O’Reilly smears YearlyKos, JetBlue

July 17, 2007

JetBlue is helping sponsor the YearlyKos conference this year, which apparently was enough to send Bill O’Reilly over the edge. If you haven’t seen the clip, it’s certainly worth watching, if only as a textbook example of modern “journalism” at its most pernicious. Here’s some of the transcript:

“What do you think of someone who says the following: ‘the world would be better off without him.’ That after Tony Snow announced his cancer had returned. ‘The pope is a primate.’ Evangelicals are ‘nut cases.’ ‘Better luck next time’ after an assassination plot against Vice President Cheney in Afghanistan. And some attacks against coalition forces in Iraq are ‘legitimate.’

“All of those thoughts were posted on a vicious far-left website called the DailyKos, one of the worst examples of hatred America has to offer. This summer, that website is having a convention in Chicago. And only one major corporation has stepped up as a sponsor. That company is Jet Blue, the airline that melted down last winter.

‘As is our policy, we contacted Jet Blue last week to ask why. Why would it sponsor a hateful website? It had no answer. So we sent ‘Factor’ producer Jesse Watters out to see Jet Blue CEO David Barger.”

When O’Reilly says “see” David Barger, what he means is, he sent a flunkie to New York in order to ambush Barger on the sidewalk outside his home.

But if even we put that aside for a moment, O’Reilly’s smear is, well, kind of silly. DailyKos, which the FNC personality went on to describe as “hate mongers,” is hardly vitriolic. What O’Reilly did was pick a handful of unrepresentative remarks from Kos diaries and comments sections — a clear violation of Drum’s Law — and pass them off as what DailyKos is all about.

He went on to discuss the “controversy” with Business Week’s Diane Brady, who tried to be almost reasonable.

BRADY: You know, there’s no question DailyKos is clearly on the left. And one thing that comes up, especially with those open forums is you get a lot of lunatics come up. And I’m sure – I look at their site.

O’REILLY: You know, you – look, I have my own website. We don’t — open forum is bull. All right? You can regulate what’s on your website.

Except, as TP noted, “O’Reilly doesn’t mention, however, that his website doesn’t have a public forum and the message boards are available only for a $50 annual membership fee.”

From what I hear, O’Reilly continued his tirade again this afternoon on his radio show, ranting nonsense about DailyKos being financed by O’Reilly’s #1 boogeyman: George Soros.

Poor Bill really needs a hobby. Kos is not the enemy, and JetBlue chipping in a few tickets as part of a sponsorship deal is not scandalous. Besides, if anyone deserves to be labeled as “one of the worst examples of hatred America has to offer,” it has to be the guy who encouraged terrorists to kill Americans on U.S. soil, right?

The loopiest complaint BillO made was that someone called the Pope a ‘Primate’ and that was ‘hate speech’. He should get himself to a dictionary. He’d learn that Primate is one of the Pope’s titles.

It’s like saying I’m guilty of hate speech were I to refer to Bush as an ‘Executive’. But such silliness has never interfered with BillO’s haphazardly manufactured outrage before, so why expect differently today?

  • Billo’ is following the current recipe of far-right commentators. Attract attention by dreaming up some utterly absurd accusation. Cherry pick “facts” to support the nonsense. Rant, hyperventilate, and approach apoplexy discussing the “issue.” Desperately search for another “story” before the next show and hope the ratings don’t drop any further before then. This crowd is as just as confused as advertisers and con artists. The idea seems to be “if they can’t hear you screaming—scream louder.” Of course, this gets really boring n’ people go somewhere else.

    Bill who? Yawn.

  • Mulifacetted dialogue, discussion and debate is the foundation to any democratic society. Billy O gets a bit uncomfortable when small d democracy rears its plenary head. -Kevo

  • Meanwhile Bilious O’Lielly runs exposes on fictional hordes of gun toting gang-raping lesbians and hints that The Padres are up to something icky by allowing gays and lesbians to attend baseball games when there are children present.

    But that isn’t hateful.

    I wonder what Shrill would have to say if a corporation were stupid enough to sponsor a Freeperville or RedState event? Did he comment on the fact that a Freeper was arrested for sending death threats through the mail? Could it be he is a pathetic piece of crap?

  • The hot and putrid air that issues from O’Reilly may be a not insignificant contributor to global warming.

    Seriously, though, I think the best way to shut people like O’Reilly up is to just ignore him. He, like Coulter and Malkin and Limbaugh, is a small, small person, who caters to other small-minded people. People who fear those who are different, people who call themselves religious but are the antithesis of that, people who can’t be bothered with facts when prejudice and hate are so readily available to them.

    He’s no doubt seething wil jealousy and envy that candidates are flocking to YKos2, while declining to subject themselves to the Fox News-moderated debate.

    Yoou reap what you sow, Bill – that’s religious-speak for “waht goes around comes around,” in case you were wondering.

  • O’REILLY: You know, you – look, I have my own website. We don’t — open forum is bull. All right? You can regulate what’s on your website.

    Yeah, and by “regulating” what’s on your website, you can keep that precious bubble from being penetrated by those icky, nasty “fact” things that cause so much consternation in BushWorld. They just won’t go away sometimes!

    For a guy who vowed to “not trust the Bush Administration again”, Billoviator sure does carry a lot of BushCo water.

  • O’Reilly is enough to make one wish to renounce one’s Irish background, so as to not share anything in common with that worhtless asshole. The guy proves every minute he breathes where the factual basis was for the English slurs against the Irish.

  • You gotta watch O’Reilly like you’re watching Maury or Springer. It’s entertaining because it’s so stupid and trashy. O’Reilly is a joke, but I watch it sometimes for the hell of it. You can’t look at it as news.

    O’Reilly is an attention seeking Archie Bunker type who says inflammatory things to get a rise out of people. He’s a somewhat avuncular cretin though. Sometimes I want to give him a lollipop and a pat on the head.

  • While I don’t agree with O’Reilly at all, you can count me among the people who left DKos because DHinMi, Armando and their strom troopers were unremitting, bullying a-holes towards anyone who disagreed with them. To say it is just in the diaries and comments doesn’t quite give a full picture, DHinMi was still listed in the last day as someone who represents the site and he was one of the worst offenders.

    Of course I am talking about shabby treatment towards fellow progressives, I don’t know anything about the bs O’Reilly is trying to dredge up from the depths. Any Republican jerk can join and post fake inflammatory statements, that’s why they started troll-rating people at DKos in the first place before it got out of hand.

  • Remember O’Rielly’s earlier shows? They were basically tabloid tv where he presented some titillating tidbit or another and presented other spurious items. He just switched to the more lucrative political biz and does the same crap he used to do.

  • I hearby nominate Bill-O as today’s, “Worst Person in the W-o-r-r-r-r-l-d!”
    (with apologies to Keith Olberman)

  • O’Reilly is enough to make one wish to renounce one’s Irish background, so as to not share anything in common with that worhtless asshole. The guy proves every minute he breathes where the factual basis was for the English slurs against the Irish. Tom Cleaver.

    Not into stereotyping but can still clearly remember my grandfather, “You can always tell an irishman, but you can’t tell him much.” O’Reilly must have heard that too I guess?

  • Since Drum’s Law states:

    “If you’re forced to rely on random blog commenters to make a point about the prevalence of some form or another of disagreeable behavior, you’ve pretty much made exactly the opposite point.”

    you can’t really say Bill-O violates Drum’s Law. Rather, by Drum’s Law, Bill-O fails to prove his point and certifies himself to be a nutpicker.

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