Bill O’Reilly, who has been utilizing his radio and television shows to actively advise and campaign for Republican Sen. John McCain in his bid for the presidency, took another ridiculous twist. O’Reilly, a right-wing extremist, went into dull damage control mode as he worked hard to try and defend Sen. McCain against his welcomed connections to G. Gordon Liddy. In fact, here is an excerpt from a Media Matters article documenting Liddy’s nefarious activities: As Media Matters for America has detailed, Liddy served four and a half years in prison in connection with his conviction for his rolein the Watergate break-in and the break-in at the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Liddy has acknowledgedpreparing to kill someone during the Ellsberg break-in “if necessary”; plotting to kill journalist Jack Anderson; plotting with a “gangland figure” to kill Howard Hunt to stop him from cooperating with investigators; plottingto firebomb the Brookings Institution; and plottingto kidnap “leftist guerrillas” at the 1972 Republican National Convention — a plan he outlined to the Nixon administration using terminology borrowed from the Nazis. (The homicide, firebombing, and kidnapping plots were never carried out; the break-ins were.) During the 1990s, Liddy reportedly instructed his radio audience on multiple occasions on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents and also reportedly said he had named his shooting targets after Bill and Hillary Clinton.” This is not just some guy who donated a few bucks to Sen. John McCain’s campaign. This is a man who Sen. McCain has praised and a man whose friendship Sen. McCain has welcomed. Here is additional documentation of Liddy and Sen. McCain’s admiration for this unreptentant domestic terrorist. Sen. McCain admires Liddy’s ”adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great,” said he was “proud” of Liddy, and said that “it’s always a pleasure for me to come on your program.” Now, imagine the outcry from right-wing exremists like Bill O’Reilly if there was evidence of Sen. Barack Obama having this kind of continued admiration and kind words for William Ayers? This is more evidence that O’Reilly’s contention that he is fair and balanced is a joke. He has not informed his viewers nor his listeners about the nefarious activities of Liddy to let them make an informed decision. He has decided that since he is a closet supporter of Sen. McCain (although he appears to be an outright supporter of the Arizona Republican Senator on the air) that he will do whatever is necessary to defend the horse that he has his money on in this presidential race. O’Reilly is in the take for Sen. McCain and the Republican Party in general. Right-wing hacks like O’Reilly and Sean Hannity have built their careers on the base of pandering to the extremist wing of the Republican Party. Now, that is fine. If he wants to be that way, then so be it. But, he should be man enough to admit his biases and lack of objectivity. Maybe he’d have more time to do it if he wasn’t devoting so much of his energy to the 20-something party smear series on Sen. Barack Obama (not that he apparently is not doing the same for Sen. John McCain or for Gov. Sarah Palin). Thanks, Media Matters, for reporting on yet another instance of Bill O’Reilly’s blatant right-wing bias masquerading as objective journalism (I’d laugh if it wasn’t such a sad and painful distortion and perversion of a once proud profession). Now, let us bow our heads in remembrance of this portion (objectivity) of journalism that Bill O’Reilly has killed.
Media Matters on extremist Bill O’Reilly:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200810220013?f=h_top
No comments:
Post a Comment