On last night’s O’Reilly Factor (2/6/13), the Fox News host, along with “liberal” guest Bob Beckel, did some media criticism, wondering why NBC—which is how O’Reilly tends to refer to both the broadcast network and its cable channel MSNBC—has failed to cover the new revelations about the White House drone program.
O’REILLY: Now, remember the outcry about waterboarding?
BECKEL: Sure.
O’REILLY: You know everybody jumping up and down.
BECKEL: Yes.
O’REILLY: NBC News, I thought they were going to like melt down over there. You have heard anything on NBC about the drones?
BECKEL: Not yet.
O’REILLY: No.
The conversation went on:
O’REILLY: All right, so you haven’t heard anything over there about this and neither have I…. Neither has my staff.
BECKEL: OK.
O’REILLY: OK, so we haven’t heard anything. But we heard a lot about waterboarding. But nothing about drone strikes. How do you process that?
“Why would they go crazy on waterboarding and they don’t care about drones?” O’Reilly wondered—before answering his own question: “Because they are protecting the president.”
Anyone with even a minimal understanding of the drone “white paper” knows the story was broken by Michael Isikoff—who is, umm, an NBC reporter. Its contents were discussed at some length on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show on February 4. The story led the NBC Nightly News on February 5. The cable channel has continued to cover it.
The divergent reactions among the hosts and contributors at the liberal cable channel has been a subject of discussion, criticism and media coverage. It has struck some critics that the network has been softer on this than they would have been if it had been happening under a Republican administration. That seems like a fair observation, but it’s very different from saying that they have not covered the story at all.
Anyone with a cable subscription or the Internet can find this out. If O’Reilly is being denied Internet access by his bosses at Fox, that should be a story. It’s either that, or he has no idea what he’s talking about.
UPDATE: O’Reilly responded last night (2/7/13) by complaining that his critics were wrong. Here’s what he said:
And, finally, tonight, the Factor Tip of the Day, more deceit from the far-left. For 17 long years, these loons have been trying to marginalize me but they fail.
And even though their attempts are extremely tedious, they continue. They have nothing else to do. Now, last night, I talked with Bob Beckel about the difference in analyses on the subject of waterboarding as compared to killing people with drones, a policy President Obama embraces.
I put forth that over at NBC News and other media places, they were hysterical over waterboarding but muted over President Obama’s drone attacks, at least until yesterday.
Immediately, the far-left machine cranked up, “O’Reilly didn’t say that NBC News broke the drone memo story. He’s a deceiver.”
True, I didn’t say NBC broke the memo story because we weren’t talking about that. Waterboarding versus drone strikes. Well, once again, we have a propaganda campaign designed to make ignorant people on the left, even more ignorant.
Anyone with an understanding of the English language knows that O’Reilly is lying. What he said was that NBC wasn’t covering the drone revelations:
O’REILLY: You have heard anything on NBC about the drones?
BECKEL: Not yet.
O’REILLY: No.
And they went on:
O’REILLY: All right, so you haven’t heard anything over there about this and neither have I…. Neither has my staff.
BECKEL: OK.
O’REILLY: OK, so we haven’t heard anything. But we heard a lot about waterboarding. But nothing about drone strikes.
Lucky for him he works for a news outlet where being horribly wrong, and then refusing to admit your mistake, is considered just another day at the office.
This is eerily similar to Rush Limbaugh’s complaint about the New York Times and Whitewater:
https://fair.org/extra-online-articles/the-way-things-arent/
LIMBAUGH: On Whitewater: “I don’t think the New York Times has run a story on this yet. I mean, we haven’t done a thorough search, but I–there has not been a big one, front-page story, about this one that we can recall. So this has yet to create or get up to its full speed–if it weren’t for us and the Wall Street Journal and the American Spectator, this would be one of the biggest and most well kept secrets going on in American politics today.” (TV show, 2/17/94)
REALITY: The New York Times broke the Whitewater story on March 8, 1992, in a front-page story by Jeff Gerth that included much of the key information known today. The investigative article ran over 1,700 words.
Bill knows none of his viewers watch any other channel, and don’t pay attention to the internet other than their favorite knee-jerk conservative sites like Breitbart. So while I’m fairly certain he knows it’s a lie, he also knows his viewers don’t know it’s a lie. The title of the article cracks me up, though!’
The article assumes that Bill cares about how to use the internet, or cares whats on it. He is not going to say anything that his Corporate Leash holders are going to get upset about, hence play stupid. It has worked since 1980; pretend that your totally ignorant of the whole thing and then later claim to have some ‘divine insight’, using quotes that never appeared, but all the followers hail as “biblical truth”.
SO many of these talk/commentary shows are SO formulaic. The host or his colleagues are going to get SO outraged/incensed about some transgression (real or imagined, major or minor) of the opposition party’s member(s), and they’re going to self-righteously bloviate for 5 or 10 minutes with minimal input from a guest(s). Though the liberals follow the formula, they do try to be a little even-handed and not as blatently hypocritical as the a-rational righties (especially the Tea Partiers). I feel no need to watch that sort of theatrics – – – it’d be like watching the Harlem Globetrotters and expecting the New Jersey Generals to win the game.
What DeeLemon said. Bill can flat out lie knowing his ignorant audience doesn’t know or doesn’t care. We all have those whacky conservative family members that think billo is infallible.
I watched O’Lielly for awhile the night before & I swear he said something like “well, will talk about the drones another time, but, personally, I’m all for them.”
I am sick and tired of this fuss oover drones. Any and every one of these goons need to go fight these wars, and THEN they can speak. It’s FAR better to be able tgo strike accurately than it is to send our men and women into those situations. Do these idiots really like it better when our own people are killed or maimed for life doing the job? You can rest assured NONE of them or their “kids” ever serve in that capacity. Enough stupidity. Be glad we have the science and ability to do what needs to be done. These so called Americans have denounced our country, and they only hold onto their “citizenship” to allow them easy passage in and out of this country. They HATE us and want to see us dead. So, get over it folks.
Go to http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/w/whitewater_case/index.html or just enter “Whitewater Case” (no quotes) in the NY Time’s U.S./Politics search box. There, you can search the NYT’s articles impacted by the Whitewater case, some more relevant than others. Unfortunately, Bill hasn’t yet learned to use search boxes.
Trouble is, Constance, that drones are NOT accurate – many innocent people have been killed by them, which might account some for the fact that some of the people who didn’t get killed now hate us. That plus the fact that there are serious questions about executive power overreach. Or are you OK with innocent people being killed, AKA ‘collateral damage’, on the say so, with no oversight, no accountability, of whoever has assumed the powers of king-du-jour?
Furthermore, to go even beyond what Pete wrote, most of the targets of the drone attacks – even when they are armed insurgents, are merely doing what any US citizen would do if there homelands were being invaded or their governments manipulated by a foreign power. They are absolutely no threat to you, me or any other USAn, particularly if the US would learn to mind its own business.
Or, more briefly, the idea that “Muslims want to kill us all” is dreadful, racist, imperialist lie.
Glad to hear you’re on O’Reilly’s (and Lindsey Graham’s) side on the drones, Constance. Once it becomes easy to slaughter people without actually putting oneself (or one’s fellows) in harm’s way, the killing just goes on, and the rationales for it get weaker and uglier. Like now. Read the released memo parts–the mbecile attempt to redifine the word “Imminent” should be enough alone to give you pause. If Bush (or President Christie or President Rubio or President Jeb Bush) were doing it, would you folks be down with all the murder and mayhem and Constitution shredding? If torture was wrong, then how could targeted murder, with zero evidence presented and done completely in secret, the targets’ deaths decided by some unknown desk jockey (or the President)? indeed, what can the Executive not do? If the President wants to “fight” a “war,” then he needs to put soldiers in harm’s way and be prepared to pay the consequences. Save your crocidile tears for the thousands of innocent people the drones have blown to hash already–including Americans who were never given their due process rights. There was no attempt to capture them–they were put on a hit list (literally) and then assassinated. Think, for Christ’s sake, and don’t allow your need to line up behind the President get the btter angels of yuor nature to lie down with the jackals and liars.
This is a huge waste of “print space”.Splitting hairs.
Yup, O’Reilly cleverly splits hairs. He uses plausible deniability. After all, unless someone was actually in the room when he heard anything, he can deny ever actually having heard NBC talking about, let alone breaking a story about, drone strikes. In the process of denying he ever heard anything, though, he plants in the minds of his gullible viewers/listeners the idea that NBC never said anything. Splitting hairs, indeed.
The progression is from E.I.T.s to drones. Doesn’t matter which party is in the executive seat.
I’m fairly certain he knows it’s a lie, he also knows his viewers don’t know it’s a lie. The title of the article cracks me up, though!’