In May, a man named Scott Roeder from Kansas City drove up to Wichita and killed Dr. George Tiller while he was serving as an usher in his church. (I interviewed Scott Roeder extensively for a story published in the February issue of GQ.) Tiller was the most famous man in Wichita. And he'd become famous because he ran one of only three or four clinics in the country that provided late-term abortions; because he operated deep in enemy (culturally speaking) territory; and because he marketed himself robustly and fearlessly. For most of the last thirty years of his life he was the single greatest point of focus for all the affiliated parties of the pro-life movement.
He was shot in 1993 in both arms. His clinic was bombed. His clinic workers were tailed and photographed and harassed. He lived under US Marshall protection for a while, and drove an armored car. He was the object of an exhaustive investigation - many called it a vendetta -- by a man named Phill Kline, who ran for and won the office of Kansas Attorney General in part on a platform of putting George Tiller out of business. The trial that resulted from that investigation - he was ultimately acquitted of reduced, misdemeanor charges -- ended only a couple months before he was shot and killed.
After Dr. Tiller's death, those who weren't praising what Scott Roeder had done (and yes, as you might imagine, there were a number of factions who seemed pretty happy about the murder) were arguing over whether Scott Roeder was simply crazy, or if one particular sliver of the pro-life spectrum was ultimately culpable. Many on the left pointed their fingers at Bill O'Reilly. O'Reilly made George Tiller a household name to people outside the movement, began attacking him publicly in 1995 and liked to refer to him on his talk show as "Tiller the baby killer."
Is the fact that George Tiller was killed in cold blood in his church last spring Bill O'Reilly's fault? Keith Olbermann, of course, says yes. Various pro-choice organizations agree. One of the people I found most honest and forthright in my interviews - a horse veterinarian and member of George Tiller's church who performed CPR on him after he was shot -- told me that in his opinion Bill O'Reilly is at least partly to blame. I'd like to share that opinion. He's a fun man to hate - and it's hard not to want to piss him off so that he might zero in on you with his eye-lasers and nostril-fire. But if it's true that Bill O'Reilly is in some way responsible for Tiller's death, it's not in the way many people might think.
The murder trial of Scott Roeder ended today - it took a Wichita jury 37 minutes to find him guilty. Over the course of the trial, each courtroom session had become a microcosm of the explosive socio-political drama that played out in Wichita for so many years. You could see Tiller's family, grief-stricken and angry and steadfast, enduring the testimony (and the experience of being in the same room with Roeder) through gritted teeth. You could see the movement pro-lifers, the regular protestors (or "sidewalk counselors"), the telegenic Troy Newman, who came to Wichita earlier in the decade with good hair and a large following and promised to stay until he shut down George Tiller's clinic. And then you have the outer edges of that world - guys like David Leach and Regina Dinwiddie, folks affiliated with the so-called Army of God, the small element that has been advocating violence since abortion doctors first started getting murdered more than twenty years ago. And I'd argue that these folks have a more direct connection to the information rattling around inside Scott Roeder's head than Bill O'Reilly ever did.
I spoke to Scott Roeder at least a dozen times over the course of reporting. He told me he listened to Bill O'Reilly sometimes on the radio. (Scott wasn't a guy who had cable - he worked at marginal jobs and moved apartments an awful lot.) And he liked Bill O'Reilly. But Scott had a keen interest in and hunger for learning about terrible conspiracies that lay, as he believed, just beneath the fabric of society. He went to meetings where people discussed how the Illuminati were controlling the country and the world and feeding innocent women into a satanic sex cult. He believed the fluoride in drinking water was there to render the masses more docile, which is why he wouldn't drink from a tap. He believed federal tax laws weren't laws at all - and so they needn't be followed. And he believed in the information about George Tiller fed to him through websites and literature and conversation by the most violent fringe of the pro life movement. He believed Dr. Tiller intentionally tortured babies. He believed that once, when a fetus had been delivered still breathing during one of Dr Tiller's procedures, Dr. Tiller killed it with his bare hands.
Talking about the sick things Dr. Tiller supposedly did was one of Scott's favorite topics during our conversations. After all, if you are going to murder someone, it's not enough simply to say you have a philosophical difference with him. And he presented all this to me as if it had been printed in the New York Times. He presented this information to me as if it were unimpeachable. As if he were educating me about some material that I hadn't done enough research to know about.
Bill O'Reilly is not the person who created for Scott Roeder the specific narrative that he used to create in his mind a picture of a person whom he could murder proudly. But he did help to create an environment in which Dr. George Tiller was thought of as a criminal and a murderer (whatever you think about what he was doing, it was legal). He provided a kind of moral cover and cable-sanctified legitimacy.
It's a problem that's bigger than extremist pro-life elements or Bill O'Reilly. The problem is the thriving culture of manufacturing dehumanizing lies about people you disagree with, whether they are about Dr. George Tiller, or George W. Bush. It's dangerous. It's dangerous whether you say George Bush wanted to murder Iraqi children or Barack Obama is a secret terrorist who wants to use two married gay men to kill your grandmother. And it's incredibly dangerous for people in positions of authority or power to ratify insane, dehumanizing narratives about people. That's a relatively new phenomenon. The militia movement didn't have a cable channel. Scott Roeder did.
I also agree with the other commenters who are saying there is no equivalency between the lies, venom, and heinous deeds of the radical Right to anything said or done by the Left. I do not agree with the author on that point. The fact is that a lot of what the last administration did was criminal, and that ignoring and not punishing that behavior for the sake of a false bipartisanship will only guarantee it will happen again, much worse next time, when the Repubs take over, which they most assuredly will next election cycle. No matter how much the truth comes out, it seems the majority of Americans wantto believe the lies. If we continue on that course, then Limbaugh, O'Reilly, etc. will get their wish and America will fail. Only I don't think they will like what comes after as much as they think.
Bill O'Reilly suggested that the CIA should kidnap Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and perhaps even waterboard Pelosi, at a stop on his "Bold & Fresh" speaking tour on Jan. 23, 2010, in Westbury, NY.
Fox News pundit Liz Trotta, while discussing the idea of assa ssinating Osama Bin Laden and Barack Obama, said, "Well ... both, if we could!, " then laughed happily.
The right's lunacy calls for murder.
False equivalency. He-said-she-said. The usual BS from the media.
IT IS NOT THE SAME.
Yes, it does appear that the right is far more extreme and wants to scare the beejeezus of the American people. This does not justify it being done on the left. Nor is it always an acceptable retort when someone claims that Obama is not handling a situation correctly to say, "Bush did it first." If it was wrong when Bush did it, it is probably still wrong.
Obama's been buried to the waist (and waste!) in the mess Bush left' they don't get to bitch about the stains on Obama's pants (cost, problem policies while getting out, etc.). Capisce?
Free speech is one thing, but what they have done to this country is quite another and yet tHere is no accountablility. For example, several months ago they incited hate, anger and distrust towards Obama over a report on right wing extremists by the DHS. They implied and some said directly that he was going after regular Republican voters and veterans. Callers were angry and even threatened the President. People actually wear t shirts that say I am a right wing exttremist. What they did NOT tell their listeners was that this report was initiated several months prior during the Bush admin and ther had also beem a report on left wing exttremists. This technique is used all of the time, with NO accountability. Amercans deserve better and this cancer needs to be treated ASAP.
WHAT? You think those aborted fetuses go to hell or something?
JUDGE NOT, lest ye be judged as harshly as ye judge.
as for Obama being a 'secret terrorist'
well, for a Constitutional Lawyer he sure does a good job of ignoring and working to undermine and destroy the Constitution in only the first year of his term.
me thinks he doesn't understand the President is the Steward of the PEOPLE
not those with MONEY or Banks/FED or OIL, or insurance.
C'mon, that's politics, been going on since written and spoken language was invented!
Problem is dehumanizing people, not "manufactured lies"; and dehumanizing another person is a choice we make, or don't.
You can't humanize this guy even a little. You can't imply
that he is mentally ill and deserves some kind of sympathy.
He's a cold blooded killer who rationalizes his crimes.
Fear leads people to do really awful things to each other. Then you have people trying to overdue each other in that fear and bad so called journalism that feeds that fear, and we as Americans eat it.
There are those who have no bounderies in this attempt, and justify their actions as being "free speech" and loose any responsibility for what they do.
A nation devided will crumble. American is already beginning to. If we have learned anything from our own history is that if we unite, we can do amazing and good things if we are not led into hysteria.
I am fine with others having a difference of opinion, but I am not okay with all these commentators and others that only have a desire to obtain for themselves by doing so, at the expense of hurting so many others. That is the real evil isn't it? It is no longer about "ethical" responsibility. The law or rules of that law can be looked at in anyway to manage to circumvent it. It is about moral responsibility. I am not speaking from a "religious" point of view, as much as the human responsibility we have towards each other. We are supposed to evolve, but have we?
Spurious claims regurgitated by irresponsible pundits and commentators are cause for irrational fears. With the intensity of hate and anger directed toward liberals and Democrats, gays, undocumented workers, Muslims, abortion doctors, etc. escalating innocent people are bound to get hurt. Dr Tiller is one among many whose lives have abruptly ended needlessly.
Either O'Reilly doesn't care or is incapable of understanding that people kept in a prolonged state of fear and anger will eventually resort to violence. Yet day-in-and-day-out O'Reilly's hate fest continues to poison the minds of his viewing audience.
Although he may not be directly responsible, calling Dr. Tiller, time and again, the "baby-killer" O'Reilly does bear some of the blame for Tiller's murder and he needs to own up to it.
And, I'm not saying that Oprah and others shouldn't do what they're doing. It's just that O'Reilly has perverted the use of the public forum to create a harmful environment for the mentally unstable. But, then again, consider the source.
In the case of BillO, he is making an accusation, and his kangaroo court is carrying out the sentence. It isn't just Tiller, it was the Unitarian Church killing, the Holocaust Museum killing. The Virginia police killings. Hate is a common thread.
In the case of Oprah, the effect of a widespread discussion can have positive results for people. The media can be used for good or evil. People like O'Reilly have to be careful or somehow held accountable for broadcasting comments that may incite violence. I don't know how we can manage that given freedom of speech and press.