Mr. Franken, there are some well-armed men from the FBI here to see you

June 23, 2005

I’m so naïve. I assumed Bill O’Reilly’s penchant for demagoguery couldn’t get any worse. I should have known better.

Responding to controversial comments by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-IL) regarding the treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly said that Americans “must know the difference between dissent from the Iraq war and the war on terror and undermining it,” and that “any American who undermines that war … is a traitor.”

He then hurled this accusation at Air America Radio: “So, all those clowns at the liberal radio network, we could incarcerate them immediately. Will you have that done, please? Send over the FBI and just put them in chains, because they, you know, they’re undermining everything and they don’t care.”

The more conservatives throw around words like “traitor,” and the more they literally want to imprison progressives for speaking out, the more they solidify their reputation as the unhinged and hysterical side of the political discourse.

The news is here is not, however, all bad. Up until fairly recently, O’Reilly was dismissing Air America as irrelevant. In the documentary “Left of the Dial,” we see O’Reilly mocking the network, insisting that no one’s listening and its message was insignificant. Now, O’Reilly not only seems to believe Air America is having an impact, he also believes its staff should be “incarcerated immediately.”

That’s progress, right?

At first I agreed that we shouldn’t over-use the Hitler analogies here and elsewhere. But since the Durbin flap I’ve changed my mind. The ease with which he was cowed into his contrite recanting is really scary. People forget that Dachau and similar places were not set up to burn Jews. That evolution took more than ten years to unfold. Initially the Nazis emphasized, after seizure of all political power and communications facilities, loyalty to their Christian nation (Gott mit uns). They only isolated those whom they regarded as unpatriotic threats to that unity. I’m afraid it’s no longer an empty analogy; it’s an increasingly apt description of reality here, including, just as then, all those namby-pambys who just don’t get it.

  • Orcinus has some very interesting essays on what he calls “Pseudo Fascism.” I won’t attempt a link, but here is the address:

    http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/

    I’d be interested in hearing both the Carpetbagger’s and Ed’s opinion of these essays.

  • Durbin’s only “mistake” was speaking the words that every humane and rational person must have been thinking when they heard the F.B.I. report read aloud. Now, of course, we know who the humane and rational people are NOT.

  • O’Reilly is such an idiot. He’s giving Franken better material than Al could ever come with on his own. This denunciation of A.A. will be put into heavy rotation for ongoing ridicule. I can hear the Oy-Oy’s already. Oh Boy.

  • “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

    —Ghandi

  • Couldn’t agree more with Ken. It’s a good thing that O’Reilly is talking about Air America……it means they’re getting worried Air America is having an impact.

  • Paraphrasing the two above statements that I think capture this whole thing:

    “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they arrest you, then they throw you in prison camps, then they starve you, then they torture you, then they murder you… then you win”.

    Anyway, that’s the worst-case scenario. I agree both with Gandhi and with the guy comparing the attack on Durbin to the Nazis: in the long run, truth wins out, but it’s a long and often painful road.

    A lot of people are going to lose everything and suffer horribly between now and when it finally does win out. Hold on tight.

  • Come to think of it, why has a that bloated bloviator and hypocritically drug-addicted Limbaugh been able to refer, for years, to “femiNazis” (yuk, yuk) while we force Durbin, one day later, into that blubbery apology for his apt description?

  • I’m not sure of the exact numbers, but it seems that I recall reading or hearing just a few weeks ago that O’Reilly’s numbers for his radio show are really starting to tank, and that Air America is getting a bigger share in some of the markets where O’Reilly is losing ground. Maybe people like hearing the truth occasionally, what a concept.

    There are a lot of things about free market economics that really disturb me, but theoretically the market could actually force O’Reilly to tell the truth and act like a human being. I have my doubts, but it’s possible, I mean hey no one ever thought that a chimp would ever be elected to public office.

  • There’s nothing wrong the “free market” concept (which has certainly outperformed either right- or left-wing controlled economies) provided we remember that markets are human creations — they are not “natural” or “God ordained” — and only work under certain definite conditions, including openness (something The Dick Cheney always forgets).

    Since the ideal theoretical conditions for a market (infinite number of buyers and sellers, none of whom can dominate) are rarely met, they also require regulation. And, since all markets produce losers, we have to face the ethical question of what to do, if anything, about setting a level of acceptable loss (i.e., safety nets).

  • i urge everyone to cancel or block cnn, fox, cnbc and msnbc from their cable/satellite subscribtion, then boycott their sponsors. email each one telling what you have done. until they stop the lying and the spinlies, it will continue. then pass it on and urge someone else to do it. we have the power!!!!! let’s exercise that power, it will feel great!!!!! mary

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