Bully BillO comes out to smack Colmes for daring to suggest liberals don’t hate America
Click here to view this media Now here’s an irony: Bill O’Reilly accusing Al Jazeera of being anti-Semitic because it includes guests who clearly fit that description. Meanwhile, the Glenn Beck Anti-Semitic Elephant in the room goes politely ignored. Of course, what this was really about was, once again, right-wing Fox talkers like O’Reilly and Monica Crowley using unrest abroad as a way to smear liberal Americans as insufficiently patriotic. And so when Alan Colmes called them out for it, his reward was to get the BillO the Bully Full-On Nasty treatment. It happened last night on O’Reilly’s opening “Talking Points Memo” segment : “Talking Points” could provide hundreds of examples of anti-Semitism and “hate America” rhetoric displayed on Al Jazeera, the network Sam Donaldson admires. And he’s not alone. Here’s what Brian Stelter wrote in The New York Times on Tuesday: “As recently as Friday, the conservative Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly branded Al Jazeera as ‘anti-America.’ … But that view has been largely drowned out by people like [Sam] Donaldson who have hoisted up Al Jazeera English for its protest coverage.” Totally absurd. Any fair-minded person who follows Al Jazeera knows it is anti-American and anti-Semitic. Only on the far left can it find acceptance. Sure. And it’s true that it’s there are many examples of anti-Semitic guests on Al Jazeera — just as it’s true that Fox has had on its airwaves a broad assortment of nativists and other far-right extremists over the years as well. But even more important, one of Fox News’ leading anchors — and a frequent onstage and on-air cohort of O’Reilly’s — is under siege from Jewish rabbis outraged by Beck’s anti-Semitic slurs of George Soros and his obscene overuse of Nazi and Holocaust comparisons and metaphors . Oh well. That — like any criticism of the network at all — is NEVER mentioned at Fox. Because as the segment that followed with Colmes and Crowley amply demonstrated, this was less about bashing Al Jazeera and was really all about bashing liberals — as Crowley made explicit. And that set off the fireworks: CROWLEY: Well, I — I don’t want to attribute this directly to Sam Donaldson but I would say to make a broader point that the far left in this country is essentially anti-American. COLMES: Oh please, now that’s disgusting. CROWLEY: They are — and so a lot of their — a lot of their philosophy. (CROSSTALK) COLMES: That’s disgusting. That’s sickening. CROWLEY: I’m not saying you, Colmes, I’m saying the broader far left has an anti-American agenda that in many ways dovetails… (CROSSTALK) COLMES: Who, who? Tell me who? Who on the left? CROWLEY: …with the kind of reporting — reporting that we see come out of Al Jazeera. O’REILLY: She’s saying the far left. COLMES: Who? Who? Who are you calling anti-American? I’m so tired of people calling people on my side anti-American. (CROSSTALK) O’REILLY: Are you a far-left guy? COLMES: I don’t know. You have called me that. O’REILLY: Sometimes your positions are far left. COLMES: All right, fine. But am I anti-American? O’REILLY: I don’t think you’re anti-American. But certainly the far left is taking anti-American positions. COLMES: But look, but let’s stop this name-calling. Let’s stop demonizing anybody you don’t agree with and call them anti-American. O’REILLY: I just ran a “Talking Points Memo” that backed up, all right, with four specific things that this is an anti-Semitic, anti-American network and I could do 40 of them. COLMES: But you said those were people on the network as guests. (CROSSTALK) O’REILLY: There is no counter. Why don’t you grasp this? I’m getting a little mad at you. Grasp this! There is no counter on it, you got it? There is no counter on it! COLMES: Yes, I hear what you say. It’s free speech. O’REILLY: So it’s this, yes, it’s free speech. Shouldn’t be praised by a pinhead like Donaldson. Nor should O’Reilly’s speech be praised … by anyone. Smearing, lying, and bullying should get you removed from the airwaves, not enshrined as one of cable’s most prominent anchors. Memo to BillO: There is a big “counter” hanging around your neck. And his name is Glenn Beck.
Original post:
Bully BillO comes out to smack Colmes for daring to suggest liberals don’t hate America
Posted by
on February 3, 2011. Filed under