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Bill O'Reilly Attacks JetBlue and Gets Grounded
The primate error on Fox's part (the one you see in the video above) is not that big a deal, it's just funny. The real problem with O'Reilly's buffoonish attack against Daily Kos and Jet Blue is that it is based on pure fabrication, propaganda and ironically, spin! What happened, I thought it was the no spin zone?
Here's how O'Reilly spun this story out of whole cloth:
Daily Kos is a mainstream, liberal website that is the biggest political blog in the country. It is manyfold bigger than the largest conservative blogs. It is five times larger than the largest conservative blog/website, Newsbusters. It is over eight times larger than the venerable Powerline. And it is bigger than the top eight conservative blogs combined, according to blogads. Ouch. Who's mainstream now?
What O'Reilly did was take commenters from Daily Kos and pretend they were writing for the site. As you can see here, the commenters on the blogs are not the writers of the blog. They do not produce the content of the site and the site is not responsible for the crazy things they often say. Most blogs are open and allow the public to comment in any way they like, including the Newsbloggers here at AOL.
O'Reilly pretended these random, public commenters were the only thing on the site and that they spoke for all of Daily Kos. That is not only preposterous, it is a lie. Anyone who knows anything about blogs knows that's a lie.
For example, in my last post here on AOL someone commented:
"who cares...muzz on muzz killings have gone on for eons....every dead muzz is one less terrorist!!"
Does he speak for me? I am Muslim, so according to Bill O'Reilly, am I advocating my own death? Can I say that Newsbloggers at AOL argues that all Muslims (or muzzes as this gentleman so eloquently puts it) should be killed because they are all terrorists?
Obviously that's absurd and grossly misleading at best. O'Reilly does this to smear all liberal websites as extreme. It's a familiar trick. Everyone they disagree with is "extreme" or "radical" and they are "mainstream." These are clever talking points used to spin and smear. What happened, I thought we were in the no spin zone?
Then, they ambush this poor CEO coming out of his apartment and ask him absurd questions to which there are no reasonable answers. What is he supposed to say -- actually the Pope is a primate, technically speaking? This is also the height of irony because this is the same tactic that Fox News Channel has repeatedly criticized Michael Moore for using. Except Michael Moore has his facts straight before he goes in for an ambush interview.
By the way, notice that they couldn't get a real reporter to do this story. So, they had to send Jesse "Dirty" Waters, the intern producer to do it. Couldn't they find Stuttering John? Was he not available for the gag?
You can see the whole painful O'Reilly segment here. At one point, O'Reilly says he'll never fly Jet Blue again. Jet Blue should use that in their advertising. Their slogan can be: We promise you won't run into Bill O'Reilly if you fly with us.
There's no way they don't increase sales. In fact, I'm going to go out of my way to get a Jet Blue ticket next time. You can buy tickets here.
Fox News Channel has no shame. If you really want to boycott someone because they support malicious lies and hateful propaganda, you would do a lot better to boycott Fox News Channel, not Jet Blue.
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Mo Rocca appears on a bunch of shows, including CBS News Sunday Morning (with the indescribably wonderful Charles Osgood), The Tonight Show on NBC, and NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! He's a sometime judge on Iron Chef and was featured on Telemundo's Amore Descarado. Last year he starred on Broadway in the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. His expose "All the President's Pets" was published by Crown in 2004.
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Reader Comments ( Page 8 of 8)
106. OKAAY, so people post on the DailyKos and that is the point of view of the DailyKos. I am lost here. So if i post AOL is just awful and The Young Turks are ugly that is the opinion of the young turks. I am confused. Bill's just mad no one showed up for his family values cruise except the 80 year woman with a lufa.
pmack169 at 4:11PM on Jul 21st 2007
107. People like Bill O'Reilly prey on the stupid, the people who don't take the time to educate themselves. You see many of them have commented here on this very post. It's really a bummer that people allow themselves to be manipulated like this, but that's become the American way. Who is Jet Blue anyway? Are you kidding me? Who cares.
Chris at 1:38PM on Jul 20th 2007
108. I mean seriously, look at the d-bag at the top of this page in all caps. Why don't you know how to type in lower-case, like normal people do? And look at your argument lol. Most of you Kos-haters have never been to the site once. You have no idea what you are even talking about. My God, I feel so sorry for you, it's like a gaggle of retards.
Chris at 1:51PM on Jul 20th 2007
109. People that are criticizing Jet Blue don't realize that they've received an excellent rating from consumer groups for on time arrival, courteous personnel and planes that are well maintained. Go Jet Blue, at least I know I won't sit next to the Loofah king...Ewwww!!!
Allen Sarkozy at 10:14AM on Jul 21st 2007
110. Since the writer identified himself as a Muslim, it's obvious that his disagreement with O'Reilly has a whole lot less to do with Jet Blue or the Daily Kos and a great deal to do with O'Reilly's attack on Islamic fascism which uses terrorism worldwide to intimidate weak minded liberals into believing in a pluralism that would NEVER exist in ANY Islamic society. By the way, the term "mainstream liberal" is an oxymoron. The next election will be about voters getting even with the GOP for giving us Bush, but if you think W is divisive, wait until you get Hillary.
Jim at 12:21AM on Jul 22nd 2007
111. What I don't understand is, if Muslim's are supposed to be bad people, why are we in Iraq helping them at the tune of 12 billion dollars a month?
Lyle at 6:27AM on Jul 22nd 2007
112. "I mean seriously, look at the d-bag at the top of this page in all caps. Why don't you know how to type in lower-case, like normal people do? And look at your argument lol. Most of you Kos-haters have never been to the site once. You have no idea what you are even talking about. My God, I feel so sorry for you, it's like a gaggle of retards."
You are a sick bastard.
Eddie at 7:10PM on Jul 26th 2007