Bill O’Reilly

Between Bill O’Reilly And Two Ferns: Video Proof That Plants Are Smarter Than Fox News Hosts

Posted by on March 19, 2014 at 1:36 pm. 6 Comments :

After Bill O’Reilly did his Superbowl interview with President Obama, O’Reilly predicted that “the interview that I did is going to go down in journalistic history.” So far, the only historical notice taken of the affair is O’Reilly’s boorishness and Narcissism.

Bill O'Reilly

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A much more likely candidate for the history books is the interview conducted by Zach Galifianakis on “Between Two Ferns.” It showcased the comedy stylings of the President while demonstrating his keen awareness of modern media and the impact of the Internet as a communications platform. Following his Ferns outing, which has racked up nearly three million views to date, traffic to Healthcare.gov spiked by 40%.

Bill O’Reilly’s famously sensitive ego must have been severely injured by the popularity of the Ferns bit, because he devoted one of his “Talking Points” segments to criticizing it as “problematic” and “desperate.” In fact, whenever O’Reilly is confronted with challenges to his omnipotence, he responds with venom and vacuous attacks. Another recent example of this is his criticism of CNN’s coverage of the Malaysian airliner. O’Reilly complained on his program that CNN was overdoing it, but the real source of his complaint is more likely the fact that CNN has been crushing him in the ratings ever since the jet went missing. Apparently cable news viewers are satisfied with CNN’s reporting, despite O’Reilly’s whining.

Well, now we have a fresh take on the O’Reilly/Galifianakis battle of the interviews courtesy of HuffPost Comedy. And, if anything, it shows that a fern would be a more than acceptable replacement for O’Reilly.

Bill O’Reilly Says His Obama Interview “Is Going To Go Down In Journalistic History”

Posted by on February 6, 2014 at 1:36 pm. 5 Comments :

Bill O'Reilly

The Titanic ego that we all know as Bill O’Reilly of Fox News, has once again demonstrated the enormity of regard that he has for himself. In an appearance on fellow Foxie Geraldo Rivera’s radio show, O’Reilly critiqued his performance during the Superbowl interview of President Obama saying…

“I’m going to predict that the interview that I did is going to go down in journalistic history as what should be done. It takes a certain skill to pose questions in a factual way and be persistent without being disrespectful.”

I totally agree. It does take a certain skill, one that O’Reilly utterly lacks. However, there are many elements of the interview that merit historical remembrance. For instance, he likely broke his own record for flagrant rudeness by interrupting the President forty-two times. He also earned a place in history by raising only the topics that his bosses at Fox have certified as official scandal bait (the ObamaCare website, the IRS, and of course, Benghazi), or as Jon Stewart described it, O’Reilly was “dipping whole-scale into the full Fox scandal grab bag.” And History will surely note that some 40% of the interview consisted of O’Reilly talking, making him nearly as much the subject of the interview as the President.

After the interview, O’Reilly was taken to task by Dana Milbank of the Washington Post for many of the reasons enumerated above. This caused O’Reilly to bust a gasket, calling Milbank a weasel and a liar, although never once did he specify what Milbank said that was allegedly false. PolitiFact, however, assessed the dispute and gave Milbank a “Mostly True” rating.

It’s endlessly entertaining to watch O’Reilly exalt himself as the journalistic eminence that he clearly believes himself to be. It’s like watching a child brag about his sports ability and then taking his ball and going home after he embarrasses himself. The difference is that O’Reilly is so egotistical that he is impervious to shame. So thanks, bill, for showing us all how it should be done – by negative example.

The O’Reilly Rehash: President Obama’s Superbowl Interview

Posted by on February 2, 2014 at 9:04 pm. 12 Comments :

Today the highly [er, make that barely] anticipated Superbowl interview of President Obama by Bill O’Reilly of Fox News (video below) went off pretty much how you might expect. Hoping to cover matters of importance to the special broadcast’s audience, the irascible O’Reilly jumped right into the discussion with an issue that has been dormant for weeks and went from there to some of the most overwrought pseudo-scandals that Fox has failed miserably to ignite, despite countless hours of effort.

Bill O'Reilly

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O’Reilly led off by asking the President about the website glitches that plagued the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare ) when it launched four months ago. He inquired why Obama hasn’t fired his Secretary of Health and Human Services, as if she had personally written the faulty code. And he asked about Obama’s prior statement that “if you like your plan you can keep it.” Of course, Obama has answered all of these questions numerous times, so O’Reilly’s dredging them up could not possibly have produced any new information.

The next subject was Fox News’ favorite mantra: BENGHAZI! This issue is even older than the website failure. The unique angle O’Reilly sought to mine involved the claims of “some people” who O’Reilly said believe that the White House refused to describe the attack as terrorism in order to help his reelection campaign. There’s just two small problems with that: 1) O’Reilly doesn’t explain how that would help the reelection effort. and 2) The President did describe the attack as terrorism the day after it occurred. Nevertheless, O’Reilly insisted that Obama explain why there are people who believe the false premise. Obama had an excellent explanation saying that “They believe it because folks like you are telling them that.”

Next up for O’Reilly’s inquisition was the infamous allegations that the IRS had targeted Tea Party groups and other conservative organizations who applied for non-profit status. Obama pointed out that, despite extensive hearings in Congress, no evidence has been produced to support the charges. In fact, the evidence increasingly reveals that both liberals and conservatives were given scrutiny by the IRS, as they should be. Obama further noted that, just as with Benghazi, “These kinds of things keep on surfacing in part because you and your TV station will promote them.”

Finally, O’Reilly read a question that had been sent to him by a viewer. The viewer wanted to know “Why do you feel it’s necessary to fundamentally transform the nation that has afforded you such opportunity and success.” Seriously? This idiotic bit of tripe has been swirling around the conspiracy theorist community since the first Obama inauguration when it was posited by Glenn Beck. These brain-damaged twerps can’t seem to grasp that a turn of phrase during an election campaign is not a coded reference to some nefarious plot to unravel the American Dream. The only meaning was that then-candidate Obama intended to repair the damage that the previous eight years of President Bush had caused.

So this was the entirety of O’Reilly’s interview. It was a rehashing of tired rumors and slander. Given this platform to reach an unusually large audience, O’Reilly wasted it with bitterly partisan nonsense. He could have addressed some of the issues that are currently on the minds of the American people, like the economy and jobs, immigration reform, the Keystone XL Pipeline, or the situations in Syria and Iran. He could have dug deeper into the President’s recent State of the Union speech and sought to get him to elaborate on income equality. He might even approached the tribulations of New Jersey governor Chris Christie, or legalizing marijuana.

But no. O’Reilly stuck with the Fox News manufactured scandal mongering related to ObamaCare, the IRS, and as always, Benghazi. As a result, the interview was a pitiful waste of time and more proof that Fox News doesn’t have the first clue about what constitutes journalism. But rest assured they will find some sentence fragment in the segment that they will inflate into humungous proportions that will produce buckets of raw outrage by Monday morning.

Wrong Again! Bill O’Reilly’s State Of The Union Prediction Fails

Posted by on January 30, 2014 at 11:27 am. 2 Comments :

The biggest ego on cable news is fond of propping himself up and exalting his intellect and insight. Unfortunately, Bill O’Reilly is so often wrong that he becomes a parody of himself.

Bill O'Reilly

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On his program Monday night, O’Reilly embarked on a mission to belittle President Obama and the State of the Union speech that would be delivered the following night. Consistent with the Fox News philosophy of disparaging all things Democratic – even before they occur – O’Reilly asserted that the American people wouldn’t care about the speech, but would be enthralled by Papa Bear himself.

O’Reilly: There is no question that President Obama’s first five years in office have been troubled. Tonight he will try to regroup, but Talking Points believes that few Americans will be paying close attention to him. In fact, I predict that this broadcast you’re watching right now, will be higher rated on the Fox News channel than the president’s actual address. We’ll see.

Yes, we shall indeed see. But first of all, isn’t it cute that O’Reilly refers to himself as “Talking Points,” as if it were an anthropomorphic entity with opinions separate from his own? Well, Mr. Talking Points might be disconcerted to learn that 33 million people watched the State of the Union speech. That is actually fewer than watched in recent years, but still a hefty chunk of viewers that exceeds all other conventional programming.

More to the point, O’Reilly’s prediction that his own show would outperform the speech has blown up in his face. The Factor drew only 3.5 million viewers, which means he was off by a mere 90 percent. O’Reilly’s broadcast didn’t even beat just the viewers who watched the speech on Fox (4.7 million). And since there was no rational way to spin his prognostication failure, O’Reilly simply ignored it last night in his first post-speech broadcast.

This is typical of O’Reilly’s pompous conceit as he strives to present himself as an omnipotent and infallible observer of human events. It recalls his dreadfully wrong prediction that the Supreme Court would overturn ObamaCare, when he promised to admit that he was an idiot if he were wrong. He was wrong, and he broke his promise. But that came as no surprise to those who pay attention to his daily blather.

Does Fox News Have A Culture That Encourages Personal Attacks?

Posted by on January 6, 2014 at 3:28 pm. 13 Comments :

Much of the cable News circus was preoccupied this weekend with remarks made by MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry about Mitt Romney’s family. It was a relatively trivial incident that sought to highlight the blinding whiteness of the Romney clan and, by extension, the Republican Party for which he was was briefly the de facto head. Harris-Perry apologized for the comments and her apology was accepted by Romney and it seemed as if life on Earth would endure.

Enter Howard Kurtz, the media analyst for Fox News. On Friday he published an op-ed, which was followed by a segment on his Sunday Fox News program MediaBuzz, wherein he proposed his theory that MSNBC suffers from a “culture in which harsh personal attacks are encouraged, or at least tolerated.” His evidence for this was a series of recent controversies involving personalities at MSNBC, which he claimed not to be biased against.

Kurtz: I’m not designing this to bash MSNBC, but you had Martin Bashir with the vile attack on Sarah Palin, apologizing and then losing his job. You had Alec Baldwin losing his job at MSNBC over an alleged anti-gay slur hurled at a photographer. Now Melissa Harris-Perry. Is there something in the culture there that tolerates this unacceptable language?

One has to wonder why, if Kurtz did not intend to bash MSNBC, did he focus solely on “unacceptable language” by people on MSNBC. It’s not as if he didn’t have plenty of examples of Fox News anchors and pundits who did much the same thing. Just within the past week Fox’s Mike Huckabee compared doctors at a hospital, that had been caring for a girl who was pronounced brain dead, to the Nazi regime that was responsible for the murder of millions. Fox also hosted a former CIA agent who recently wrote an article that advocated the assassination of President Obama and British Prime Minister Cameron. Neither of these commentaries entered into Kurtz’s examination of the culture of cable news. The only observation that Kurtz deemed notable was his severly skewed impression of how conservatives are viewed by liberals.

Kurtz: If there is a theme to these episodes, it is a view of Republicans and conservatives as so mean-spirited, hard-hearted and clueless that just about any rhetoric against them can be justified.

Thus we had the spectacle of Martin Bashir so reviling Sarah Palin that he not only called her a “dunce” and an “idiot” but prescribed for her an old slave treatment in which he said someone should defecate in her mouth.

Oh my. Bashir called Palin a “dunce” and an “idiot.” Apparently Kurtz has never seen Bill O’Reilly’s program where for years he has had a regular segment in which he called his liberal adversaries “pinheads.” Not that he needed a dedicated segment to disparage his foes. He was found by Indiana University to have called people derogatory names every 6.8 seconds. Recently O’Reilly even expressed his hostile intentions toward the Democratic Majority Leader of the senate, saying…

“Harry Reid, I think you’ll have to kidnap. Tie him to a tree up in Idaho somewhere, leave him there for a few weeks.”

Surely O’Reilly will insist that the was joking about kidnapping and torturing Sen. Reid, but the Harris-Perry segment was premised that it was all in humor. The same cannot be said for Glenn Beck’s declaration that Obama was a racist who hated white people. Neither Beck nor his superiors ever apologized for that. In fact, Rupert Murdoch agreed with it. Perhaps the most glaring example of repulsive rhetoric was that displayed by Fox News contributor Erick Erickson upon the retirement of Supreme Court Justice David Souter when Erickson said…

“The nation loses the only goat fucking child molester to ever serve on the Supreme Court in David Souter’s retirement.”

Fox News

Let’s not forget the Fox News community website, Fox Nation. It’s culture is so riddled with hostility that they won’t even refer to some people by their actual names. The Fox Nationalists refer to Sen. Al Franken as Stuart Smalley, after a character he played on Saturday Night Live twenty years ago. They also call comedian Bill Maher “Pig” Maher for reasons no one seems to know. [For more on Fox Nation, read Fox Nation vs. Reality, a book that documents the website’s steady stream of lies]

There are, however, some notable differences between the incidents of verbal abuse as articulated by MSNBC and Fox News. At MSNBC the lapses in judgment were followed by apologies and sometimes suspensions or terminations. The lapses at Fox were either celebrated or ignored by management and often repeated with more emphasis by the abuser.

So Howard Kurtz has the gall to wonder if there is culture of harsh personal attacks at MSNBC where such incidents are routinely punished, but he has no concerns about his own network where they are a point of pride. That’s a distinct difference that would enter into the analysis of an honest media critic. Luckily, Kurtz works for Fox so he doesn’t have to worry about being honest.

Father Bill O’Reilly’s Execrable Exhortation On The Pope, Capitalism, And The Far Left

Posted by on January 4, 2014 at 8:17 pm. 10 Comments :

A couple of months ago, Pope Francis delivered an exhortation on the state of global poverty and society’s response to it. It was a rather profound critique of the conservative economic principles that have been the central political focus of the Tea Party and its Republican benefactors. Ever since, right-wingers from Sarah Palin to Rush Limbaugh have walked the tightrope of respecting the Pontiff while blasting his guidance as extreme liberalism and pure Marxism.

Pope Francis
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Now Bill O’Reilly has joined the fray with another of his Talking Points Memos that articulate his notoriously vapid opinions on whatever is irking him that day. He titles this one “The Pope, Capitalism, And The Far Left.” It started out as a rebuke of lefty pundits who have embraced the Pope’s call for income equality. O’Reilly accuses the left of distorting the words of the Pope, but he doesn’t provide a single example of any such distortion. Not one. He does, however, leave out numerous excerpts from the Pope’s writings that explicitly condemn conservative economics like the “trickle-down theory” and advocate on behalf of the poor. For instance:

“[S]ome people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.” […and…] “It is vital that government leaders and financial leaders take heed and broaden their horizons, working to ensure that all citizens have dignified work, education and healthcare.”

O’Reilly further declares that “I can tell you with certainty that the Pope opposes” economic justice, which O’Reilly recasts as socialism. From whence he gets his certainty is unexplained. It certainly is not from the Pope’s own words that include…

“[N]one of us can think we are exempt from concern for the poor and for social justice.” […and…] “We can no longer trust in the unseen forces and the invisible hand of the market. Growth in justice requires more than economic growth,” he said, adding that it requires “processes specifically geared to a better distribution of income.”

The Pope is using very specific and carefully chosen language that demolishes any hope of right-wingers dismissing his meaning. “Social justice” and “distribution of income,” phrases the right has tried feverishly to demonize, are not accidental rhetorical flourishes on the part of the Pope. Nor is it accidental when O’Reilly, nevertheless, dismisses the Pope with hollow posturing by saying that the left “want to impose a nanny-state that redistributes income,” or that “The left doesn’t care about the facts. It’s all about hating America.”

When it comes to hate, O’Reilly has a distinct advantage. Aside from having an academic study prove that he uses derogatory names on his program once every 6.8 seconds, he took this latest opportunity to harshly disparage the people about whom the Pope was talking. O’Reilly assigned blame for the tribulations of the poor only on their own alleged shortcomings, asserting that they refuse to “work hard, be honest, stay sober, and get educated.” He would never acknowledge the responsibility of the government’s institutional bias in favor of wealthy elites for the economic imbalance that clamps down on society’s less fortunate. It’s far easier for those in O’Reilly’s social strata to insult the poor as lazy, lying, drunken, illiterates.

Bill O'Reilly

If O’Reilly actually believed that the left was distorting the Pope’s words, he would have provided an example. Instead he made a blind allegation that he never bothered to support, all the while ignoring the fact that the Pope’s words were not ambiguous in their contempt for compassionless elitists like O’Reilly. It’s an indication of just how desperate the right is to pretend they have a moral alliance with the Pope when, in reality, they are scrambling to avoid any remotely honest discourse about the income inequality that Pope Francis spoke about so eloquently.

Bill O’Reilly Explains The Horrors Of Being Rich (w/Video)

Posted by on December 20, 2013 at 1:57 pm. 4 Comments :

Over the years, Fox News blowhard Bill O’Reilly has said some painfully stupid things. He has claimed that Christianity is not a religion. He promised to admit on his show that he is an idiot if the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of ObamaCare (which he never admitted). He actually boasted that he has more power than anyone except the President. And now he has taken up the case for America’s beleaguered millionaires.

On his program Wednesday (video below), O’Reilly began his hokey Talking Points segment by asking “Do you want to be rich?” He then set about to answer the question with a litany of reasons why any sane person would flee in fear of such a curse. The burden of great wealth is far too cumbersome to be endured and those of us not suffering from it should pity the rich and their miserable existence.

Fox News - Bill O'Reilly

“Here’s what happens when a person is wealthy,” O’Reilly said, as he commenced his tale of woe. His first complaint was that if you become rich you will simultaneously become a target of people who will want your money and will lie and cheat to get it. Therefore, you will have to hire lawyers to shield yourself from the envious rabble who will be barking at the gates of your mansion. Well then, it’s certainly better to be poor than to have to fraternize with lawyers in order to sustain your life of luxury. Then O’Reilly gravely warned that “Every affluent person in America is in danger. Every one.” As an example he cited the two winners of the Mega Millions lottery, about whom he said…

“The two folks who won the big money this week will see their lives instantly change. And perhaps for the worse.”

Perhaps? It is almost a certainty that the lives of those sad former peasants will spiral downward into a hellhole of having everything they have ever dreamed of for themselves and their families. If they are smart they will dispose of that dirty money as quickly as possible. As a service to these wretches, and at great personal risk to myself, I would agree to take it off their hands so they can continue to have decent lives. That’s just the kind of guy I am.

O’Reilly also stated that the new millionaires would suffer because “Their freedom will be severely curtailed.” Obviously, everyone knows that having untold riches shackles the victim in a pit oppression. Freedom is only really enjoyed when you have no money weighing you down on your estates and your yachts and your villas in international resorts. As O’Reilly notes, “Only one percent of the population is truly financially independent.” That’s why America is a free country. Only one percent has their freedom curtailed by wealth. And if it is up to O’Reilly, that figure will remain at one percent so that more people are not similarly tormented.

Unsaid in this screed is that when O’Reilly is talking about the downtrodden millionaires, he knows whereof he speaks. He is, in fact, talking about himself. So he should be well aware of the damage that wealth does to the hapless souls who suffer from it. He is selflessly enduring a life of subjugation and oppression in order to prevent such tribulations from being forced onto others. And his compassion is evident in his closing remarks where he made a point of raising this injustice to the heavenly doorstep of God:

“So congratulations to the Mega winners. And the best thing that we can do for them is say a prayer.”

Indeed. Let’s all say a prayer for the millionaires and billionaires in our society who are too often forgotten victims of a dastardly fate. And while we’re at it, let’s say a prayer for Bill O’Reilly who is always looking out for the folks, even if he won’t associate with them.

Merry (War On) Christmas: Bill O’Reilly Declares Victory – Again

Posted by on December 19, 2013 at 11:26 am. 5 Comments :

The Fox News driven War On Christmas is a peculiar conflict that only seems to flare up every year after Thanksgiving. Apparently both sides go into retreat between New Year’s Day and Halloween. But that isn’t the only peculiarity about this war.

Bill O'Reilly
Fox News’ general in the battlefield is Wily Bill O’Reilly. He is by far the most dominant figure in the war. And for proof of that, just ask him. Not only does he take the point every year by exposing any alleged assault on a nativity scene that his staff alerts him to, he proudly boasts about the success of his warrior crusade. Just this week he declared victory, an announcement that hopefully will put an end to the seemingly endless conflagration:

O’Reilly: We challenged them! So, therefore, it isn’t a mythical war on Christmas. It’s real and we just won!

That would be a profound turning point in the Christmas Wars except for the fact that O’Reilly had previously declared victory five years ago:

O’Reilly: “The Factor’s” reporting on Christmas is one of the most important things we’ve done. The underlying assault on this federal holiday is spelled out in my book, “Culture Warrior” if you have an interest. But the bottom line is this. We won.

How many times will Wily Bill claim to have emerged victorious in the same war? Generally when you have vanquished your enemies you do not have to re-vanquish them the following year. But that’s the peculiarity of a war that is waged for ratings, profit, and the adoration of dimwitted troops bravely manning their sofas with remotes at the ready.

So America can thank O’Reilly for saving Christmas – twice – and for preserving the true spirit of the holiday season that he described with such heartfelt earnestness when he said…

“Every company in America should be on its knees thanking Jesus for being born. Without Christmas, most American businesses would be far less profitable.”

If that joyful expression of profit over prophet doesn’t jingle your bells you are two steps lower than Scrooge. So get with the program and join O’Reilly’s crusade for the traditional values that honor greed and corporatism. It’s a vision of the holiday season that was expressed so artfully in music by Miles Davis and Bob Dorough in this classic Christmas carol: Blue Xmas.

The Anti-Pope: Rush Limbaugh Pimps For The Money Lenders Lobby

Posted by on November 29, 2013 at 11:34 am. 25 Comments :

Poor Jesus. After going to all the trouble of throwing the Money Lenders out of the temple, now he has to deal with cretins like Rush Limbaugh who think that the church founded in his name is beholden to secular profiteers and godless corporations.

Rush Limbaugh

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How else could Limbaugh explain his opinion that the Catholic church would be lost “If it weren’t for capitalism?” It is astonishing that the people who most aggressively impose their religious beliefs on others, who demand that the whole of society celebrate their holidays and insist that their values be codified into law and school curriculum, these people seem to have the shallowest grasp of the faith they profess. And Limbaugh is not alone in his Adoration of Greed. A few years ago Bill O’Reilly said on his Fox News program that…

“Every company in America should be on its knees thanking Jesus for being born. Without Christmas, most American businesses would be far less profitable.”

O’Reilly actually believes that this country should be grateful that Jesus came along because the holiday commemorating his birth is such a boon to businesses. Now that’s the Christmas Spirit, isn’t it.

Limbaugh’s tirade was sparked by a recent paper authored by Pope Francis that articulated a version of Christianity wherein a moral society cared for the least of its citizens. He explicitly repudiated Republican values like “trickle-down economics” and preached that economic “inequality is the root of social ills.” That is the sort of talk that unhinges right-wingers whose greatest fear is to be lumped in with the unclean masses who, ironically, are the producers and consumers of the goods their businesses peddle.

All of this comports with the Christian hypocrite dogma spewed by political hacks who are only trying to exploit people who follow Christ’s teachings. These pundi-vangelists couldn’t care less about faith or service. However, the Republican Party shares something in common with the worst aspects of the Christian church. They are both trying to sell stories on faith to ill-informed people who are motivated by fear. But these religious scam artists are only concerned with their own welfare. They have no real compassion or generosity. Their tunnel-blind self-interest is a stark affirmation of the wisdom of the revered Catholic Dom Helder Camara, Archbishop of Recife, who said…

“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”

Serial Liar, James O’Keefe, Releases Another Deceitfully Edited Video: ObamaCare Edition

Posted by on November 12, 2013 at 1:28 pm. 14 Comments :

Some people are just gluttons for punishment. Take James O’Keefe for instance. The petulant, wannabe ambush journalist has already been exposed as a purveyor of dishonest videos that are deceptively edited in order to slander his victims. He was caught trying to execute a perverse scheme to seduce a CNN reporter. He had to pay a $100,000 to settle a defamation suit brought by a former ACORN staffer. And he was convicted of criminal behavior in a stunt he tried to pull in Louisiana.

James O'KeefeSince then his projects have been few and even many of his former allies declined to promote them. But now he has a new video that purports to expose some malfeasance on the part of some ObamaCare “navigators” who are helping people to acquire health insurance. As I’ve noted before, O’Keefe’s inner sadist assures that his projects are almost always aimed at attacking people and programs that serve the less fortunate. That’s true in this case as well.

The ObamaCare association seems to have loosened up those who abandoned him in the past, including Bill O’Reilly of Fox News. However, his reputation for producing video fiction is fully intact. In the new video he sends in a shill to pretend to inquire about enrolling in a health care plan. In the process, the shill attempts to trick his unsuspecting victims into giving bad advice. However, we can’t know for sure whether they did that because the videos are so heavily edited that there is no way to discern the actual context. Also, the people O’Keefe’s shill spoke with weren’t certified navigators, but were in fact trainees. So the prospect of them making a few mistakes shouldn’t shock anyone.

In one case, though, it is apparent that the navigators did not do what O’Keefe accused them of doing. O’Keefe alleged that the navigators advised the shill to misrepresent his income. In reality, they simply told him to report on the ObamaCare website the same amounts he reported to the IRS. It’s his responsibility to file his income taxes honestly. But the conclusions drawn in the video conceal that. That’s just one example of how creative editing can distort the true picture of what occurred.

Given that Fox News is immersed in an obsessive campaign to cripple ObamaCare, they must have given the green light to O’Reilly to readmit O’Keefe into their good graces – sort of. O’Reilly devoted most of his opening segment to O’Keefe’s video, but without ever mentioning his name. That may have been wise considering the disrepute associated with O’Keefe and his band of dissemblers. O’Reilly only identified the video as the work of Project Veritas, which he helpfully explained to his viewers means “truth,” something with which O’Reilly and O’Keefe have limited experience.

Even Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze couldn’t post O’Keefe’s video without disclaiming that “It should be noted that the video is heavily edited and employs deceptive tactics in order to catch the navigators offering the shocking advice.” When Beck’s crew is disturbed by deceptive tactics, you know you’ve crossed a line that most charlatans never see in their whole lives.

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What’s worse, a United States senator, John Cornyn, Republican of Texas (where else?), also cited the O’Keefe video as evidence that ObamaCare needs to be stopped immediately. Cornyn said that “This behavior is unacceptable, and is yet another broken piece of a deeply flawed system. The Obama administration should stop this program immediately.” Obviously – if a trainee tells a dishonest, partisan shill something that isn’t quite accurate, in a video produced by a known liar and criminal, then an entire government program that was set up to help 48 million previously uninsured Americans get access to health care should be thrown out.

That’s the quality of the logic in use by Republican and Tea Party opponents of ObamaCare. And, as such, is more than ample justification for ignoring them completely. It also explains how the pathetically amateurish video fabrications of James O’Keefe get taken seriously by idiots in politics and the press.

[Update 11/14/2013] Another Fox News program is hyping the O’Keefe lies. Sean Hannity did a segment during which he also referred to Project Veritas as the video’s producer and never mentioned O’Keefe’s name. He also spewed other lies about the cost of the website, the navigators not getting background checks, and the scope of the people whose current plans will be terminated by insurance companies.