Just a few days after Bill O’Reilly insisted there's a pattern of Christians being “verbally killed” in America, he attacked an African American columnist for making too much of the spate of actual police killings of unarmed African Americans.
You may recall that earlier this week, O’Reilly insisted to colleague John Stossel that while Christians in America are not being killed “yet,” they are being “verbally killed.” Therefore, O’Reilly argued, he “had to bring in the hammer” in order to prevent such outrages as being forced to say “Happy Holidays” to customers instead of “Merry Christmas.”
Also this week, O’Reilly announced it’s “open season” on white men.
But a rash of unarmed African Americans dying at the hands of police? Well, only a racial hustler would think that’s concerning!
In his Talking Points last night, O’Reilly didn’t just disagree with Miami Herald Leonard Pitts for arguing that the shooting death of Walter Scott is part of a pattern that conservatives like O’Reilly, who was cited in Pitts’ column, are trying to ignore. No, O’Reilly decided to smear Pitts in response:
O’REILLY: Pitts has made a career out of exploiting grievance whether it’s legitimate or not. He recently wrote, quote, “Bill O’Reilly of Fox News”—and he’s got the little news in quotes in his column—“has already invoked misleading statistics to assure his audience that there doesn’t seem to be, as some people would you have believe, that police are trying to hunt down young black men and take their lives. In other words, move on, nothing here to see.”
…American police are not hunting down black men in order to kill them. That’s not happening Leonard. And shame on you for implying it is.
Got it? It’s OK for O’Reilly to exploit a policy about saying “Happy Holidays” but seeing a pattern of dead black bodies is just another example of black "grievance."
Actually, it’s worse than that to O’Reilly. It's insane, poisonous and downright un-American.
O’REILLY: Talking Points believes that insane views of the world can poison actual societies. That is what these anti-police people are trying to do.
Yes, there is police abuse and it must be punished. There’s no excuse for it. But no, America is not a place where minority people are targets of organized injustice. Thank God most of us seem to know that.
After his Talking Points, O’Reilly held a spirited debate with Tavis Smiley. Unfortunately, Smiley seemed to have missed O’Reilly’s shocking double standard. But near the end of the discussion, there was this amazing exchange.
SMILEY: How many isolated incidents equal a pattern?
O’REILLY: I can’t answer the question. …It’s an impossible question to answer with any certainty.
Smiley smiled, knowing that he had just won the argument.
Watch it below, from last night’s The O’Reilly Factor.