmes challenged her assertions, O’Reilly jumped in to take Crowley’s side of the argument.
My personal fav is the one where people who talk about the Fox & Friends broadcast has to be lying because Sanita Jackson was on there.
So… Star Parker is no longer a self-hating racist who made comments like emancipation destroyed the family? Alveda King is no longer a hatemonger who said gay rights were a prelude to genocide, pals with Glenn “black people were happiest as slaves” Beck and attacked groups who are trying to help third-world countries?
There was no racism- politically or personally charged- in the rest of the show?
Sorry, I should have commented this on Em’s article… but it just flowed out here.
Things got decidedly worse in the Colmes/Crowley debate.
That started with a discussion of Voter ID, where Crowley made the outrageous assertion that the Dems intend to commit voter fraud as an electoral strategy without any objection from OâReilly. When Colmes brought up the fact that voter fraud is an insignificant problem, and that this ID balloon is really about intimidating poor and minority voters from the polls before they can vote for Dems, THEN OâReilly steps in and tells Colmes heâs out of line. And Crowley is allowed an additional shot to tell Colmes his statement is outrageous â the irony of which was quite thick.
Then they moved on to discussion of the Harpootlian interview, for which OâReilly gloated about having nailed him. Colmes attempted to make the point that Harpootlian had fumbled but couldnât get past the filibustering from OâReilly, who only wanted to hear a yes/no about whether it was smart of Harpootlian to say there shouldnât be a debate on MLK Day in light of 2008. Colmes eventually backed down in light of the filibustering and both OâReilly and Crowley telling him to calm down.
Finally, they brought up the old canard of the Black Panther/Christian Adams mess in Philadelphia, with Crowley once again accusing the Obama Justice people of dropping the case. Colmes then tried to correct the record for what must be the umpteenth time, and as they talked over each other, he reminded her that most of this happened under the Bush Department and that no complaints were ever filed in the case. OâReilly and Crowley once again told Colmes to calm down and used semantics to maintain their case. Colmes by this point really did look frustrated, possibly from ending the segment with this kind of âWhack a Moleâ discussion.
OâReilly must have been in some kind of mood last night, since he also took the time during his Brit Hume discussion to bring up the whole Kennedy Family bootlegger story as a way of dismissing the familyâs fortune. At several points during this, Hume was laughing as well, possibly out of nervousness or perhaps because he agreed.
All said, this was a pretty shocking hour of television.
