Friday night's O'Reilly Factor offered regular viewers an opportunity to witness a landmark in television history: Bill O'Reilly's Impact Segment, "What's Up With The Huffington Post."
At first I thought it might be something about HuffPo deciding to pay its bloggers. No such luck.
Instead, the segment highlighted the Brent Bozell's Media Research Center's study, "Huffington's House of Horrors: A Compendium of Far-Left Flame-Throwing, Name-Calling, and Attack-Dogging," an investigation of the Huffington Post's Far-Left Flame-Throwing, Name-Calling, and Attack-Dogging.
One might expect to be this type of segment to be a set up for Bill's customary hatchet job of anything left of El Rushbo. Instead, O'Reilly surprised the Folks™ by offering one of his most balanced reports ever, ripping into the MRC's cherry-picking bias and finding The Huffington Post to be the most informative and decent news and opinion site on the Internet.
Bill brought on Tim Graham, Director of Media Analysis for the Media Research Center to discuss the study. It didn't take long before Bill realized that Graham's report was anything but complete or fair.
"Mr.Graham, I read your report. I didn't find anywhere in your report where you mentioned the fact that HuffPo also posts right wing bloggers, like my very own fill-in, Michael Smerconish"
"Oops."
"Wouldn't that suggest that Ms Huffington and her site offer a rather principled format? And just to be fair, Mr. Graham, how can the Folks™ trust anything you say when you had told me that in 2003 your group received 'about $10,000' from right wing bomb throwing financier, Richard Mellon Scaife, but according to Scaife's own reporting, they actually gave the MRC a $1.05 million grant in 2003. What say you?"
"Oops."
"I see that your report lists John Cusack's attack on the administration as appearing in 2006. That blog actually appeared in 2005 and Mr. Cusack hasn't blogged on the site since 2005."
"Oops."
"Mr. Graham. Even if there's any validity to your report, it all seems to be ancient history. Don't you have anything more recent? Except for one blog, everyone listed in your report is from 2006 or earlier. You're making my show come off as a history lesson, and as I proved with Ron Paul, we shouldn't learn from history. At least not on my show."
"Oops."
"Mr. Graham, let's be honest. If you're going to condemn the Huffington Post for posting insensitive blogs, I could just as well condemn Brent Bozell, your boss at the MRC for saying the Dick Cheney's shooting of his friend was a 'funny incident.' On Valentine's Day yet."
"Oops."
"Your report also says that 'Best-selling fiction writer Jane Smiley... hated conservative author and columnist Ann Coulter so much that she attempted to write a blog post on July 7, 2006, that attacked her without ever once naming her.' I'm a simple man, Mr. Graham, so I'm a little confused here. How does this fit into far-left flame-throwing, name-calling, and attack-dogging?"
"Bill, she attempted to besmirch the saintly Ms. Coulter without naming here. Did you hear me?! Without naming her!"
"I understand, that's why I applaud the MRC for its in-depth reports and condemnations of all the right wing flame throwers, like Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Neal Boortz, et al."
"We've never published any papers condemning those patriots."
"Exactly. So when the hell is the MRC going to do an incisive investigation into my own lack of integrity? What am I, chopped liver?"
So true, my friend. So true. And with not one mention of my many far-left flame-throwing, name-calling, and attack-dogging at HuffPo in the MRC report, I sadly relate. The slice of onion and side of watery cole slaw to your chopped liver.
*Apologies if I may not have caught some of the segment's quotes exactly, but I'm sure I got the gist of the truth behind them.
Fun Factor Fact: Actual O'Reilly quote from Friday Factor: "We're disappointed in Cusack. I don't know the man."
Disclaimer: Steve Young is author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" (www.greatfailure.com)and his "All The News That's Fit To Spoof" appears in L.A. Daily News opeds every Sunday (www.dailynews.com/steveyoung), right next to Bill's...really.