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 Schadenfreude  |
Posted on 09/03/2003 5:58:22 PM PDT by kattracks
Leftists never learn not to tangle with Fox News star Bill O'Reilly. When his Irish temper is aroused he can be tough, something the New York Times got a taste of last night.
The Times, which cozies up with the likes of O'Reilly foe Al Franken, recently exposed as having lied to Attorney General John Ashcroft, carried a column by Judith Maslin that says the alleged satirist "makes a bull's-eye out of Mr. O'Reilly" for having told whoppers.
In his Talking Points memo last night, O'Reilly fired back at the newspaper, which "is leading the charge to turn America into a secular nation and return political power to the left wing of the Democratic Party."
Raged O'Reilly, "Over the Labor Day weekend a New York Times reviewer named Janet Maslin attacked me in print - what else is new - but Maslin's gleeful libel demonstrates the viciousness that has enveloped the Times."
Noting the recent Jayson Blair scandal, which he said badly damaged the "troubled institution," the top-rated commentator recalled how the Times "inaccurately reported the battlefield situation in the opening days of the Iraq war." He said the Times' "hard news coverage was shaded to bolster its editorial position that the war was wrong."
"I knew that once I took on the New York Times the paper's character assassins would take dead aim on me," said O'Reilly, noting that "few journalists will ever criticize the Times. They know the paper will come after them in a very personal way. Therefore there is no check on the power of the New York Times. It prints what it wants with impunity."
He let loose at Maslin's "recycling of the bogus charges that impugn my integrity. Writes Maslin, 'Mr. Frankin makes a bulls-eye out of Mr. O'Reilly … he shows how Mr. O'Reilly's erroneous claim that he won a Peabody Award evolved into even bigger fibs once it was challenged.'
"Maslin must know by now that I never said I won a Peabody Award," O'Reilly explained. "Transcripts prove that, and the defamatory charge has been refuted time and time again. I simply defended my previous program, Inside Edition, by saying it won a Peabody. But I made a mistake. The program actually won a Polk Award. I corrected the record on March 2, 2001 and March 8, 2001 - two and a half years ago. Yet Maslin spreads the lie once again as well as hooting that I am a registered Republican -- something terrible to her - when the truth is that I changed my voting registration to Independent years ago.
"She also recycles the incredibly asinine assertion that I did not grow up where I said I grew up. My mother has lived in a Levitt house on Long Island for more than 50 years. The Arts & Entertainment 'Biography' program actually photographed the house and gave a brief history of the Levittown area. Yet this is not enough for Maslin."
Calling this "journalistic terrorism designed to punish people who hold opposing points of view," O'Reilly said he was not going to "deal with these attacks again on this program, but I will tell you that I am not alone. The New York Times actually called Mel Gibson a 'Jew-baiter' for daring to film a movie based on the passion of Jesus. The Times knows that the courts will allow this kind of libel because in this country famous people deserve no protection, but defamatory descriptions are disgraceful, and so is the Times for using them time and time again."
He concluded: "This is a high-stakes power game that influences political decision-making in America. The New York Times is pushing its far-left, secular agenda hard and will use any and all methods to hurt and diminish those who stand in its way. The culture war in America is getting bloodier. It will be interesting to see who will ultimately prevail."
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Then read more. If you a registered Republican and smart enough to read and post on Free Republic then you should have more than enough information to show we were correct on WMD's.
Or were you one of those that want to see barrels of chemicals and tube of biological antigens to make the point? This was never the case being made. The case for WMD was made equally by the libs in the Clinton administration as well as the conservatives in the Bush administration as to the WMD "capability" and past usage.
We found the lab trucks they used albeit cleaned up. We found the documents that describe the program. We found buried parts in nuclear scientists back yards that were used in the nuclear program.
You can easily use the computer to search the internet for article after article on what we have and have not found.
And soon the White House will show the things we found under David Kay's inspections and info gathering. Of course the press, and probably you, will poo-poo the evidence because, as I pointed out, it's not a barrel of chemicals or a test tube full of ricin or a nuclear weapon with the timer in the movie mode of stopping at :01.
Reality isn't like that.
I like the "memo" segment - I tune in just to get that straight no chaser opinion. Then I turn the channel. BO's boring when the heads are debating, and he would need to project a more benign personality to carry off championing of causes.
But he's surprisingly good, for a big government Irishman, at expounding on the faults of socialism.
He tries to cover the gamut on a cable news/opinion show. It's too scattered. I think he should slow things down, focus exclusively and artfully on his muckraking, and target primarily abuses in lefty organizations like the NYT.
Since 9/11 I don't think he's a Lib anymore :)
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Schadenfreude |
Congratulations and good luck! Best of wishes to your daughter and her fiance.
Yes, I too listened to them. It was excellent, as usual.
He may not be conservative but he is on our side and leads the Fox charge against the marxists.
BUMP
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