The O’Reilly Factor sent stalker producer Jesse Watters to mock, smear and fear monger about the large population of Muslims living in Dearborn, Michigan. Must be seen to be believed.
Clearly, Watters was sent to Michigan to do the same kind of hit job on Dearborn that he did on Bennington, Vermont – for which he was so magnificently shredded by a group of high school students. Only this was worse.
O’Reilly set the tone by exclaiming that Dearborn is, “A mecca, pardon the pun, for Muslim Americans. 45% of the population there is of Middle Eastern extraction!”
In Watters’ introduction, he stood in front of a mosque and said that Muslims “control the city council and the police chief is Muslim.” The implication was that this was something to be suspicious about. Arab music played in the background throughout the segment.
In his selectively edited, person-on-the-street interviews, a number of people said they were from Yemen. Watters “joked,” “You gotta be careful of the drone strikes.” Then he smirked. I’m sure the Yemenis thought it was hilarious. Not.
Next came a presumably non-Muslim man, who was asked what he thinks “of all the Muslims here in Dearborn.” The man said, “They’re bad. They’re not friendly. They don’t speak to you.”
When asked what she does for a living, one Muslim woman said, “Middle East financial services,” apparently arranging for transfers of money back and forth. Watters “quipped,” “Sounds suspicious.”
Watters asked various people, “What is Sharia law?” and whether it should be “here in America.” Also, “What do you think is the higher power: the Constitution or Sharia law?”
As it happened, most of the Muslims he spoke to were not the kind of religious fanatics Dr. Ben Carson thinks American Muslims would likely be. The financial services lady didn’t even know what Sharia law is.
But when another woman said that when people hear the word “terrorist,” people “automatically think Muslims,” Watters replied, “There is a reason for that.”
Watters asked another man, “Does the FBI ever come snooping around here?” The man said “we share with them” if they did show up.
Watters asked another, presumably non-Muslim man if he’s ever seen “any suspicious activity.”
“Last year, there was a woman stoned,” the man claimed. “Not too long ago, I read there’s an honor killing because a girl bought condoms. Yeah, that keeps you on edge.”
Watters made no attempt to verify the claim or investigate the details. Instead, he asked a hijab-wearing woman, “Do you wear a burka ever?” She laughed at the ridiculousness of the question.
Watters asked other demeaning questions, such as, “Which way is Mecca?” “Have you ever marched in an anti-terrorism rally? …Maybe you should,” and “Do you like Christmas?”
Some things on Fox still leave me speechless.
Watch it below, from the October 5 The O’Reilly Factor, and let me know what you think.
Did the woman who said she celebrates Christmas also claim to be a Muslim?!
Too bad he didn’t speak with anyone that called out Faux “News” for its Islamaphobic practices and leanings.
Well therein lies the problem… when talking about the Bible and religion, there is very little evidence compared to the mounds of stories that are accepted as fact.
There is also a great deal of evidence that Jesus was one of many Christs… but I guess that ‘evidence’ doesn’t fit your narrative and is therefore not worthy of our time.
Got it.
“Back in the 1950s the late O’Reilly Sr. sent the bratty little Junior O’Reilly outside to irritate the neighbors he didn’t like.”
In other words, neighbors not fortunate enough to “hit the birth lottery” like Junior O’Lielly did.
’Nuff said.
Bill O’Reilly is as disgusting a creature that ever walked the earth, and his protege is just as bad.
So, BOR, how many of the GOP candidates are going to put God’s law and their personal faith above the Constitution? Having grown up in a Southern Baptist church, I was always hearing that the priority list was: God, Family and Country – in that order. Using BOR’s and Watters’ way of thinking with regards to Muslims, why should any candidate who declares themselves to be a true, devout Christian be considered for the job of President? I mean, if there’s a chance that he/she would put their personal Christian beliefs and God’s law before the Constitution and the protected rights therein should a conflict of interest arise (such as the rights of gays to marry), shouldn’t they be challenged the same way BOR wanted Watters to challenge Muslims?
If BOR were truly fair & balanced like he claims he is, then Watters should be ambushing Christians on the street with the very same question. And BOR would be putting that same question to the GOP Presidential candidates who wear their Christianity on their sleeves. Hey, BOR, why don’t you start by asking that exact same question to Huckabee, Carson, Santorum, Cruz and Jindal? I’d like to see someone with a bigger voice than I take this up and directly challenge BOR to ask each of the GOP candidates that same question (and don’t let them answer it with a bunch of spin and warped logic). The SCOTUS has sent forth a ruling saying that gays have the same right to be married as straight people and if a Presidential candidate is unwilling to uphold that, then they just disqualified themselves for the Office of President.
Btw, wouldn’t it be interesting if, when someone see Watters out on one of his ambushes, they would follow him around and record everything that happens during his interviews and post it online? That way the folks will be able to see the complete, unedited interviews before BOR and his staff do their selective editing. And it would be funny if random people would pop into the camera shots and yell out Mackris has O’Reilly’s money! Now THAT would be hysterical because it would render Watters’ work unusable because BOR wouldn’t be able to edit it out since someone else would have the whole thing recorded and could post it online. LOL!
As we’ve seen in the past, these ambushes are often used to attack a person or an entity with whom the very vindictive BOR has a personal beef. Or they are used to titillate his elderly male viewers by showing lots of gratuitous shots of women in tiny bikinis and short, tight skirts. Or, like this one, they are designed to play off of the worst fears of BOR’s old, white, conservative, Christian viewer base.
Yeah, we can see that BOR has a bogus brand of “journalism” and that he advocates for GOP candidates/conservative policies behind his thinly disguised charade of “fair & balanced” but these Watters’ interviews are just completely ridiculous. Gawd, you’d think that even BOR would recognize that these interviews add nothing of quality to his show.
But he apparently chooses to overlook that because he sees these segments as a vehicle for him to make someone else do his dirty work for him. He knows that if he did these type of ambush jobs himself, they would reveal the smirking, juvenile punk he really is (as opposed to the unbiased, senior analyst facade that he has carefully concocted for the folks). By having Watters do this for him, he manages to make his editorial points/tantalize/fear-monger via yellow journalism and visual sensationalism without getting his own hands too sullied.
“I can’t believe anyone listens to this BS.”
Dear Ed: I’m not — and here’s the reason why: FEAR has been Jabba the Ailes’s (i.e. Roger Ailes) trademark ever since he concocted the late Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” in 1968. Mark my words Ed: Ailes has known for decades that FEAR SELLS! That’s the main reason why Faux Spews Channel always posts high ratings, because they ALWAYS tell their viewers ONLY WHAT THEY WANT TO HEAR — NOT THE TRUTH!
Ask
@repandrecarson @keithellison
what their views are on my question.
Would Carson and Ellison vigorously defend
my right to say “Mohammed was of the devil”?
For the record, I believe Mohammed was a false prophet. I can find no evidence to contradict.
