Is Bill O'Reilly Playing The So-Called Race Card?

Once again, Fox News far-right commentator Bill O'Reilly showed his true colors as he used his platform to again demonize and attack NBC and use racial politics to inflame conservative whites who are the Tea Party. Notice how O'Reilly cherry picks an NBC interview asking about that has a question regarding race in the Tea Party movement (a very legitimate issue). O'Reilly takes the question and spins it as NBC using race to strengthen the liberal strength among minority groups. It also plays into that old stereotype that O'Reilly buys into that blacks are not that smart and so easily influenced by white liberal leaders with sinister intentions.

What you will read below also shows that O'Reilly and Fox News clearly are in the corner of the Tea Party movement and are willing to go to great lengths to defend it to anyone who will listen.

Read how O'Reilly starts the segment with his mini soliloquy and then starts with what he sees as an inflammatory question.

Here is an excerpt from a recent O'Reilly Talking Points Memo:

For now, the liberal media and the left-wing establishment in general greatly fear the Tea Party movement. And so, led by NBC News, the media is trying to brand the Tea Party people as racist.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLY O'DONNELL, NBC NEWS: There aren't a lot of African-American men at these events.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

O'DONNELL: Have you ever felt uncomfortable?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. No. These are my people. Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Now, the NBC News reporter Kelly O'Donnell's question was legitimate. But coming on the heels of NBC's unrelenting racial attacks on the Tea Party, the question also illuminates the left-wing media strategy.

By the way, with 95 percent of African-Americans voting for Barack Obama, you would not expect them to sign up in great numbers for the Tea Party, would you?

Going forward, the Tea Party movement will face some challenges. Will it become a legitimate third party, or will it stay as an anti-Obama protest group? Or will it expand its passion into other areas?

There is no Tea Party leader. Sarah Palin comes closest, but she doesn't want the designation. So it will be interesting to see just how the Tea Party evolves.

But for now, these folks are scaring liberal America big time.

First of all, I find it funny that Fox News would accuse another network of unrelenting racial attacks when it has been doing that against President Obama since he was Sen. Obama, candidate for the presidency. Even in the last few days, Fox News has been working tirelessly to convince white Americans that President Obama is playing racial politics with the immigration legislation in Arizona. How can Fox News legitimately accuse any other network of playing racial politics without cleaning up its own racial backyard? Will Bill O'Reilly condemn his own network for its relentless racial attacks on black people. Why did Bill O'Reilly never speak out about racism on Fox News Web sites?

Next, the Tea Party people are not scaring liberals. To the contrary, I think some on the left are probably quietly liking the Tea Party protests for exposing the extremism in our midst. In fact, part of the reason that liberals are working to expose the Tea Party people is because of the anger of the movement and how the movement really only came to life shortly after President Obama was elected.

Is Bill O'Reilly playing the so-called "race card" when he says that liberals are trying to portray the almost exclusively white tea party people as racist? Is he playing to white racial anxiety?

Now, no one is saying that all tea party people are racist. Some are, but obviously not all are racist. BUT, far too many excuse the racism in their midst and make excuses for it.

Where were the (fiscally-conservative and anti-big government) Tea Party protests when George W. Bush was president?

There is nothing wrong with the angle that the NBC reporter took and it's difficult to tell if it was just one small part of a larger series of interviews that might have been conducted. It's just obvious that the Tea Party protesters are overwhelmingly white (whether that is a good thing or a bad thing). After Bill O'Reilly hosted that Wall Street Journal reporter (James Taranto) on to spew his racial garbage, it hardly seems that Bill O'Reilly can legitimately come back and accuse anyone competitor of launching a racial attack.