While the rest of the world buzzes about the shockingly biased, Obama attack video aired as news on Fox & Friends earlier this week, Bill O’Reilly and Fox News “media critic” Bernard Goldberg somehow missed the story. Instead, last night they went on the attack against Dan Rather – who had the nerve to cancel an appearance on The O’Reilly Factor the same night he appeared on The Daily Show – and accused the media of deliberately working to re-elect President Obama. Besides the obvious case of projection, the unstated suggestion was that Fox was justified in its brazenly anti-Obama video, given his unfair advantage against the discriminated-against Mitt Romney.
“Fair-minded people know that much of the media is actively working to see that Barack Obama is re-elected,” O’Reilly said in his Talking Points commentary that preceded his discussion with Goldberg. “Talking Points believes the media will deliver some votes to Barack Obama next November. And in a tight race? That could be enough.”
When Goldberg came on - after having smeared Rather as “delusional” for saying it’s a myth that there’s a liberal media bias and O’Reilly having boasted that even though Rather is 80, “he still knows that I would have hit him” – Goldberg concurred that the media’s efforts on Obama’s behalf may win him the election.
Apparently, having the top-rated cable station is not enough for these two cry babies. Tellingly, they didn’t say what would be enough. Ideological purity tests for reporters? A balance of conservatives and liberals to match the country’s demographic? Or the same kind of “fair and balanced” news operation found at Fox instituted everywhere else?
Or were they just looking for a way to excuse the blatant bias that had just been exposed – and gushed over by Fox & Friends hosts - that Fox’s EVP laughably blamed on a rogue producer?
A discussion about CBS and (black) Obama is a double whammy.
O’Reilly is clearly trying to prepare a narrative in advance for the election aftermath. In the event that Romney somehow squeaks through, O’Reilly will say that this was the choice of “the folks” and that his own advice of telling Romney to be angry and aggressive (meaning: like O’Reilly) was a big success. In the event that Obama holds his own and gets his 2nd term, O’Reilly will say it was all due to the media being in the tank for Obama, rather than arising from any issues with Romney.