Day: 3/23/2009

Bill O’Reilly’s Attack Puppy Jesse Watters Strikes Again

Posted by on March 23, 2009 at 4:43 pm. 3 Comments :

Whenever Bill O’Reilly has some dirty work to do that doesn’t involve a loofah, he sends his trusty minion, Stuttering Jesse Watters. In the field, Watters pretends he is the progeny of Mike Wallace (whose real progeny, Chris, is also a Fox News toady). Watters plots elaborate ambush “interviews” with people who wouldn’t otherwise get within spitting distance of him, or O’Reilly either for that matter.

This past weekend, Amanda Terkel of ThinkProgress was literally stalked by Watters while she was on vacation.

Terkel: Watters and his camera man accosted me at approximately 3:45 p.m. on Saturday, March 21, in Winchester, VA, which is a two-hour drive from Washington, DC. My friend and I were in this small town for a short weekend vacation and had told no one about where we were going. I can only infer that the two men staked out my apartment and then followed me for two hours.

This harassment was orchestrated by O’Reilly as payback for Terkel’s reporting on O’Reilly’s appearance before the Alexa Foundation, a rape victims support group. It was a personal assault that had no news value, just the desire to harm someone he believed to be an enemy. The action taken against Terkel violated even O’Reilly’s criteria for ambushing:

O’Reilly: [W]e do not go after people lightly. We always ask them on the program first, or to issue a clear statement explaining their actions.

However, Terkel was never contacted for either a statement or an invitation to appear on the Factor. This is typical O’Reilly behavior. Remember, this is the same guy who pushed an Obama aide and threatened him not to “block the shot.” He is a textbook bully, as well as a paranoid narcissist. Dispatching so-called “producers” to harass people you don’t like is closer to organized crime than to journalism. Perhaps O’Reilly and Watters could be prosecuted under the RICO statutes.

Update: O’Reilly’s segment with the Watters ambush just aired and it was a stunning piece of sensationalistic, libelous, garbage. The encounter with Terkel, whom O’Reilly branded a villain, was edited so as to paint a thoroughly dishonest picture of her, while permitting Watters to spew a running commentary of vile character assassination. Then O’Reilly took a cognitive leap to turn his fire on Jeff Zucker, CEO of NBC, without explaining what he had to do with any of this. Clearly, O’Reilly just wants to take every opportunity to bash NBC as a proxy for his nemesis, Keith Olbermann, who also had nothing to do with this.

Also notable in the segment was O’Reilly’s description of the rape trial for the perpetrator of the crime committed against Alexa Branchini, for whom the Alexa Foundation was created. O’Reilly said that the defense put on a case intended to “prove the rape was consensual.” That is, to say the least, a curious phrasing. He did not refer to whether the “sex” was consensual. It appears that O’Reilly thinks that sometimes a rape victim may have consented to being raped, or was otherwise responsible. And that is precisely what Terkel noted in the article that started all of this – that O’Reilly was an inappropriate speaker to a rape victims organization because of his previous insensitivity for implying that some victims are responsible for bringing about their own assault. Somebody needs to tell O’Reilly that rape is NEVER consensual.

The Horror Of A Laughing President

Posted by on March 23, 2009 at 12:21 pm. 4 Comments :

It’s really sort of pathetic how utterly humorless modern conservatives have become. Following Barack Obama’s interview last night on 60 Minutes, a torrent of indignation was released across the mediasphere that blew past Politico, Drudge, and countless right-wing blogs. What had Obama done to unleash such fury, even causing interviewer Steve Kroft to inquire if Obama was “punch drunk?” He laughed. Yep, that’s it. He laughed.

To any rational viewer, the moment merely demonstrated the President’s amusement of the relentless curiosity of media figures that don’t get it. At worst, he was just using laughter as a stress reliever. That’s something that many real people do during anxious times. For critics who have been hammering him for weeks about being too glum, it is absurd for them now to assert that a gentle laugh suggests that, all of a sudden, he is too flippant and detached.

All of this fits right in with the sorrowful character of conservatives. They were dismayed when they thought Obama did not do enough to assuage their grief. Now they are disturbed that he is not exhibiting enough grief of his own. Either way they are consumed by their incessant grieving and blaming it all on Obama.

The lack of humor on the part of the right is reaching epidemic proportions. Their comic heroes are Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. How sad is that? Last week Tucker Carlson presumed to lecture Jon Stewart on the art of comedy. This weekend, Bill O’Reilly’s column attempted to bring the funny, but missed miserably. The article is a collection of fake headlines (something O’Reilly and Fox News should be adept at), aimed at mocking the liberal media. But there are two significant problems with O’Reilly’s comic foray. First, it isn’t remotely funny. Second, the only thing he succeeds at making a mockery of is himself. In the first paragraph he says:

O’Reilly: The other day, left-wing muckraker Seymour Hersh went on MSNBC and said he had information, provided by the usual anonymous sources, that Dick Cheney was running an assassination squad out of the White House.

However, the Pulitzer Prize winning Hersh never went on MSNBC with this story. So in an article seeking to ridicule the liberal media for making up news stories, O’Reilly actually made up a story of his own in the part of the article that he presented as factual. Is there any part of his wretched reality that doesn’t put satire to shame?

So where are the funny conservatives? Where is the right’s Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Chris Rock, Tina Fey, George Carlin (RIP), etc.? Is Rush going to have to be both the head of the Republican Party and the chief conservative comic? Or will it be the indecipherable Dennis Miller or Fox’s Greg Gutfield, who just got a few yucks at the expense of dead Canadian soldiers? There is, of course, the hysterical escapism of Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, but if you don’t already suffer from acute paranoia, do you really want to assume that risk?

It really is pathetic how desperate and forlorn the right has become. They appear to have nothing left but to invent outrage where non exists, and to cling to leaders who offer only obstacles. And when the human spirit requires uplifting more than ever, they are stuck with clowns who have painted on permanent sneers. And even worse, their melancholy is magnified merely by witnessing the horror of a laughing President. It makes me sad just thinking about it.