As you’d imagine, Fox News is covering the Boston bombings tonight instead of their usual food fights. But their Republican agenda was not completely left behind. With White House reporter Ed Henry on The O’Reilly Factor tonight, Bill O’Reilly announced, “I am gonna have to inject some politics in here, Ed.” Not surprisingly, he had a willing partner in Henry. And O’Reilly signaled very clearly that he is going to bang the Benghazi drum loudly.
O’Reilly said, “There’s pressure on President Obama and I don’t even know whether he knows it because of the fiasco in Libya, which we still don’t know – nobody’s been held accountable for it. That can’t happen in Boston!”
Translation: Fox, or at least O’Reilly, is going to use Benghazi to make a big attack on President Obama in the very near future.
Henry agreed. “Absolutely… That was a terror attack on his watch, this is now another terror attack on his watch.”
Henry took the opportunity to make the useless point that President Obama “did not call it terror” when he spoke of the bombings. Henry then slyly worked in a swipe by saying the following: “They (the White House) know they’re gonna face criticism that he’s not calling it terror when meanwhile, Dianne Feinstein and others – in his own party – are out there on the record tonight, saying it was terror.”
O’Reilly swatted that aside, saying, “That didn’t bother me” and that “the understated presentation” was appropriate. But O’Reilly had his own beef with Obama’s semantics. “I think he made a mistake by calling it a tragedy. I didn’t like that. …This isn’t a tragedy, this is an act of war,” he said.
But when O’Reilly said Obama “has to keep a cool head,” Henry used that as an opening to raise a completely unrelated incident, the BP Oil spill, to bring some more unflattering attention to the president. Referring to President Obama having spoken on the Today show of “kicking people’s butts” over the spill, Henry added gratuitously, “because he realized at that moment that he was losing the public in terms of not showing that he cared.” Right, because that’s just so analogous to the aftermath of a bombing. Finally agreeing with O’Reilly that Obama wants to be “the coolest guy in the room,” Henry said, “Sometimes that works, other times it might not.”
Later, O’Reilly brought up Libya again, this time explicitly saying he was “laying the groundwork” for the “reportage” for the rest of the week. O’Reilly said it would be “fascinating” to see how, on the one hand, the FBI will be tight-lipped about the investigation while the public will “demand quick answers.” O’Reilly added, “So the president, again referencing Libya, is between a rock and a hard place here.”
Henry saw his cue and took it. “He is, because in terms of the Libya investigation, months and months have passed without the U.S. being able to crack that case.” He unnecessarily mentioned that it took the FBI “days, maybe weeks” to get to Libya - as if that were at all comparable to their presence in Boston. Especially since the FBI is already in Boston and taking the lead in the investigation.
Henry concluded by promising that he would push hard against the White House tomorrow during the press briefing despite the sensitivity of the matter.
Note: As I wrote in an earlier post, it was only a matter of time until Fox found a way to use this incident against President Obama. However, I may have seemed insensitive in my wording. So I apologize for having offended anyone and I have decided to remove the post. Sadly, however, I was right in my overall conclusion.
Billy is bringing up Benghazi because his colleague foe, High End Hannocchio is bringing up Benghazi too. It’s the battle of ratings between these two Irish volcanoes.
If Billy wants to discuss war, we can begin with the GOP Civil War that is destroying the RNC.
Better yet — how will he feel if this turns out to be the work of some rogue IRA cell? {Remember, the IRA had sympathizers in the Boston gangs of the 60s and 70s.}
As the IRA isn’t, by definition, either Muslim or brown-skinned, I have a feeling BillO would backtrack from the “terrorist” angle real quick in that case . . .
Now, granted, I don’t remember if O’Reilly and his shit-flinging lunatic brigade described Tim McVeigh’s operation as “an act of war” or Eric Rudolph’s little spree as “an act of war” but somehow I don’t think right-wing terrorist actions qualify as “acts of war” to the FoxNoise lunatics.
Of course not! McVeigh’s and Rudolph’s actions were the acts of “patriots standing up to the tyrannical federal government” . . .
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John Gibson hosts Stu Bykofsky to defend “we need another 9/11” column
http://www.newshounds.us/2007/08/10/john_gibson_hosts_stu_bykofsky_to_defend_we_need_another_911_column.php
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(edited by moderator for truth)
Or when that dude set fire to a Mosque and said that his opinion of Muslims was based on Fox News, they wanted us to blame it on the beer.
They should make an episode of Criminal Minds based on a Fox News hosts. Most of the writers for that show have degrees in forensic psychiatry, it’d be interesting to see how close they come.
Reality check: One thing a lot of the better crime dramas get right is the way law enforcement stages their press conferences regarding high profile crimes. They very carefully craft it to fit three criteria:
1) Avoid new panic, while minimizing the panic that already exists.
2) Eliminate the press as a middle man, so that the people hear it from the law and electorate directly, therefore controlling leaks and “liberties.”
3) Use language that manipulates the offender, according to the best educated guess of how doing so could help the investigators.
To me, it’s worth noting that Fox News bites the bait on downplay tactics, every time. Think about it… how many times do they not do that?
It’s like their top priority is giving the offender what they want.
Now, granted, I don’t remember if O’Reilly and his shit-flinging lunatic brigade described Tim McVeigh’s operation as “an act of war” or Eric Rudolph’s little spree as “an act of war” but somehow I don’t think right-wing terrorist actions qualify as “acts of war” to the FoxNoise lunatics.