I suggest that we build a big bronze and granite monument, a statue to honor some truly American heroes, unsung American heroes… the rich… Try to imagine an America without rich people. Rich people pay the freight for a whole bunch of things that are good, like taking care of poor people who can’t afford to buy food and medicine and sending other kids to college… The top one percent of all wage earners pay almost 40 percent of all our federal income taxes. The top five percent pay 60 percent and the top 10 percent pay 70 percent. Now I’m not saying, Megyn, that these people are selfless philanthropists. I’m not even saying that they need a tax break. But I’ll tell you what they don’t need. They don’t need to be vilified by people like Bernie Sanders and a whole bunch of other liberal Democrats in Congress.
…I’m not defending anybody who’s crooked or anybody who sent this economy into a tailspin… There are a lot of people out there who worked hard for their money… Maybe they’re not making a million or a billion dollars but something over $250,000. These people deserve our gratitude. I mean, how many poor – by the way, the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers… pay a paltry 2.7 percent of all the federal income tax. So how many of those people, how many of those people do you think are helping the poor in this country. It’s the rich who are disproportionately paying taxes and disproportionately helping the poor.
We could write a book about Bernie Goldberg and call it, A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Fox News and the Rich Elitists Who Want to Preserve a Slave-Like Society.
The rich are rich on the backs of hard-working and oftentimes underpaid folks (not too unlike what happened during times of slavery and not too unlike what happens with those who exploit so-called illegal immigrants.
It’s a wonder Bill O’Reilly doesn’t talk about himself in the third person.
The depth and breadth of Bill O’Reilly’s arrogance seemingly knows no bounds. Recently, the right-wing Fox News commentator again granted himself permission (still suffering from his God complex) to take credit for something that he simply deserves no credit for in any way, shape or form. But, the reason that Bill O’Reilly is taking credit for the announced retirement of PBS legend Bill Moyers is precisely what makes him little more than a zit on the face of journalism. O’Reilly has had a vendetta against Moyers and, as he is apt to do, has sent his producers at different times to try and ambush Moyers simply because Big Bill disagrees with the accomplished host on some issues and sees him as a liberal.
For O’Reilly, these (meager as can be) are sufficient grounds to send low-life stalker “producers” after people.
Last night on his Fox News show, Bill O’Reilly used the news to attack Moyers and his journalistic ethics. He also claimed that his producer, Jesse Watters, was solely responsible for Moyers resigning. “Now I think we — Jesse Watters drove him out of PBS,” said O’Reilly. “I think Jesse Watters is responsible for Bill Moyers leaving.”
Ah yes, in the head of Bill O’Reilly, the fifth-rate Jesse Watters (the tough guy “producer” who stalked and intimidated a female reporter from Think Progress, Amanda Terkel, who wrote this recent article) gets credit for attacking a legend like Bill Moyers.
In 2007, Watters ambushed Moyers on the street outside his home. O’Reilly had Watters harass Moyers after the PBS journalist ran a program about impeaching President Bush. O’Reilly claimed that Moyers symbolized “Americans who want their country to lose in Iraq, based upon hatred of all things Bush,” which he determined was a good reason to send his henchman to Moyers’ house. According to O’Reilly, this one interview was what drove Moyers out of his job two years later.
This just shows how arrogant Bill O’Reilly is to think that an ambush “interview” from a couple of years back drove Bill Moyers completely out of the business.
Talk about a delayed reaction, but in the world of Bill O’Reilly it is so.
Terkel, in her article, does highlight one of my favorite video clips of all time: Fox News “reporter” Porter Berry’s pitiful attempt to ambush Moyers.
Berry is at least 0-2 because he also was schooled by Fr. Michael Pfleger in another of my favorite videos.
Just to show you how angry O’Reilly is at Moyers, his attack continued as he hosted another right-wing talker, Bernie Goldberg.
GOLDBERG: Avuncular, right. But you know what? I knew Bill Moyers at CBS. I worked with him. He’s a very serious guy. And in that sense I give him — I give him credit. When a lot of people were going for fluff, Bill Moyers wanted to do serious journalism.
Some place along the line, Bill, he stopped being a journalist, and he started of being an advocate. He stopped being a journalist, and he started being an evangelist. And the religion he was preaching for was liberalism.
O’REILLY: Far left.
GOLDBERG: Far left. And when you’re — when you’re that kind of person, there are no shades of gray.
O’REILLY: Now I think we — Jesse Watters drove him out of PBS. I think Jesse Watters is responsible for Bill Moyers leaving. Now Bill Moyers is hammering Bush and Cheney, wanted them impeached, this and that, and you know, taking shots at The Factor. So we sent Jesse out to talk with him. Roll the tape.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JESSE WATTERS, FACTOR PRODUCER: Mr. Moyers, what do you think about that? I mean, come on, do you think…
BILL MOYERS, PBS: Come on my show. I’ll ask you. Bill won’t do it. He doesn’t have the courage. But I’ll ask you.
WATTERS: Bill would have been here today but he’ interviewing Lindsay Lohan.
MOYERS: Oh, of course. Bill’s got his priorities in line.
WATTERS: That’s right. He would have loved to be here, but he can’t make it tonight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right.
GOLDBERG: I’m amazed he knew who Lindsay Lohan was.
O’REILLY: Look, and that was a joke, by the way. There was no Lindsay Lohan interview.
Ha, ha … oh that is so funny.
Once again, O’Reilly uses his platform to attack someone with which he has disagreement. This time (but not the first time) it’s Bill Moyers.
Religion, liberalism … these guys are nuts.
Bill O’Reilly never had the journalistic integrity of Bill Moyers.
Unlike Moyers, O’Reilly gets on television almost every night and lies about being fair.
COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina’s governor once cited “moral legitimacy” when he was a congressman voting for President Bill Clinton’s impeachment. He became a darling of fiscal conservatives over his ideological opposition to federal stimulus cash.
I wonder if Bill O’Reilly will mention this on his show or if he will just proceed with an one-sided attack (joined by Karl Rove and Bernie Goldberg) on the so-called liberal press.
I wonder if Bill O’Reilly and others will call out that “moral legitimacy” hypocrisy.
This also is a good example of why we shouldn’t put politicians on a pedestal.
After the media (liberal and conservative) pounded former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, I look up and see this is what it appears Fox News conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly has on tap for tonight’s edition of The O’Reilly Factor:
The O’Reilly Factor
The media & Mark Sanford! Is the liberal press celebrating the Governor’s scandal? Both Bernie Goldberg & Karl Rove have reaction and analysis!
With Bernie Goldberg and Karl Rove, two hardcore conservatives (teaming with O’Reilly, who makes it three conservatives), as analysts the segment already appears destined to have little credibility and zero balance (as advertised here).
Was the conservative press celebrating John Edwards’ affair when he was being pounded relentlessly (and still is)? I doubt you’ll hear Bill O’Reilly presenting such a topic with three left wingers.
Leave it to O’Reilly to spin a scandal that stains the conservatives into an attack on liberals. Maybe O’Reilly will begin talking about the John Ensign scandal, too.
Bill O’Reilly, a conservative commentator on Fox News masquerading as an “objective” talker, proved a point that I and a lot of other people have made about the inability of Fox News to give President Obama much of a fair shake in its coverage of this administration. O’Reilly and other Fox News people have been whining about President Obama’s comments about Fox News attacking his administration. To be fair, President Obama made those comments on CNBC in reference to a question about the media being too soft on him (so, it was not just some random bashing of Fox News for no rhyme or reason). Anyway, O’Reilly has jumped into the fight to defend Fox News (no big surprise there). To analyze President Obama’s comments one would expect O’Reilly to bring on a diverse panel of commentators to have a fair and complete discussion of the issue to truly let the people see both sides and decide on their own. Right? Wrong. O’Reilly brings on two conservatives (Dick Morris and Bernie Goldberg) to parrot his sentiment as they went arm-in-arm gallivanting around in an oasis of conservatism. Where were the liberals to truly have a thoughtful discussion on the topic? They were missing in action as three Fox News conservative employees joined forces to bash the president in a completely biased fashion.
News Hounds has a nice report. I would encourage you to visit their site and to read their blog entry on this topic very closely.
I look at some of the so-called media watchdogs on Fox News and nearly all of them are hardcore right-wing commentators. The once-decent,but now pitiful show Fox News Watch, traditionally, has been stacked with far-right guys like Jim Pinkerton and Cal Thomas. Bill O’Reilly brings on the far-right Bernie Goldberg as his media watchdog and, today, Fox News has far-right Liz Trotta on to analyze the media’s coverage of the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the U.S. Supreme Court. The network needs to do a better job of balancing its news and, even more so, its commentary.
