Yesterday, I posted about how Bill O’Reilly used a prison scandal in Baltimore, MD as a thinly-disguised vehicle to go after potential 2016 presidential candidate Martin O’Malley. Last night, O’Reilly used his mail segment of The O’Reilly Factor to continue the effort.
As I wrote in my post on O’Reilly’s “Factor Follow-up” report, “The story of the Baltimore detention center, taken over by the state of Maryland is, in fact, a big one. But O’Reilly glided over most of the details and deliberately made it more about Governor Martin O’Malley than the prison.” Last night, O’Reilly again used the story to take swipes at O’Malley. Twice.
First email:
Mr. O, thank you and Jesse Watters for exposing the outrageous events at the Baltimore City Detention Center. The arrogance of Governor O’Malley is something we’ve been living with for years.
Second email:
Ever since I moved to Maryland, I’ve been shocked by the lack of leadership here. When will things change, Bill?
Notice how there’s more about O’Malley and/or “leadership” than there is about the jail? That’s exactly what Bill O’Reilly did in his “report” the night before. So it’s no wonder his viewers responded in kind.
But “no spin zone” O’Reilly’s response to the second email made his politicking even more explicit.
Things will change when voters begin electing folks independently and not by party affiliation.
As I noted in another post about O’Reilly’s use of emails to promote his political agenda, O’Reilly gets about 4,000 emails a day. According to his website, they are sorted for him before he makes the final decision about which ones to read on the air. Plus, they are undoubtedly edited for “pithiness,” as O’Reilly likes to advocate.
So why highlight those particular statements, if not to deliberately malign O’Malley?
What Bildo really sez: “The white patriarchal society of the 1950s will return in its Leave-it-to-Beaver glory when black voters and brown voters swallow my bullshit and vote GOPiggy.”