Bill O'Reilly ponders appropriate punishment for Al Franken
(hint: Pop a cap!)
Our friends at Time magazine recently asked Bill O'Reilly
10 questions, and then let him get away with amazingly dishonest answers. As an added bonus, O'Reilly gives us an historical tip on who might have shot Al Franken for what he done.
Here's an example:
WHEN YOU TELL SOMEONE TO SHUT UP, HAVE YOU FAILED AS A HOST?
Absolutely not. I only do that very rarely. I maybe a handful of times told somebody directly to shut up. And that's when they were being dishonest or offensive.
It's so easy to bust this one up good. From
Slate, a few examples of O'Reilly's courageous stand against dishonest, offensive guests:
"And it is our duty as loyal Americans to shut up once the fighting begins, unless -- unless facts prove the operation wrong, as was the case in Vietnam."
-- Feb. 27, 2003
"What Jimmy Carter should do is privately give Mr. Bush his opinion and shut up publicly."
-- Feb. 18, 2003
"My thesis, you may know, is that nobody should ever talk about their sexuality in any -- in any regard ever. You should not define yourself that way. It just makes life a lot rougher. So, therefore, I would probably say, if you're a gay celebrity, shut up."
-- March 21, 2001
And my favorite lob, swing, and miss, with the ever-restrained O'Reilly talking about how reasonable some would have considered it to "put a bullet between his eyes."
DO YOU REGRET PUSHING THE LAWSUIT AGAINST AL FRANKEN?
Not at all. This man is being run by some very powerful forces in this country, and we needed to confront it. I was ambushed at a book convention. He got up in front of a national audience and called me a liar for 20 minutes. President Andrew Jackson would have put a bullet between his eyes. Franken's job is to do exactly what Donald Segretti did for Nixon -- dig up dirt on people. He is not a satirist; he is not a comedian. He's someone who wants to injure people's reputations, and I think people have got to know that.
Now, the response, from the good folks at
brainthink.com:
In February, O'Reilly gave a speech seemingly taking credit for winning a coveted Peabody award while an anchor at the tabloid TV show Inside Edition. After comedian Al Franken pointed out that the show never won a Peabody, O'Reilly retorted, in Mamet-esque syntax (O'Reilly Factor, 3/13/01): "Guy says about me, couple of weeks ago, 'O'Reilly said he won a Peabody Award.' Never said it. You can't find a transcript where I said it."
But on his May 19, 2000 broadcast, he repeatedly told a guest who brought up his tabloid past: "We won Peabody Awards. . . . We won Peabody awards. . . . A program that wins a Peabody Award, the highest award in journalism, and you're going to denigrate it?" (Inside Edition won a Polk Award, not the better-known Peabody, for reporting that was done after O'Reilly left the show--Washington Post, 3/1/01.)
The facts don't matter to this guy. The sad fact is, they don't matter to his (enormous) audience, either.
