Today, I am a big fan of Florida A&M University law professor Dr. Jeremy Levitt, who was on Bill O’Reilly’s far-right show and strongly challenged the conservative commentator as he declared, “Fox News and the far right have a race deck, and they play the ace of spades every day.” O’Reilly didn’t like that too much. Also during the segment, Dr. Levitt went through a bunch of statistics that showed death threats against the president sky high (a 400-percent increase), hate groups (have increased 4 percent) are growing (based on statistics he cited). Clearly, O’Reilly was not quite so comfortable (however, I do give Big Bill credit for inviting the doctor on the show). Credit goes to Dr. Levitt. I don’t know very many people who would have had the guts to go on national television and confront Fox News in its own backyard of bigotry based on its constant use of race to frighten and divide Americans.
O’Reilly frequently shouted down and/or talked over Dr. Levitt, and near the end mostly lied about giving the doctor the last word at the end of the segment and simply lacked the courage to challenge racial flamethrowers Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh (men who seem to frighten Bill). Throughout the interview, Dr. Levitt maintained his composure throughout and never allowed himself to be knocked off course.
Predictably, O’Reilly tried to spin it around as he brought up The New Black Panther Party and Louis Farrakhan to try and highlight racism on the left. Dr. Levitt countered with the Ku Klux Klan and O’Reilly came back by throwing Sen. Robert Byrd, a former Klansmen from way back in the day, under the bus. O’Reilly showed his partisanship right there as he made sure to declare Byrd was a Democrat. Throughout the segment, O’Reilly shouted down his guest, argued with him about everything, tried to dodge anything related to far-right extremists Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.
Here is an excerpt from a Huffington Post article that chronicled Dr. Levitt’s visit to the No-Spin Zone:
Dr. Jeremy Levitt, a law professor at Florida A&M University, confronted Bill O’Reilly tonight over Fox News’ role in fomenting racial tensions regarding President Obama. Specifically Dr. Levitt cited Glenn Beck and the network’s role in encouraging the 9/12 protests, which featured an assortment of racist signs.
O’Reilly (like many other conservatives), as Dr. Levitt in essence was asserting, lacks the character to challenge those on the far-right using race to fire up its older, white and conservative base.
Since the segment probably didn’t go as well as O’Reilly wanted it to go, it’s not unreasonable to suspect that Big Bill might come back on a later show and attack Dr. Levitt while he is unable to defend himself.
Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/24/law-professor-confronts-o_n_299350.html
