Month: December 2011

Apocalypse Soon: Is Glenn Beck In Financial Trouble?

Posted by on December 16, 2011 at 10:06 am. 5 Comments :

For several years now the shlock jock turned evangi-pundit, Glenn Beck, has been frightening his glassy-eyed viewers with exhortations that some Apocalyptic Perfect Storm is upon us. He has been predicting the imminent end of the world on a nearly daily basis. Little did we know that he was only referring to his own batty world.

Beck’s company, Mercury Radio Arts, just announced that they will be leasing studio space from The Studios at Las Colinas, a production facility in Irving, Texas. I’m sure that’s a lovely facility, however, there is a marked difference between that space and the former Gateway Church complex that he had previously announced would be his production home. Take a look at these photos for comparison:

Glenn Beck Studios

Beck was set to move in to the Gateway Church when he suddenly withdrew his zoning requests and abandoned the deal. The Gateway can accommodate 20,000 people, far more than the 500 seats at the Las Colinas site. That’s a substantial downsizing. Beck has apparently come to his fractured senses and realized that he cannot afford the extravagance of the Gateway hall. And he is likely also aware that his ability to draw big crowds has withered.

Beck’s popularity is in a nosedive since he was booted off of Fox News. He has been struggling to attract the sort of media attention to which he had become accustomed. Perhaps that’s what led to his remarks last week that the Tea Party is racist for preferring Newt Gingrich over Barack Obama. Insulting your fan base may generate controversy, but it is not the best way to boost ticket sales. And with his latest public revival meeting, “Restoring Love,” scheduled for next summer, he is going to have a hard time filling seats without Tea Party behinds – I mean behind him.

The only predictions that will be fulfilled for Beck are the Biblical ones that News Corpse has pointed out before: Deuteronomy 28:27-29, describes the punishment from the Lord if you should fail to follow his laws:

27: The LORD will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed.
28: The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart.
29: And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee.

We hardly need to speak of Egypt and how badly Beck botched that. The emerods (or hemorrhoids) he has already had, and it nearly killed him. The potential blindness he announced tearfully last year. The madness is self evident. And now even his prosperity is being plundered as this year he lost his television program, numerous radio stations have canceled his show, and he has to live with a puny 500 seat theater instead of the 20,000 seat stadium he really wants. And all because he has pissed off the wrong guy:

Glenn Beck & God

With all of these foreboding signs of doom, it must be time to buy more gold. Too bad Beck’s gold merchant, Goldline, has been indicted for fraud.

Fox News Debuts The Rush Limbaugh Hyperbole Hour

Posted by on December 15, 2011 at 12:21 pm. 3 Comments :

The Fox News web site for “those opposed to intolerance, excessive government control of our lives, and attempts to monopolize opinion or suppress freedom of thought, expression, and worship,” Fox Nation, generally exhibits the same calm, thoughtful, and reasoned demeanor in its presentation of the news as its TV parent. For example, this morning the Fox Nationalists posted this headline story:

Fox Nation

For anyone who didn’t tune in to the interview of Rush Limbaugh by Greta Van Susteren yesterday (which was 99% of the country), what you missed was seeing Van Susteren turn over almost half of her program to Limbaugh. She asked a couple of questions and then let Limbaugh ramble on incessantly in his trademarked hyperbolic manner. And in all of the time he consumed he said nothing more than “Obama sucks,” over and over again.

And speaking of hyperbole, notice the Fox Nation headline saying that “Limbaugh Shatters Obama Into a Million Pieces.” Really? Because the last time I looked Rush is still hosting an AM radio program with an audience of self-described “dittoheads” and Obama is the leader of the free world. But this is typical of Fox Nation. Here is a small sampling of prior headlines that have graced this alleged “news” site:

  • Newt Obliterates OWS: ‘Go Get A Job Right After You Take A Bath
  • Allen West Obliterates Obama Official at Hearing
  • Flashback: Bill O’Reilly Obliterates Barney Frank
  • Bush Official Obliterates Code Pink Founder Over Krugman Column
  • CBO Director Obliterates Obama Budget
  • Limbaugh Demolishes Warren Buffett
  • Laura Ingraham Completely Demolishes Matt Lauer on ‘Today Show’
  • Wow! McCain Demolishes Boxer
  • O’Reilly Demolishes Liberal Hypocrisy
  • GOP Ad Destroys Obama with His Own Words
  • AP Fact Check Destroys Obama’s Libya Speech
  • FLASHBACK: Herman Cain Destroys Bill Clinton in Hillarycare Debate
  • Paul Ryan Destroys Reid Bill in Blistering Speech
  • Krauthammer Destroys Obama’s ‘Spike the Football’ Analogy
  • MUST WATCH: Gov. Christie Destroys ‘Thin-Skinned’ Reporter
  • LISTEN: Howard Stern Destroys Dem Senate Candidate
  • WATCH: Trump Destroys Mosque-Loving ‘Morning Joe’ Panel
  • O’Reilly Destroys Eminem and Media Matters
  • Politifact Annihilates Harry Reid
  • Must See! Cheney’s Daughter Annihilates MSNBC Anchor
  • O’Reilly Crushes Atheist Richard Dawkins
  • Palin Crushes TIME Magazine Over Their ‘Lies’
  • George Will Crushes ABC Panel
  • SHOWDOWN: Rubio Torches Kerry on Senate Floor
  • Risqué GOP Ad Torches Harry Reid for Vegas Blowout
  • ‘The Fact Checker’ Nukes Pelosi
  • CEO GOES NUCLEAR ON OBAMA
  • Ann Coulter Goes Nuclear on Scott Walker
  • Mark Levin Goes Nuclear Over Obama Destroying the Country
  • Trump Goes Nuclear on CNBC
  • Levin Goes Nuclear on Trump

By Fox News standards any time someone criticizes someone else they are either obliterated, demolished, destroyed, annihilated, crushed, torched, or nuked. Particularly if the criticism is directed to President Obama or a Democrat. And I didn’t even check my thesaurus to come up with other histrionic synonyms Fox might have employed.

The one thread that runs through all of this is how overtly hostile and violent their editorial rhetoric is. Clearly Fox regards their mission as one of war against their ideological adversaries. And given the fact that their audience consists of an inordinate percentage of fairly unbalanced and well-armed individuals, this is irresponsible and potentially dangerous.

As Newt Gingrich once said, the Tea Party is “the militant wing of the Republican Party.” And Fox News is their Clarion Caller.

Fox News Faux Pas: What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Posted by on December 14, 2011 at 2:48 pm. 7 Comments :

This graphic illustrating the results of a poll for the Iowa Republican primary appeared this morning on the Fox News program America Live with Megyn Kelly.

Fox News

So what is Fox trying to say here? Is it that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are interchangeable? Is this an effort to make their viewers think that Obama is losing to Newt Gingrich? Or are they just trying to confuse their dimwitted viewers so that they stumble around with vacant stares and do whatever the voices on their television tell them to do?

As I’ve said on the other many occasions when Fox News screws up: These amateurish flubs are typical of Fox’s sloppy brand of pseudo-journalism. It demonstrates their lack of seriousness with regard to reporting and informing the public. What’s more, they are aware of the problem. A couple of years ago they distributed a memo to their newsroom warning of the consequences of continued blunders:

“Mistakes by any member of the show team that end up on air may result in immediate disciplinary action against those who played significant roles in the ‘mistake chain,’ and those who supervise them. That may include warning letters to personnel files, suspensions, and other possible actions up to and including termination.”

So will heads be rolling at Fox News? Don’t count on it. Fox doesn’t regard these incidents as mistakes. In fact, they are an integral part of their mandate. A mistake would be if they inadvertently allowed something truthful to get on the air. That would be cause for termination at Fox News.

Would Fox News Defend Tim Tebow If He Faced Mecca And Thanked Allah

Posted by on December 14, 2011 at 1:50 pm. 6 Comments :

Pray For Fox NewsFox News is once again dredging up a controversy where none exists. They have been in a hysterical frenzy over the supposed outrage of critics of Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow and his gridiron genuflections.

Personally, I find it absurd, and even insulting, when a sports figure thanks God for their victory. It implies that the players on the opposite team are somehow allied with Satan or otherwise out of God’s favor. It further implies that God cares about the outcome of a ballgame as much as he does about the welfare of the world and the eternal souls of his children. But how people express their own spiritual beliefs is up to them and doesn’t rank very high on my outrage meter.

Fox News, on the other hand, is very disturbed by what appears to be an imaginary outcry in opposition to Tebow’s expression of faith. They have broadcast numerous stories vilifying Tebow’s critics, but have yet to identify a single one. They call Tebow “God’s Quarterback,” and lament his treatment by the secular press. Both Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson and America Live host Megyn Kelly have anchored recent segments speculating on what would occur if Tebow were Muslim instead of Christian. And both concluded that the reaction would be far more tolerant of Islamic expressions of faith.

Where on God’s green Earth did they get that idea? Coming from a network that has invented a War on Christmas and brazenly incited hateful opposition to a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan, calling it the “ground zero mosque,” this approach to their non-story is decidedly delusional. An even worse example is the recent controversy over the Learning Channel’s program about ordinary Muslim-American families in Dearborn, Michigan.

TLC’s All American Muslim has been the victim of rabid acrimony from anti-Islam organizations and individuals. These bigots have succeeded in getting some advertisers (notably Lowe’s Home Improvement Center) to remove their ads from the show. Their complaint is that the program is deceptive in that it shows only peaceful, patriotic, families that are just like every other American household, rather than sneering terrorists bent on slaughtering their infidel neighbors.

The evidence is clear that if Tebow were a practicing Muslim who praised Allah after every touchdown pass, the same bigots who protested TLC and Lowe’s would show up to blitz Tebow with racist slurs and insults. And Fox News would lead the parade with story after story about how disrespectful it is to shove in the face of American sports fans what Fox would characterize as the religious perversions of a people who want to destroy the country.

Fox was adamant about what they portrayed as the immorality of allowing an Islamic community center to be built two blocks from the former site of the World Trade Center. Why would they behave any differently if a celebrity sports figure openly displayed his reverence for Islam? And why would the Fox audience suddenly acquire a tolerance of religious diversity that they have never demonstrated before?

As I noted above, it doesn’t matter to me how Tebow celebrates his victories on the field. And to his credit, he has said that he doesn’t believe that God cares who wins or loses these games. But it is disturbing that a major, mainstream news enterprise overtly professes to spiritualize a game by anointing a player as “God’s Quarterback” and then fabricates a campaign against him in order to whip up an evangelical firestorm, all in the pursuit of controversy and, ultimately, ratings.

Donald Trump: I’m Fired!

Posted by on December 13, 2011 at 6:38 pm. NO Comments :

When Donald Trump announced that he would be hosting a Republican presidential primary debate, the news was met mostly with mockery and from Democrats and dread from Republicans. The only person who ever took it seriously was Trump himself. And Trump was typically bombastic in describing it as the most important debate ever, and insisting that it would be watched by more people than any other debate.

Today Trump realized what most of the knowledgeable observers have known all along. This debate was a cockeyed notion that interested only people who wanted to laugh along with his comedia. So he released a statement that he would not be hosting a debate after all. And his reasons for canceling are just as funny as his reasons for signing on in the first place.

“The Republican Party candidates are very concerned that sometime after the final episode of The Apprentice, on May 20th, when the equal time provisions are no longer applicable to me, I will announce my candidacy for President of the United States as an Independent and that, unless I conclusively agree not to run as an Independent, they will not agree to attend or be a part of the Newsmax debate scheduled for December 27, 2011. It is very important to me that the right Republican candidate be chosen to defeat the failed and very destructive Obama Administration, but if that Republican, in my opinion, is not the right candidate, I am not willing to give up my right to run as an Independent candidate. Therefore, so that there is no conflict of interest within the Republican Party, I have decided not to be the moderator of the Newsmax debate.”

The only candidate who said anything about the prospect of Trump running for president as an Independent was Michele Bachmann. The overwhelming majority of the criticisms of Trump’s event were focused on the circus atmosphere over which he was certain to preside. Nevertheless, Trump used as his excuse for pulling a Palin (withdrawing prematurely) was his determination to keep his options open for an Independent candidacy.

Let’s be perfectly clear about this. Donald Trump canceled the debate because he didn’t have the stature to pull it off. Not even with the help of his third rate partners at NewsMax and ION-TV. What’s more, he is not going to run for president as an Independent or anything else. To suggest that he canceled the debate to keep that open as an option is absurd in the extreme. He might as well have said that he wants to keep open the option of traveling to Venus for a conference of mermaids and minotaurs.

Personally, I’m disappointed. There isn’t much on television in the days between Christmas and News Year’s but cheesy holiday specials and old movies I’ve seen a hundred times. The Trump debate would have been a welcome comic relief. I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with reruns of yuletide episodes of sitcoms and NetFlix.

Occupy Messaging: Who Are The Real Job Creators?

Posted by on December 13, 2011 at 10:53 am. 8 Comments :

For too long now, right-wing propagandists like Frank Luntz have been manipulating language to distort the real issues that impact so many lives of American citizens. They engage in dishonest wordcraft that disguises their true meaning in order to shape public opinion and deceive voters. It’s time to counter that rhetorical offensive by restoring definitions that actually reflect reality.

One of the most recent and insidious examples of this practice is the conservative effort to replace references to “the rich” with the phrase “job creators.” It is of no interest to these hacks that no evidence exists to validate the claim. In fact, NPR’s congressional reporter, Tamara Keith, asked members of congress and representatives of conservative business groups to refer her to business people who could substantiate the assertion that tax cuts for the wealthy would induce them to increase hiring. They were unable to come up with a single name or example to affirm their half-baked theory. However, Keith found several examples of her own that utterly refuted it. This caused Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to note that “Millionaire job creators are like unicorns. They are impossible to find and don’t exist.”

The agenda that Republicans have adopted has literally no popular constituency. Every poll taken on the subject reveals that majorities of Americans (including majorities of Republicans) favor increasing taxes on the rich. Even polls of the rich show that they believe that they are not presently sharing the sacrifice required to restore the nation’s economic health. An independent group of Patriotic Millionaires released a video beseeching Congress to raise their taxes.

So the next time you hear some GOP flunky whining about the plight of the rich whose only desire is to be unburdened from the shackles of what are the lowest taxes in decades, remember that they have not, and cannot, certify any claim that lower taxes will spur hiring. In fact, the evidence is all to the contrary. And whenever possible, we need to recapture the phrase “job creators” and use it in a manner that is more in line with reality. Here is a handy, shareable chart that illustrates who the real job creators are:

(click to view larger)
Job Creators

[Addendum] President Obama asked these questions in his economic address last month:

Are you going to cut taxes for the middle class and those who are trying to get into the middle class? Or are you going to protect massive tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, many of whom don’t even want those tax breaks?

Are you going to ask a few hundred thousand people who have done very, very well to do their fair share? Or are you going to raise taxes for hundreds of millions of people across the country – 160 million Americans?

Are you willing to fight as hard for middle-class families as you do for those who are most fortunate?

What’s it going to be?

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Obama’s Marxist College Mate

Posted by on December 12, 2011 at 12:18 pm. 28 Comments :

Once again Fox Nation has ventured into the realm of make-believe in order to slander President Obama. In this episode the Fox Nationalists posted as their featured headline story an article with the title: College Mate: Obama Was an ‘Ardent’ ‘Marxist-Leninist’

Fox Nation

In order to fabricate this wholly dishonest smear, Fox sunk to re-posting a column written by conservative bomb-thrower Selwyn Duke. Duke’s article was originally published by The New American, the periodical of the extremist and notoriously fascistic John Birch Society.

In the article, Duke relied entirely on the testimony of John Drew, a man who has been pushing his dubious and uncorroborated account of a college relationship with Obama for years. He claims that Obama was a close friend and confidant. The truth is he only met Obama casually a handful of times at gatherings with many others present. He never attended college with Obama because the future President didn’t enter Occidental College until after Drew had graduated.

It’s painfully clear to anyone paying attention that Drew is attempting to exploit his brief encounters with Obama to exalt himself, disseminate his rightist propaganda, and earn a few bucks in the process. The only person Drew references in his tales who has spoken publicly about them is a former Obama associate named Hasan Chandoo. Two years ago, when asked about Drew’s assertions that Obama was an ardent Marxist, Chandoo, who is now a financial consultant, told the conservative magazine NewsMax that…

“I can’t remember Obama ever talking like that. It sounds a bit absurd to me, but that’s my opinion. I can’t remember him ever expressing an interest in being a Marxist.”

Nevertheless, Drew and his Bircher enablers continue to press this ancient story with no factual basis. And now, after years of plodding through radical right-wing rags and Internet backwater rabble, Drew and Duke have succeeded in getting Fox News to sling their stale mud.

When Fox has to resort to acquiring material from the John Birch Society that is several years old, you might conclude that they are getting desperate. They have apparently recognized that the comically weak field of Republican presidential aspirants is doomed to defeat next year and they are ramping up any random disparagement they can find.

More Proof Fox News Is Not News: The Russia/Greece Mashup

Posted by on December 10, 2011 at 2:43 pm. 8 Comments :

Earlier this week Fox News broadcast a report on protests taking place in Russia. They made a point of noting the violent nature of the demonstrations and included dramatic footage of raging fires and rampaging protesters. The only problem with that is that the video Fox aired was not of the Russian protests. It was from protests that took place in Greece and even included shots of businesses with Greek signs.

This is not an uncommon occurrence on Fox News. There have been some notorious incidents when Fox fouled up, including one where Sean Hannity aired video of a well attended rally that he said was a Tea Party event. However, it was from a different rally entirely, and the real Tea Party gathering actually drew a rather meager crowd. On another occasion Fox News published an ad that accused CNN of failing to report on a Tea Party event, but the photo of the event that Fox used in their ad was taken off the air from CNN’s broadcast.

Also notable is this headline story and image that was featured at the top of the Fox News web site today:

Fox News

What’s wrong with this picture? Once again it is not what Fox says it is. These are not protesters in Russia. They are protesters demonstrating at the Houses of Parliament in London. You would think that all of the English language signs would be a dead giveaway. But apparently Fox is unconcerned that their audience is smart enough to pick up on that.

These amateurish flubs are typical of Fox’s sloppy brand of pseudo-journalism. It demonstrates their lack of seriousness with regard to reporting and informing the public. What’s more, they are aware of the problem. A couple of years ago they distributed a memo to their newsroom warning of the consequences of continued blunders:

“Mistakes by any member of the show team that end up on air may result in immediate disciplinary action against those who played significant roles in the ‘mistake chain,’ and those who supervise them. That may include warning letters to personnel files, suspensions, and other possible actions up to and including termination.”

So will heads be rolling at Fox News? Don’t count on it. Fox doesn’t regard these incidents as mistakes. In fact, they are an integral part of their mandate. A mistake would be if they inadvertently allowed something truthful to get on the air. That would be cause for termination at Fox.

The Donald Trump/NewsMax Debate: What No One Is Talking About

Posted by on December 9, 2011 at 9:30 am. 2 Comments :

Donald Trump

Ever since it was announced that Donald Trump would be moderating a debate between the Republican presidential primary candidates, the focus of the press and pundits was centered on the absurdity of a clown like Trump being taken seriously in that role. After all, he is charlatan who pretends to be a successful businessman, but in reality he is fraud who has presided over four bankrupt enterprises and rescued his floundering career by becoming a TV game show host.

GOP luminaries from George Will to Karl Rove to RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, have all dismissed Trump a distraction, a joke, or worse. And consistent with his pugilistic personality, Trump fired back with a barrage of petulant insults. More importantly, the candidates themselves have shunned Trump and his Narcissistic endeavor. Huntsman, Paul, Romney, Perry, and Bachmann are all officially out. When Bachmann gave notice on Fox News she complained to Gretchen Carlson that…

“…[Trump] was also on television saying that he was leaning toward one candidate. Even if he was leaning towards me it suggests the idea of bias and I just don’t know if that’s necessarily the right format.”

And just to illustrate how clueless the characters on Fox News are, Carlson responded to Bachmann saying…

“That’s interesting, because I had not thought about the latter part of what you just said as being possibly a conflict of interest if he actually is leaning towards one candidate.”

Yes, Gretchen, that is interesting (I mean the part about you having thoughts). And while Huntsman and Paul spoke candidly about their reasons for sitting out the debate, Romney, Bachmann, and Perry all polished their snub by lavishing the Donald with flagrant flattery and shameless adulation. Nevertheless, it has become glaringly apparent that Trump holds no sway with either the public or the political players. The roster for the much ballyhooed debate (mostly ballyhooed by Trump himself) is now set with only Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum participating. That should make for some compelling TV drama. However, it is unlikely to result in the fulfillment of his prediction that “We will get, probably, the highest ratings of any debate.” Such grandiose hyperbole can only come from the ego of Trump.

But lost in the sublime comic relief of all of this Trumpling is any substantive review of his partner in this debasement of debate. NewsMax is a popular conservative magazine and web site. Popular among the curmudgeon crowd of over-65 conspiracy nuts, that is. Its editor, Chris Ruddy, is the author of a book that advanced the scurrilous lie that Bill Clinton’s aide, Vince Foster, did not commit suicide as all available evidence proved, but was – murdered! When Ruddy could not get his employer, Rupert Murdoch of the New York Post, to go along with this fable, Ruddy struck out on his own with the help of another right-wing media baron: Richard Mellon Scaife. It ought to be a warning sign if Murdoch is uncomfortable with your lunatic ravings.

Scaife is a stalwart anti-communist who seems to believe that anyone to the left of Barry Goldwater is a Trotskyite. His largesse extends to a who’s who of rightist foundations like the American Enterprise Institute, David Horowitz’s Freedom Center, and the Heritage Foundation. He is similarly generous to organizations that oppose public education, unions, and global warming science. But he is best known for bankrolling the investigations of sex scandals and drug-running plots that he was convinced Clinton was engaged in back in Arkansas.

So in addition to the embarrassment of being associated with Donald Trump, the two remaining participants in his debate must also account for their connection to NewsMax and Scaife. This is about more than just Trump’s ego and Birtherism. It also extends to extremist delusions about murdered White House staffers and drug traffickers. Even worse, NewsMax once published an article that was a thinly veiled call for a military coup against the Obama administration. Or as it is referred to legal circles – treason.

Santorum doesn’t have much to worry about because he isn’t going anywhere anyway. But Gingrich is the current GOP frontrunner (and the likely beneficiary/victim of a Trump endorsement), and he should be asked to comment on the appropriateness of aligning himself with these controversial figures. Sadly, it may be too much to expect the media to hold Gingrich’s feet to the fire when they haven’t even bothered to report that there is a fire. While it may be tempting to fill the airwaves with the Tales of Trump, that is only half the story. NewsMax and Scaife are as much a part of this ludicrous debate as Trump and deserve a little attention as well.

[Update] Trump spoke with Don Imus on the Fox Business Network this morning and delivered some deeply depressing news. Imus asked Trump if the debate would be going forward with only Gingrich and Santorum participating. Trump said, “I don’t know. I have to look into it.” Aside from being an enormous insult to Gingrich and Santorum, canceling the debate would eliminate one of the most eagerly anticipated comedy events of the holiday season. Come on, Donald…stick with it.

Bill O’Reilly Gets Occupied – Brandishes A Lethal Umbrella

Posted by on December 8, 2011 at 7:58 pm. 7 Comments :

The senior eminence of Fox News, Bill O’Reilly, demonstrated yesterday just how tender his thin skin is. O’Reilly was surprised by a chance encounter with a “fan” who wondered whether he was attending a fundraiser for Newt Gingrich (he wasn’t). But the encounter got a little out of hand when O’Reilly’s inner bully emerged.

The funny thing about this episode wherein O’Reilly physically assaults someone who did nothing more than ask him a question, is that this is a tactic that O’Reilly has championed for years. It was O’Reilly’s own producer, Stuttering Jesse Watters, who was so often dispatched by O’Reilly to ambush unsuspecting folks in an attempt to embarrass or harass them. When criticized for this cheesy debasement of journalism, O’Reilly steadfastly defends it as rooted in the proud historic tradition of Mike Wallace and 60 Minutes (it’s not).

However, subjected to the same sort of reporting that he favors, O’Reilly proves that he can dish it out but he can’t take it without lashing out and whining to a nearby law enforcement officer. And as the video shows, the only person who engaged in potentially unlawful violence was O’Reilly himself. He deployed his umbrella with such force that he broke it.

On his Fox “Spin Zone” program tonight, O’Reilly sought to portray the curious citizen as a threat who was “armed” with a cell phone camera. O’Reilly said that the man was “running at [him] in the dark, screaming.” Of course the video tells an entirely different story. And for some reason O’Reilly didn’t bother to play the video. I wonder why.

O’Reilly followed his self-serving defense with a discussion of the event with a former police detective. The two of them brazenly misrepresented the video that they refused to play. Clearly they didn’t want the audience to know what they were talking about. And, of course, his guest absolved O’Reilly of any wrongdoing.

At one point O’Reilly conceded that he and his minions have used the same tactic to get interviews, but he lied by asserting that if a subject asked them to leave they would do so. Here’s some pretty conclusive evidence that that was not the case:

So what we’ve learned from this is that O’Reilly is a liar, a bully and, like most bullies, a coward. It’s too bad the fellow who suffered the wrath of O’Reilly’s umbrella doesn’t have his own TV show to set the record straight. However, if any of O’Reilly’s friends watched the video, they now know what to get him for Christmas.