O’Reilly, McCain discuss the ‘white, Christian, male power structure’

May 31, 2007

The video is making the rounds today, and for good reason; it’s an odd exchange.

Bill O’Reilly: But do you understand what the New York Times wants, and the far-left want? They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you’re a part, and so am I, and they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have. In that regard, Pat Buchanan is right. So I say you’ve got to cap it with a number.

John McCain: In America today we’ve got a very strong economy and low unemployment, so we need addition farm workers, including by the way agriculture, but there may come a time where we have an economic downturn, and we don’t need so many.

[crosstalk]

O’Reilly: But in this bill, you guys have got to cap it. Because estimation is 12 million, there may be 20 [million]. You don’t know, I don’t know. You’ve got to cap it.

McCain: We do, we do. I agree with you.

Now, I’ve seen some suggestions that McCain implicitly endorsed O’Reilly’s race-based tirade when he said, “I agree with you.” I’m afraid that’s a stretch — I’m the last guy to defend McCain, but he simply endorsed some kind of cap on eligible immigrants. (That said, McCain also didn’t raise objections to O’Reilly’s xenophobia, either.)

But more to the point, O’Reilly’s concern for maintaining the “white, Christian, male power structure” struck me as about as offensive as what got Don Imus fired.

Think about it — if a KKK official appeared on Fox News, wouldn’t you expect him to make similar comments? And isn’t it more than a little disconcerting when O’Reilly’s rhetoric and racist rhetoric is one and the same?

And at the risk of getting too deep into the weeds here, O’Reilly’s argument seems to miss a few pertinent details, not the least of which is the fact that most Mexican immigrants are Christian.

Indeed, O’Reilly’s point isn’t an economic or security one; it’s based entirely on race and ethnicity. He seems to suggest that immigration would be perfectly acceptable to him, if immigrants helped him maintain the “white, Christian, male power structure.”

I’d be surprised if O’Reilly actually faced consequences for these comments — if he wasn’t punished for encouraging al Qaeda to strike an American city, he won’t be punished for this — but his comments nevertheless struck me as over the top, even by O’Reilly’s very low standards.

that’s the problem with these guys. they all think that the only people who can be trusted to run this government are white christian males. and i agree CB, that attitude is extremely offensive (even to a white christian male)

  • As a White Christian Male of Irish extraction, may I say that O’Reilly is the kind of Irishman who is “the source who proves the truth” of all the English slurs against the Itish? I can’t stand the fact he claims to be a member of the same species, let alone a similar ethnicity. What an embarassing piece of Stuff You Scrape Off Your Shoe.

  • I can’t wait for the next interview where he talks about keeping women barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.

    I hate that I am wasting any brain power on this fuckwit, but this just pisses me off.

  • …They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you’re a part, and so am I…

    I’ve said this before. Sometimes Fox News comes full circle. This is honest stuff. No spin indeed. Fox also puts real lefties on in an attempt to make them look bad- but these are the lefties with principles and Fox give them the microphone, where the more “centrist” right wing networks do not.

    “Fox News- So fucking far right, we occasionally do service to the left!”

  • If O’Reilly weren’t on Faux Noise, he probably would have been dumped by broadcasters concerned that having another dime-a-dozen racist on their programs might affect advertising revenues. As it is, boycotts probably won’t work. The twerp will be around as long as Rupert wants him.

  • I have a spoken word CD, from Jello Biafra(Dead Kennedys vocalist) from , like ’92 or something, and he addresses this exact same topic, that the “tortise shell glasses and fangs” crowd are becoming very candid and vocal in their support of racist, fascist power structures.

    This is still the attitude of half the white folk out there, that they are superior and therefore can do nothing wrong. That someway, somehow, this nation belongs to only patriarchial white folk. Fuck everyone else.

    And McCains remark, that we only need immigrants for cheap labor, smacks of plantation mentality.

    But this is the view or the Corporate fascist, humanity is secondary to profit.
    Ain’t capitalism great??

  • God forbid there was a level playing field where succesful people would achieve their advancement through their talents and merits instead of whether they belonged to the “white, Christian, male power structure.” At least Billo is blatant about it rather than dancing around his bigotry. It’s all about Bill and guys like him remaining in power.

  • “Most of the domesticated primates of Terra did not know they were primates. They thought they were something apart from and “superior” to the rest of the planet.”

    “Experts on the Problem of Evil were known as theologions. These were very erudite primates, skilled in primate logic, who wrote long books trying to answer the question “Why did God create an imperfect universe?” “God” was their name for the hypothetical biggest-alpha-male-of-all. Being primates, they could not comprehend how anything could run if there weren’t an alpha male in charge of it.”

    Source: Schrödinger’s Cat Trilogy

  • I second the motion, petorado. Huh, I guess I thought our power structure was the Constitution.

  • It seems that O’Reilly (and McCain by agreeing with him) do not believe in equal rights and the long-treasured concept of the United States being a multicultured, multiethnic, multireligious, and bigendered “melting pot” where all citizens are considered equal and all are to have equal rights. That’s right, O’Reilly, equal rights for all including females as well as males, and all non-Christians as well as Christians and members of both genders–female as well as males–in these the United–not the Divided–States of America.

    O’Reilly’s rhetoric is not only pathetic but genuinely un-American and unpatriotic to the true values of this country where equal rights is a paramount right for all–not some or most–of its citizens.

  • I second the notion, EvilPoet. In this case all the Big O did was let the big white cat out of the bag. The para-sentient among us, knew it was caterwauling in there the whole time….

  • Although I do find amusing that O’Crazy is self-appointed to the “Power Structure.” As much as I dislike McCain, he is a Senator and, per early polling, a viable candidate for a major party nomination for President. O’Crazy is a screaming windbag on a cable TV show with rapidly dropping ratings. His delusions of grandeur are reaching clinical proportions.

  • While we’re at it, shouldn’t we be cracking down on all the mail-order bride businesses? By and large, they aren’t making us any whiter, people.

    How much longer before O’Reilly starts guest starring on the Howard Stern Show? The fine line between O’Reilly’s rhetoric and Daniel Carver’s ludicrously anachronistic venting is getting tougher and tougher to discern.

  • An egomaniac. Thinks he’s special. Suffers from terminal uniqueness. He’s about as “Christian” as Pharoah. His prayers are all of gratitude,…”Thank you god for making me so great, for blessing me with the gift of knowing what’s best for everyone else, for the bravery to stand against the foreign hordes, for being a leader of the people, for making me white.”

    What a pathetic, narrow-minded racist bigot. ” I should act humble, not the smartest guy in the room, because if people could see how great I really am, they would be blinded.”

    Ha. What an idiot. The NYT and the far left want…Yes, Bill, I see you got the memo on who we want you to blame on tonight’s show…cut his mike.. cut his mike…cut his computer…, and McCain has lost the ability to be rational so he’s told to just shake his head and agree.

    Jesseaw and evilpoet…exactly.

  • Senator John McCain’s voting record on immigration can be found at: Senator John McCain’s Voting Record

    Senator John McCain’s history of speeches on immigration can be found at: Senator John McCain’s Record of Speeches

    Senator John McCain’s ratings from special interest groups on immigration can be found at: Senator John McCain’s Interest Group Ratings

    Project Vote Smart produces the National Political Awareness Test (NPAT), which essentially asks each candidate “Are you willing to tell citizens your positions on the issues you will most likely face on their behalf?” You can find Senator John McCain’s responses to the NPAT at: Senator John McCain’s NPAT

    For more information on Senator John McCain’s position on immigration please visit Project Vote Smart or call our hotline at 1-888-VOTE-SMART.

  • They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you’re a part, and so am I…

    thats all one needs to hear in order to understand the agenda of fox news and the gop. why does oreilly think hes part of the power structure in this country. who told him that? did he have that epiphany while he was bathing in falafel and scrubbing his tiny penis with a loofah?

  • Speaking of racism and the imm debate, Six Meat Buffet had the following. Oddly, it’s from the middle of a long post where the guy complains about the anti-imm side being called racists:

    “To hell with those who actually followed the rules, came here and worked hard to become American citizens, right, Junior? You know, the ones who actually appreciate freedom and want to assimilate instead of reclaim the Southwest?

    “As waffle-haired crooner Cyndi Lauper once said, “we see your true colors shinin’ through.” And they look a lot like that dark brown color that you get when you mix all the colors in your paint collection together. Not only that, but the newly-created clump of paint smells a lot like burrito-laden fecal matter.”

    Yikes.

  • Facts are facts no matter how liberals and Democrats wish to spin and paint it. The infusion of so many illegal immigrants in one generation will change the demographics more than the present population wishes. Our immigration laws are designed to absorb as many immigrants as NEEDED without changing the nature of our country and society. They are to be ABSORBED.
    In reality Democrats and the Catholic Church sponsor open boarder policies to gain members at the expense of our national interests.
    Fox news is the only center news organization that will air both sides. liberals have so infused our media that the center is now conservative and the conservative is radical.
    Don’t play the race card on me as I am as brown as any Mexican.

  • What I see in this debate is O’Reilly sarcastically describing his philosophical opponents’ view in their own terms, terms I doubt he would endorse. It’s as if he puts quotes around “the white, Christian, male power structure”. What he’s doing is trying to paint the attempt to break down that power structure as an attempt to “get” people like him, and I don’t think he’s defending the “white, Christian, male power structure” as a white, Christian, male power structure. I think he’s rather denying that that’s the best way to look at it and thus arguing against breaking it down because he doesn’t see the moral implications the same way.

    I’m not going to agree with him, but I think it’s taking him out of context and in a severely uncharitable way to think that he’s actually defending and protecting the white, Christian, male power structure in such terms.

  • “Indeed, O’Reilly’s point isn’t an economic or security one; it’s based entirely on race and ethnicity. He seems to suggest that immigration would be perfectly acceptable to him, if immigrants helped him maintain the “white, Christian, male power structure.””

    Of course it would be acceptable to him, for then they would be immigrants like his Irish ancestors, who were exploited, discriminated against and considered non-white, but were later willing to support and preserve that power structure when the great honor of whiteness was bestowed upon them. The white, Christian, male power structure, as it was originally defined, is already less than half of this country. The 70% white majority consists of 30% Irish, Italian and other “ethnic white” immigrant groups that were not considered white upon arriving in this country, but by some miracle became white after a few generations in America. The white majority has been maintained not by immigration control, but by redefining whiteness. I guess people like Bill are just so happy to be accepted as real whites, they’ll do anything to protect that power structure, including turning on the next generation of immigrants who face the same struggle as our grandparents and great grandparents who first came to this country.

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