What a surprise. Bill O'Reilly thinks the Huffington Post and Arianna Huffington have "no problem with publishing hate speech." I guess blaspheming the DailyKos was getting old.
In his weekly website column which will appear across the country in newspapers, like Sunday in the L.A. Daily News oped section along with my weekly column, O'Reilly took Arianna and HuffPo to task for allowing questionable statements concerning Nancy Reagan's injury.
As of today, 193 comments were posted to the Reagan story. There were some that were in bad taste, and there were plenty who wrote in to admonish the negative posters. They too were allowed by "Arianna and HuffPo" to be posted. Just like the negative comments.
But the fact is, Bill, you don't even know if the person posting is a lefty who hates Nancy Reagan or a right wing poster trying make Huff Post look bad. But it doesn't matter who is commenting, they have a perfect right to. It's called free speech, Bill.
But Bill writes to say that "freedom of speech... is a canard." A duck, you hear. "Hate speech is hate speech, whether it's being spewed by some nut wearing a Nazi armband, or some gnome hunched over a keyboard. People like Arianna Huffington should be taken out to the village square and publicly scolded."
Beautiful, Bill. In one sentence you say this kind of free speech is the same as what Nazis spewed and in the next sentence you put on your jackboots and call for Nazi abuse. Should we burn a number into Arianna's arm too?
You can question the judgment of those who posted the distasteful comments, but if you're going to claim fair and balancedness, you better make sure you rip into both sides with the same energy.
I know you won't because you never have. You've always said that the Right's smears are minuscule as compared to the Left's. What, you've never listened to talk radio? You've never gone through the tons of right wing sites? You've never watched your show?
When you first ripped into DailyKos you admitted you had never even heard of FreeRepublic.com, one of the largest right wing blog sites on the Net. Some crack research staff.
At best you'll say, "the right does it too." But to cover that with equal enthusiasm with which you attack the Left? Never. You might throw out an example but the odds are somewhere in the 1000 to 1 territory that you'll rarely, if ever, do a story about the right... unless they're actual Nazis. Hmmm.
As you say to back up any point you throw out there... "everyone knows." As in "everyone knows" you are anything but even handed.
Right wing sites are just as likely to have a poster place a repugnant remark as the Left.
What about mentioning the comment by Rounder99 that was in the same list of Nancy Reagan comments?
"You sick fuck liberal wing nuts always shame yourselves when someone is in crisis. I hope you all die screaming. ..you sick fuck you wouldn't know class if it bit you on the ass, class you mean like the most cheated on former 1st lady. Class you mean like president blow job, democrats can't have class it comes with the D tag"
Splendid.
Did a far left loon write that? Or was it just a loon? Fact is, we don't know. Either do you. But just like the comments of those who demeaned Reagan and her health problems, it's disgusting so why didn't you write about that one or the plenty others you can find on right wing sites? Need help? It won't take a crack research staff to find them. I mean, if you wanted them to.
How about the many like Mnmommy's Wishing her a speedy recovery? Or Cathexis's: For my part, Ms Reagan has my sympathies and I wish her a speedy recovery -- which is how I would feel for anyone who had suffered such a setback.
Did Bill see fit to mention those comments? Nah. Wouldn't suit his agenda.
But Bill, you ole dog, you saved the best for last...
"In order for a country to be truly free, people must be responsible and fair-minded. Right now, I believe the Internet is taking us in the opposite direction. And there are few voices speaking up against it."
Wrong again, Bill! Who's trying to take us in the wrong direction?
Being truly free means that we must allow for irresponsible and unfair speech. For if not, how would the Factor ever stay on the air?
Steve Young is the author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" (www.greatfailure.com) and his weekly column truly does end up every Sunday in the same LA Daily News OPEDs as Bill's.