The Fox News Hypocrisy And Hate Mongering Meter may have gone off the dial tonight as Bill O’Reilly smeared Vox.com’s Amanda Taub, who dared to criticize American Sniper, by saying she “may even be a terrorist sympathizer.”
I haven’t written about this yet (though more’s coming), but Fox has been on a jihad against just about every critic of American Sniper - with special focus on Michael Moore. When the Hannity show did an hour-long special on the film, the screen blared, “Patriotism Under Fire.”
O’Reilly didn’t go there directly. In his Talking Points commentary, he claimed that his criticism of Taub was based on the fact that her review got spread around the internet without some kind of notice that she’s from “crazy, far-left” Vox and “may even be a terrorist sympathizer.”
Where did O’Reilly get that? In some other article, about the Taliban massacre of 132 schoolchildren in Pakistan, “Ms. Taub tried to explain why the Taliban did it.” O’Reilly’s voice was full of disdain and disgust.
He quoted her, saying, “Taliban militants have been killed during the group’s years-long conflict with the Pakistani military. The Pakistani military’s use of bombings and artillery strikes virtually guarantee civilian casualties… It is also plausible that the Taliban believes earnestly that the Pakistani military is deliberately targeting its family members.”
O’Reilly concluded, “So here we have Amanda Taub providing a rationale for the slaughter of 132 innocent schoolchildren. Does it get much worse?”
It’s hard to believe a guy as smart as Bill O’Reilly can’t tell the difference between explaining someone’s point of view and siding with them.
O’Reilly complained that Taub’s article was also posted on other sites, such as Yahoo, without revealing, according to O’Reilly, “who Ms. Taub is or the quality of the organization for whom she works. They just post her disgusting stuff without any context.”
Dial up the hypocrisy meter. Fox News is the king of failing to reveal context! Remember when Fox described Jay Z as a “former crack dealer” as opposed to the widely admired titan he is now? When was the last time you saw guest Bernard Kerik identified as a convicted felon, not just “a former New York City police commissioner and a former NYPD officer who received the New York City Police Department medal for valor?” Or the racist history of “former LAPD detective” Mark Fuhrman – when he’s presented as a neutral expert on racially sensitive cases? To be fair, I can’t recall O’Reilly doing this but he’s living in the same glass house.
O’Reilly further suggested that the Taub "problem" extends to the entire “internet climate” because it presents “information that is false, libelous and distorted in the extreme.” This, less than one week after Fox was forced to issue numerous apologies for its own false and distorted reporting about fictitious Muslim "no-go zones." Furthermore, context-loving O’Reilly never noted that Taub was very critical of Fox in her review. I’d call that relevant context, wouldn’t you?
O’Reilly moved on to suggest that Taub is an actual threat. “There’s danger to the republic,” O’Reilly intoned. How? Because dictators “first control the press.”
For “balance,” O’Reilly brought on a former Huffington Post blogger and Matthew Duss, of the Foundation for Middle East Peace.
But as Duss began defending Taub, O’Reilly started shouting, “Aw, Jesus… You’re a nut! …You can’t read!” Later, O’Reilly said, “No, I won’t let you explain your left-wing propaganda,” when Duss asked to explain another answer.
Ironically, O'Reilly's Tip of the Day later in the same show was, "Strive to be fair."
Watch the Taub segments below, from the January 23 The O’Reilly Factor.
Coming from a guy who tries to bully every media personality and prominent blogger into either having his opinion, or silencing their own.
I can’t wait until Jesse Watters makes this Terkel 2.0, can you?
Ellen
Here’s 3 examples of where BOR deliberately misrepresented his guests to the viewers. No doubt that there are more instances as BOR has a knack for glossing over (or even completely ignoring) the extremism on the right. He most likely gives these passes to those on the right because he agrees with them politically and ideologically. As DKos says, “O’Reilly has a long-standing habit of lowering the bar of what’s acceptable for his side and raising it for what’s acceptable for anybody who disagrees with him.” Spot on, DKos.
BOR and his guest, Linda Chavez of the Center for Equal Opportunity…
“He didn’t mention the political ideology (extreme right wing) of his guest and her organization (funded by the Scaifes and Olins).”
http://www.newshounds.us/2011/09/18/bill_oreilly_supports_right_wing_attack_on_affirmative_action.php
BOR and his guest, Doug Napier of the Alliance Defending Freedom group…
“What O’Reilly omitted from his praise of the ADF for “defending traditional rights” is that the group is “virulently anti-gay,” as the Southern Poverty Law Center put it. ADF has fought against gay rights at every turn and linked homosexuality to pedophilia, even currently working internationally to criminalize homosexuality.
http://www.towleroad.com/2013/12/oreillywoc.html
BOR and his guest, Frank Vandersloot, another virulent anti-gay activist who spreads his money around to support his cause. BOR didn’t tell his viewers anything about what Vandersloot has done such as attacking a newspaper and its reporter who dared to expose a pedophile Boy Scout leader. BOR didn’t say anything about what Vandersloot’s activities other than to say that he is “an honest businessman” and “anti-gay”. Overly simplistic and very misleading in the case of Vandersloot.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/15/1091914/-Bill-O-Reilly-Dems-are-terrorists-for-calling-out-anti-gay-billionaire-bully-Frank-VanderSloot
transcript of BOR and Vandersloot:
http://nation.foxnews.com/frank-vandersloot/2012/05/14/oreilly-accuses-obama-camp-terrorism
Hypocrisy, thy name is FoxNoise.
