First Pat Robertson, now O’Reilly.
O’Reilly wished that hurricane had flooded U.N. building, added that he “wouldn’t have rescued them”
UN Foundation President Timothy Wirth:
I was astonished and appalled by the comments made by Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly on his September 14th radio show, The Radio Factor. O’Reilly said he wished that the deadly Hurricane Katrina would have hit the United Nations building and flooded it. He added that if it was up to him, he would not have rescued anyone.
Mr. O’Reilly should be required to withdraw these remarks. And both Mr. O’Reilly and Fox should make an immediate and public apology.
Well, considering that our ambassador to the UN is a walking, talking diplomatic problem, O’Reilly probably isn’t high on our list of diplomatic priorities…
How can this man still be allowed to be on the air? Seriously, why aren’t viewers calling for his firing after such revolting, vicious and hateful words.
O’Reily getting fired from Fox for being an idiot has nothing to do with the First Amendment.
EEeeewww! Hims said positively dweadful things about the UN…
So what — you could push the whole building in to the East River, and make 10,000 New York drivers happy.
The shenanigans of drivers with diplomatic plates, alone, have pissed off thousands of New York drivers. The behavior of their hypocritical and officious diplomats have pissed off most of America.
O’Reilly should get a medal.
For the sake of clarity, could the home team please compile a list of those you feel should not enjoy 1st Ammendment rights.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Randi Rhodes, Cindy Sheehan, Ward Churchill, and the myriad other left-wing cranks that flood our airwaves with genuine hate-speech, won’t find themselves on any such list.
Yes, Frank, and you could blow up every megachurch in the country and solve a lot of traffic problems in suburban America. You could also clean out one of the great scourges of our modern culture – mouthbreathing cultists yearning for “Christian” entertainment with a healthy dose of medievalist bigotry as a bonus. Yes, you can get rid of the imperious UN bureaucrats and I can get rid of the religious right. We’ll call it an even swap.
O’Reilly said some jackassed things, but he hasn’t fucked up badly enough to deserve a medal.
So if I said I wish the 9/11 plane had managed to hit the Whitehouse, you would come to bat for my 1st amendment rights and laugh about it Frank? They close the roads for motorcades and presidential funerals a lot, so the drivers would be happy too. You are a clot.
What the hell has the UN ever done for you? As far as I’m concerned, this nation has a national shrine, and it’s in Washibgton, D.C. The U.N. isn’t it. It’s just another building mostly filled with American hating diplomats.
“Mr. O Reilly should be required to withdraw these remarks. And both Mr. O Reilly and Fox should make an immediate and public apology.”
Agreed.
Extremely poor taste.
Frank- Just because he has the right to say it, it doesn’t make it right or good to say.
Again, Frank is trying desperately to deflect attention from the issue because one of his GOP heroes has been caught embarrassing himself–again.
The issue isn’t the UN; the issue is that a GOP mouthpiece has advocated the death of a group of people; just like every terrorist group does.
As for the UN–why doesn’t AWOL George tell it to get out? To move to some other country and pull US support and representation away from the UN? If what Frank says is true (of course, Frank wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him on his corpulent posterior)–shouldn’t AWOL George just remove the US from the UN?
add: no, he’s desperately trying to bring attention back to himself.
“For the sake of clarity, could the home team please compile a list of those you feel should not enjoy 1st Ammendment rights.”
I know wingnuts don’t believe in reading the Constitution (outside of the Sacred 2nd Amendment) but if they did, they would learn that the First Amendment, like all of them, addresses the limits of government.
The government may not limit the speech of citizens, or deny them the right to petition for redress of grievances, or to assemble peacably.
The First Amendment does not say anything about the relationships among citizens, or between citizens and their employers. People get fired every day for saying things their employers don’t like, like “can we get a union up in here?”
Therefore, one can only conclude that since Mr. O’Reilly has not been fired, his employer must agree with and endorse his sentiments.
And I am not violating anyone’s First Amendment rights when I point this out.
“Therefore, one can only conclude that since Mr. O Reilly has not been fired, his employer must agree with and endorse his sentiments.
And I am not violating anyone s First Amendment rights when I point this out.”
You’re not. But you are making a very ridiculous assertion that Fox News’ decision to not fire a commentator over something he said means an implicit endorsement of his viewpoints.
Once again, leftists advocate freedom of thought.
Unless you disagree with them. Then you should be fired.
But you are making a very ridiculous assertion that Fox News decision to not fire a commentator over something he said means an implicit endorsement of his viewpoints.
Once again, leftists advocate freedom of thought.”
Is it just me or does that make no sense whatsoever? All I’m sayin’ is, everyone has freedom of speech but we can’t act all shocked and indignant when other people call us on our bullshit. O’Reilly is not special. FOX News is not special. The same rules apply to them as to anyone else.
Is is only Leftists who can grasp such subtle arguments? Maybe so.
O Reilly should get a medal.
Frank;
Not your best moment.
Do you think perhaps the hatred (mostly third world countries, but including some elitist europeans) has ANYTHING to do with US attitudes. Is the attitude that americans have a superiority complex completely without any merit whatsoever?
Sure diplomats abuse their privileges. Human nature is such that we push the envelope when selfish interest is at stake. But the potential abuse by foreign governments requires a ‘hands off’ policy for diplomats.
All these things do not add up to ‘we’re better off with no dialgoue, than we are with some dialogue.’ Otherwise, why are we talking to Korea?
My, my, my, after years of Bush = Hitler, and Smirky McChimp, etc., it’s right – wingers who are to be taken literally…. I laugh!
And, Mouse, spare me the $.25 psychiatry. Lucy (from Peanuts) is gone. You’ll never replace her.
But you are making a very ridiculous assertion that Fox News decision to not fire a commentator over something he said means an implicit endorsement of his viewpoints.
Our resident KISS groupie would know better if he had the benefit of an education.
O’Reilly is a paid representative of FoxNews. As such, it is absolutely true that FoxNews endorses O’Reilly’s views or they would have disciplined him in some manner for this offense or the many grotesque things he’s said previously as FoxNews’ agent.
Consider the case of GOPer and racist Rush Limbaugh on ESPN. Limbaugh spewed his racist nonsense (as well as just an abysmal lack of knowledge of the NFL) on ESPN and ESPN cut him loose.
Of course, many uneducated and unemployed Repugs like Brandon believe the First Amendment protects their job. It doesn’t. What the 1A does is protect speech against Govt. prosecution or retaliation.
Now we know why Fox and O’reilly are so popular. They are just freakin dumb as the right wingers who clog this blog. Fox and the talk radio guys are talking to people, not about the truth, but about what the wingnuts want to believe is the truth.
Yeah…the UN is evil. Especially that group that wants to save children and stop disease and stuff.
TIme for you guys to get out of your Mother’s basement and get a job.
Fox News Channel is a business
No, they are not. This is the big point you’re missing. They are primarily a propaganda outlet for the GOP.
Your theory fails in that it’s not ‘outrageousness’ being sold; after all, FoxNews could easily find more outrageous commenters from the extreme rightwing.
Leo: you’re back from “incognito”… Get a tan?
All these things do not add up to we re better off with no dialgoue, than we are with some dialogue.Short answer: not necessarily.
Longer answer: We made it from 1789 – 1945 without a UN, and we did just fine. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a Europran device (Congress of Vienna, Congress of Berlin, etc.), that doesn’t even fit Washington’s caution against “foreign entanglements”.
By the way. I owe you a reply. You made an inquiry before you went to “incognito,” and I answered it:
” Frank_D Says:
September 12th, 2005 at 8:34 pm
Semanticleo: I will answer your question in the only way I know how, and without cheap shots.
I grew up in a wage -earning low income family, Democratic and Catholic.
When Kennedy ran for President, I was only a 13 year old Catholic high school freshman, but we all acted like Kennedy was Jesus come to earth.
Jackie K was, improbably, the Virgin Mary.
Then he was assassinated by a leftist, a pro – Cuba communist.
Jackie O s lament: How could he have been shot by one of us?
Did she really say that? I believed that she did.
Where I went to school, we had literally a population of 90 – 95% liberals and further left students. In a mock election between Johnson and Goldwater, Johnson got more than 3000 votes, Goldwater got 29 (!)
One of those votes was mine&
You know why?
Because another conservative asked me to read three books:
1. A Choice not an Echo
http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/89/
2. None Dare Call it Treason
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/526
3. Conscience of a Conservative
http://www.politixgroup.com/br8.htm
From there it was the usual route
Ayn Rand (too brutal)
William F Buckley (too intellectual)
Russell Kirk (too old school )
Finally (about 1971 – 1972), I started seriously reading. I never looked back. I ve been a conservative ever since, now a registered Right – to – Lifer.
” Frank_D Says:
September 12th, 2005 at 8:42 pm
I never gave you a direct answer to your question:
How far should a team player stretch their principles and regurgitate the talking points of their leadership before they break from the pack?
1) Never stretch your principles
2) Never regurgitate talking points, unless you are in full agreement with them, and they are saying it better than you can. I catch a lot of hell around here for doing that, but that s the way I roll.
3) I don t have to break from the pack I m not in one!
O Reilly is a paid representative of FoxNews. As such, it is absolutely true that FoxNews endorses O Reilly s views or they would have disciplined him in some manner for this offense or the many grotesque things he s said previously as FoxNews agent.
I think you’re missing a very big point.
Fox News Channel is a business – they pay O’Reilly to draw in viewers, which, in turn, generates revenue for the business. The pay Bill O’Reilly to get people to tune in – it doesn’t mean that they have to agree with everything he says.
ESPN fired Rush Limbaugh because the backlash from the comments threatened to hurt ratings for the show – not because of the content of what was said. He was hired as a commentator to say outragious things to get people watching.
JadeGold: You are, again, incorrect. FOXNews could deliver nothing but Republican talking points 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, which, in fact, they do not, and still not be a propaganda outlet for the GOP. This is because they continue to broadcast news.
They rarely broadcast what can formally be called policy endorsements, they do not endorse political candidates for free, nor do they recommend who a person should vote for. This places them very far from being a propaganda machine for anyone.
Thanks for the rhetoric, but you can have it back now.
You’re theory fails because to have an outrageous commentator does not require you to have the most outrageous commentator you can find; rather, you should hire a commentator sufficiently outrageous to attract a lot of viewers — “to say outragious things to get people watching.”
Ya..he’s gotta be fired for that. Not for nothing…UN troops have put themselves in harms way on many fronts.
He needs to lose his Fox gig for this. That’s horrible.
JK
They fired the guy from “Politically Incorrect” quick enough when he went against the Government line. I remember seeing this program when they justified the Ruby Ridge killings.
The sad thing is, if the UN Security Council had rubber-stamped the US invasion of Iraq, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The right-wingers would be praising the UN as the greatest multilateral organisation in the world, and beating down on us liberals for saying “maybe the UN shouldn’t have rubber-stamped that”.
Just because they disagree with you doesn’t make you right.
O’Reilly and others of his ilk have sponsors. Email or phone their sponsors and tell them you won’t buy their products as long as they sponsor O’Reilly and the others. Then, actually don’t buy their products. Buy a competitor’s and tell the sponsor why you did that.
Sounds like something that needs a simple little website…
Falafel!
http://www.falaphilia.com
Hey….this gets better…another popular right wing talk show host claims to have won a “Pulitzer Prize,” as Jay Serverin has recently done. Jay Severin is a vitreolic conservative talk show host out of Boston, a regular on IMUS, and soon, to be a regular on Tucker Carlson’s gig on MSNBC. However, this, I suspect, will change things if we make sure the below article gets to the right people.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/09/16/severins_phony_pulitzer/
I think the people at MSNBC need to know about this.
JK
Of course I am correct, Frank.
Propaganda outlets need not broadcast propaganda 24/7; to the contrary, an effective propaganda outlet will keep its propagandizing below 50% of its content.
Let’s face it, Fox is a joke. It’s intended audience are extremists and dupes.
Your ability to generalize is remarkable: “an effective propaganda outlet will keep its propagandizing below 50% of its content.” Where did you get that information? From “Propaganda for Dummies”?
You may think FOX is a joke. But you don’t who its intended audience is; all you know is that it isn’t you.
The fact that people like Frank are defending Fox should be evidence enough that Fox is a joke.
JK
FOX is the official government propaganda channel, no two ways about it. Just like the government channels they used to have in the Soviet Union or East Germany, only suckers believe in it. And even they wise up eventually.
“But you don’t who its intended audience is; all you know is that it isn’t you. ”
I feel better already. I’d hate to think that I was intended to take that bigoted, misinformed, he-who-shouts-loudest-wins, cesspool seriously.
Here in Australia, Fox News is the channel I skip past between Sky News Australia and CNN by pressing the “Channel Up” button. Staying on Fox for more than 3 seconds is detrimental to my sanity.
I actually have no problem with Fox News being 24-hour GOP news propaganda, at 25%, 50%, or 100%. More power to them. But they need to clearly label it as such. “I am Karl Rove, and I approved this message” should be appended to every show.
Doesn’t Fox News just come with every cable package you order? A bit like minesweeper with Microsoft?
Rhys, what did you think of the Ashes?
“Doesn’t Fox News just come with every cable package you order? A bit like minesweeper with Microsoft?”
Unfortunately, yes. I long for the day when the cable companies offer a la carte channels, where I only pay for what I actually want.
“Rhys, what did you think of the Ashes?”
Don’t watch cricket and don’t really care. But we’ve kicked the Pom’s asses enough times in the past that letting this one slide is no biggie. Give ‘em a false sense of security and all that.
Thank you, JK, for the most precise ad hominem attack I’ve ever seen: If Frank likes that is “evidence enough” that FOX is a joke.
Well, we can all go home now. This thread is closed.
Technically that’s not ad hominen. Ad hominen means “attack the man.” It means when you can’t say that your opponent is using poor logic or incorrect facts, you fall back on saying, “well my opponent is a jerk.”
Since JK is arguing against FOX, it would be ad hominen if he said “FOX is a jerk,” but that makes no sense since FOX is not a person. What he is doing instead is guilt by association, which is within bounds. “Ye may know a man by the company he keeps, ” etc.
This thread is now closed.
Shit, I didn’t think anyone really thought FOXNEWS was actually a news channel. I just assumed it was a spoof of the news. You mean to tell me that Bill O’Reilly guy really is that big of an ass??
SadieB, technically, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Did you ever hear of parsing a sentence?
Well, let’s give it a try…
1) This is a complete sentence: The fact should be evidence enough that Fox is a joke.
2) This is not: that people like Frank are defending Fox that makes this a dependent, descriptive clause.
What JK is saying is that the evidence that FOX is a joke is that people like Frank are defending FOX. Sounds ad hominem to me.
Incidentally, to say that FOX is not propaganda is not to defend it, except, perhaps, against charges that it is propaganda.
But, in my mind, those charges are ludicrous, so I’m sort of clarifying a truth, rather than mounting a defense.
To me, the original argument stands: Bill O’Reilly is free to say what he wants, and he did, and if there are people in the world who are insufficiently educated about the United States to understand that O’Reilly neither reflects nor influences formal American policy, that’s too bad.
The literal definition of joke follows. Both Frank, AND Fox, fall under #’s 4 AND 5,
1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line.
2.A mischievous trick; a prank.
3.An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation.
Informal.
4.) Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke.
5.) An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office.
Edward Bernays wrote the only book on Propaganda? Good thing you read it, or no one wopuld would know anything about, eh, JadeGold?
Funny it took you 23 hours to mention it…
That’s a lot of Googlin’
Now, JK, that was mildly funny. It shows that liberals can actually be humorous if they apply themselves.
Since the 60’s, the keft has confused mockery and sarcasm with humor, and you’ve actually created a joke, although it did require the assistance of a dictionary.
The only joke I know that requires the assistance of a Dictionary is this:
When I look up “idiot” in the dictionary, you picture is there — now that’s funny!
Where did you get that information? From Propaganda for Dummies ?
This is where an education comes in handy, Frank. Edward Bernays wrote the book, Propaganda, and is widely recognized as the seminal work in the field. Bernays’ thesis was relatively simple: if you propagandize 100% of the time, you risk becoming a parody (e.g., Lord Haw-Haw, Joe Isuzu, etc); effective propaganda is based upon a mixture of lies and the truth so as not to allow the intended audience to make a distinction.
Fox is a joke.
>>When I look up idiot in the dictionary, you picture is there now that s funny!
Did you get that from Henny Youngman? Jack Benny?
Frank…your ability to not take yourself too seriously is key to your self-redemption. I will lay off of you for …well, about a day.
JK
JadeGold: If FOX is Bush’s propaganda arm, they have turned on their boss:
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/9028
(Angus Reid Global Scan) Fewer adults in the United States express satisfaction with George W. Bush, according to a poll by Opinion Dynamics released by Fox News [emphasis added - fd]. 51 per cent of respondents disapprove of the president s performance.
Don’t even wait… I’ll be gone from Wednesday to Friday, and what will you do then?
Spar with JadeGold?
O Reilly should get a medal.
Frank;
Not your best moment.
Do you think perhaps the hatred (mostly third world countries, but including some elitist europeans) has ANYTHING to do with US attitudes. Is the attitude that americans have a superiority complex completely without any merit whatsoever?
Sure diplomats abuse their privileges. Human nature is such that we push the envelope when selfish interest is at stake. But the potential abuse by foreign governments requires a hands off policy for diplomats.
All these things do not add up to we re better off with no dialgoue, than we are with some dialogue. Otherwise, why are we talking to Korea?
Isn’t this a repeat post?
My answer:
September 18th, 2005 at 4:12 pm
Leo: you re back from incognito & Get a tan?
All these things do not add up to we re better off with no dialgoue, than we are with some dialogue.Short answer: not necessarily.
Longer answer: We made it from 1789 – 1945 without a UN, and we did just fine. As far as I m concerned, it s a Europran device (Congress of Vienna, Congress of Berlin, etc.), that doesn t even fit Washington s caution against foreign entanglements .
addendum — afterthought NATO, SEATO, CENTO make sense. The UN is not necessary.