Who can take these guys seriously anymore? No Fox News "reporter" or "news anchor" should ever be hired in a real news station anymore. You don't agree, then watch this:
They've become a self-parody. "Fair and balanced" has become a synonym for "we do the exact opposite of what we claim."
First, there was the press fascination with Michelle and Barack Obama's fist bump before Tuesday night's victory speech (what is all the fuss about - people have been doing this in America for a long time -- it is neither a scary new concept or even anything that is particularly cool). But now, as usual, Fox News has taken it over the top.
If I described how they characterized this fist bump, you wouldn't believe it, so watch it for yourself (an MSNBC report on how bewildering this new concept is comes first and then the insane Fox description):
What's great about Fox now is that they've lost all subtlety, so we don't have to try to convince anyone that they are a conservative propaganda outfit anymore. It's as clear as anything can possibly be. The slogan "fair and balanced" has become a joke everyone gets. It has entered the lexicon as an ironic statement meant to convey the opposite of what is really happening.
Now that Fox News has become full-blown parody of itself, the next question is -- how can anyone hire people who work on Fox as legitimate "news" reporters anywhere else? Whatever it is that they do over there clearly isn't journalism, so why in the world would anyone hire these people as legitimate journalists again?
This is hard to believe until you watch it with your own eyes. Fox News took two random clips from Barack Obama and Mario Cuomo that have absolutely nothing to do with one another and tried to call it plagiarism. But for me to describe how ridiculous this charge is wouldn't do it justice, you have to see it for yourself:
I think this might be a pathetic attempt to connect Obama to "liberals" of the past to strike back at the Democrats for constantly connection McCain to Bush. If it is, it definitely isn't working. These guys are running on empty.
Today on the show we were talking about how Fox News was questioning Barack Obama's patriotism and how I thought he didn't do a great job of debunking stories that go the heart of this charge. The problem is that by answering the question he feeds into the question. He should turn the whole premise of the question on its head.
Obama shouldn't talk about whether he is or is not patriotic. He should talk about how he is clearly the most patriotic candidate in the race:
Reverend Peterson's purpose it come on air and say racist things against black people -- but get this, he's black himself. So that provides cover for the white people who love to hear him spew that hate. Then Hannity can say: I didn't say it, a black man did. Very clever.
If you thought Rev. Wright was divisive (and Hannity apparently thinks so because he talks about it every single night on his show), wait till you get a load of Rev. Peterson. Check out his unbelievable quotes below:
So, will Hannity denounce and reject Rev. Peterson? Will he step off the board of this hateful pastor's organization? Will he disassociate himself from him? Yeah, right. Don't hold your breath.
Bill O'Reilly has officially lost it. On Thursday night's broadcast of The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel he compared Arianna Huffington to the KKK and the Nazis. And it wasn't even close to subtle; he just flat out said she was like the Nazis -- on several occasions. You can't quite believe how bad it is until you watch it. You can watch it for yourself here.
This is beyond despicable. And he keeps making the same inane argument over and over. He claims that any comment left on any blog means the person who wrote the blog or edits the blog is personally responsible for the comment. How profoundly stupid or deceitful can a person be? Everyone who has ever read a blog knows that the commenters do not speak for the writer. In fact, they are often quite opposed to the writer.
The most vicious comments can be found on any conservative, liberal or moderate blog if they allow open comments. Commenters have called me every name in the book in my blogs. Am I responsible for what they call me? Come on, how stupid is that? Either Bill O'Reilly is the dumbest man alive or he is being grossly disingenuous.
Then he takes that fake outrage about some comment left on the Huffington Post and uses it to hideously smear one of the most respected political commentators in the country. Maybe I'm being naive but I really think he has gone way too far this time. I think he jumped the shark here.
I can't imagine that Fox would ever take any action against O'Reilly because they couldn't care less about civil discourse or simply doing what is decent and right. But this has to effect O'Reilly's credibility with everyone else. If he has any left at all.
And if all this wasn't bad enough, it turns out Arianna Huffington's mom actually stood up to real Nazis during World War II. O'Reilly couldn't have picked a worse target for his hateful speech. Plus, this wasn't some commenter to O'Reilly's show or website; it was O'Reilly himself who made these atrocious comments. This time, for once, he should be held responsible for them.
Bill O'Reilly continues to be tacky, now getting his blond women mixed up and then joking about it.
Media Matters reports: During the February 11 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, discussing opposition to Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) presidential campaign within the Republican Party with Fox News contributors Kirsten Powers and Margaret Hoover, Bill O'Reilly mistakenly said, "Trust me now, Powers," when talking to Hoover. Hoover replied: "Get my name straight, will you? I'm Hoover."
George Bush was on Fox News Channel the other day for another softball interview. Chris Wallace, who tried to go after Bill Clinton aggressively, of course gave Bush an enormous pass on some of the outrageous things he said. Most prominently, Bush charged Obama with wanting to "embrace" the leader of Iran and attack Pakistan. Watch it for yourself here:
Obama said he would go get Osama bin Laden, hopefully working with the Pakistani government. He didn't mention attacking Pakistan. He offered to do what Bush has not done and has said he has no interest in doing -- capturing Osama bin Laden. And for that Bush smears him and Chris Wallace lets him get away with it.
Look at how incredibly defensive Shep Smith gets in this interview with Naomi Wolf. They're scared that the rest of the media has finally caught on -- they don't do real news!
After my public pondering I have concluded that I am retiring from posting Bill O'Reilly clips. I noticed, we otherwise civil humans devolve into fighting apes after this $9 Million dollar man speaks. Last week I personally had a severe mental breakdown while reading AOL comments associated with a Bill O'Reilly clip about homeless veterans.
Days later I published my my email and asked for feedback. I must say I greatly appreciate all the positive messages I got from the AOLers, I was pleasantly surprised. The feedback was helpful too, consensus is people are ready to move on from the partisan fighting that happens here on my AOL blog. Eliminating the O'Reilly posts is a step towards the recovery of this blog. So to my right wing critics, I bow to you in defeat, congratulations you have defeated this blogger on the topic of "Bill O'Reilly." Let's move on.
I don't want to be a fascist, but from now on I want to start moderating this blogs comment section, readers want the personal attacks eliminated. It's really a challenge, I trust there can still be debate here without personal attacks?
This was an interesting documentary about George W Bush I found on C&L. Not often that reporters get such access to the President, but we all know how Fox News is pretty trusted by the Bush Administration, it's the only news they watch.
George Bush will probably treat this year as a victory lap as it appears everybody has their attention focused on who will be the next President. Who knows what Lincoln...err, I mean who knows what Bush will get away with this year?
Do any AOL historians agree that George W Bush is just like Abraham Lincoln?
So last month Fox News man Bill O'Reilly pretty much denied the existence of 200,000 homeless veterans. In the clip below he asks his guest that if he finds homeless veterans to bring them to Fox News so they can be taken care of.
Carol Gardener, who operates a home that takes care of homeless veterans and was insulted by O'Reilly's attacks on the homeless. She brought some veterans along with a petition signed by 17,000 people to present it to Bill O'Reilly. Bill would not take a trip down the elevator to receive the petition, Olbermann offers a report here.
FOX security wouldn't let the vets in the building. They also wouldn't accept the petition or promise that it would be given to BOR. The vets couldn't go up to speak to BOR. BOR wouldn't come down to speak to them. Some FOX brass came down (accompanied by security and police) to try to defuse the situation, but it didn't help. MSNBC, whose building is across the street from FOX's, saw all the brouhaha and sent over their own camera crew to cover the action. A press conference broke out right in front of the FOX building as reporters asked the vets questions. Even BOR's own stalkerazzi "producer", Jesse Watters, was sent down to assail the vets and change the subject - he wanted to know if the vets had seen the video of BOR's statements instead of focusing on the fact that BOR made them.
After a long standoff, Carol and one of the vets was allowed into the lobby to drop off the petition, though there was no guarantee that BOR would actually receive it.
So...Apparently Heath Ledger died? He was in "A Knights Tale"...Remember that movie?
Jack Nicholson warned Heath not to take Ambien, but Heath had problems sleeping. Zoloft was also found by his side. From what I read this doesn't appear to be a suicide but simply a tragic tale of a man who made a bad stomach cocktail. Ambien, Zoloft, Valium and Xanax all found nearby. Whomever is performing the autopsy will probably be receiving a phone call from each of the drugs PR guys before the cause of death is revealed to the tabloids.
Anyway, speaking of tabloids, cable news loves celebrity deaths. Montel Williams just earned a lot of my respect after this interview on Fox News. *update jan 31: Unfortunately Fox News wasn't impressed and decided not to renew Montel's show - thus killing it.
Fox News host John Gibsonmade fun of Heath Ledger's death on his radio show yesterday. He played clips from Brokeback Mountain, including the line, "I wish I knew how to quit you," after which he joked, "Well, he found out how to quit you!"
Gibson played a clip from the movie in which the actor says, "We're dead." He also called Ledger a "weirdo" and claimed he had a serious drug problem. He wondered if maybe Ledger killed himself because of the stock market or because of John Edwards's poor primary showing. (Neither suicide nor drug addiction have been proven to date.)
What is wrong with Gibson that he finds the death of a talented actor (the father of a young girl!) so hilarious? Maybe he's angry that Heath Ledger looked like a Greek god and John Gibson looks like - well, like this.
Think Progress has the full audio here. Horrible, isn't it?
Over the past few years on the Internet I have witnessed the worst from this media giant and I have prayed to Jesus hoping that the average American television consumer would one day turn off this channel. Over the past few years unfolding in our living rooms has been a Newsman slow descent towards insanity. Bill O'Reilly is still the highest rated "Journalist" (yes, he calls himself a journalist) he is on the highest rated "News" network (yes, Fox News is still considered a news network) and on a daily basis he makes a mockery of Journalism, yet so many people believe in what he says. I am baffled.
Bill has spent some time recently attacking John Edwards, a Democrat fighting for the poor, Bill makes Millions of dollars, he is happy with the status quo. John Edwards recently brought up the statistic that merely points out the fact that 200,000 American army veterans are homeless. While commenting on this fact Bill O'Reilly created some new enemies. Veterans.
I remember a long time ago Bill O'Reilly said that if you 'don't supoort the troops, you should shut up.' Let's hope he soon takes his own advice. But, let's not hold our breath, O'Reilly is going to be around for the duration of this campaign, wait until he learns Barack's middle name is Hussein, oh boy. If you really have to watch news at 8pm, The alternative is Keith Olbermann. From my point of view he is entertaining, he is honest and he treats his audience and guests with respect, all important broadcast journalism traits.
*Update: Ok... I am receiving a lot of hate mail because of this posting, so I changed the title. It's good to know there are so many people out there who dislike me as passionately as I dislike Bill O'Reilly, nothing wrong with that, I assure you I am harmless, please center your rage towards something more productive...Like the homeless veterans problem. Also, I understand Keith Olbermann is the "the leftist" version of Bill O'Reilly, but if you at least watch the Olbermann segment I have included in this post, the amazing fact is revealed that only 2.6 Billion dollars is needed to solve the homeless vet problem, consider America's Iraq budget, 2.6 Billion is nothing. This is enough to provide housing for every homeless vet for a full year, that is plenty of time to help them get their life back on track. ====== - Hoard's Mind Blowing Propeller Submissions
Bill O'Reilly continues to be tacky, now getting his blond women mixed up and then joking about it. 
Fox News host 
