Not to blow anything up, but do youhave any actual documentation of lies? It seems as if he's treating this thing very fairly. Maybe its just because I'm a blowhard consrvative, but the guy has a valid point.
My problem with Franken. He's all buzz words and attacks, no actual solutions. Its just a huge negative force in America.
Actually, Franken's book (Lies and the Lying Liars...) was written specifically to expose the half-truths, misstatements, and outright lies by people on the conservative side. It was not meant to present solutions other than simply being honest, accurate, and well researched. The negative force in America is the lies and half-truths spouted regularly by people like O'Reilly, Coulter, and Hannity, to say nothing of our elected and appointed officials.
So I haven't read the book and don't really feel like doing so, call it lazy, a general disregard for anything that comes from Franken's mouth, or whatever you like, but I would like to know some of the lies he thinks he has found... simply a good link to an overview of the book would be great...
Off the top of my head: O'Reilly claimed to have won a Peabody award. I consider this to be a misstatement because a tabloid TV program that O'Reilly used to be on won a Polk award (a year after O'Reilly left the show). O'Reilly claimed to have been raised in a low class neighborhood when he was really raised in an upper-middle class neighborhood. He claimed he had never registered as a Republican, but Franken got a copy of a voter registration card where O'Reilly had registered as a Republican. But the worst of O'Reilly's behavior occurs on his own show. When confronted with facts that he can't rebut, O'Reilly tells his guests that the fact they caught him with is only their opinion and then shouts them down. IMO, O'Reilly is also at his worst when he repeats other people's lies over and over again, claiming that they are the truth (uranium claim, tax cut benefits all Americans equally, new EPA rules are more stringent than the old ones, etc.). The lies that Franken points out in his book may not be the same caliber of whoppers that the administration he defends is telling, but his lies do speak volumes about someone who is supposed to be in a "no spin zone."
Actually, the book is about more than just O'Reilly. Only one chapter is about that particular pundit. "Lies..." focuses on the issue of the massive weight of lies coming from the pundits on the right. BTW, I read "Who's looking out for you" before I read "Lies..." After Franken's book, I read "Treason" and am now on "The Lies of George W. Bush." If the only books you can read are the ones by conservative pundits, maybe you need to look at the fragility of your belief system. I have a general disregard for almost everything Ann Coulter has ever said or written, but I STILL read every word of both "Slander" and "Treason." Besides, Franken's book was worth reading just for the humor. No matter your political persuasion, he is a funny, funny guy.
Jeremy Glick, whose father died in 9/11 Glick, whose father died in the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, was invited onto O'Reilly's show after O'Reilly was told that yes, there ARE families of 9/11 victims who oppose Bush's war, and that perhaps he (O'Reilly) ought to stop claiming that all 9/11 victims share his pro-war stance. From the NION press release: "After cutting short the interview Bill O'Reilly threatened Mr. Glick, a professor at Rutgers University and teacher in the state prisons system, with physical violence. The following day, Bill O'Reilly continued his attacks on Mr. Glick by falsely claiming that Mr. Glick "was out of control and spewing hatred." Then O'Reilly lied about it on Fresh Air: First, he said that Glick called what happened on 9/11 an "alleged attack" (quote, unquote is how O'Reilly put it to Terry Gross). But Glick referred to "the alleged assassination and the murder of my father and countless of thousands of others." If I give Glick every benefit of the doubt, the assassination comment could refer to something apart from 9/11 ... but even if we assume Glick is just challenging the characterization of the event as an assassination, O'Reilly is lying on "Fresh Air" when he says Glick called it an "alleged attack."That makes it sound like Glick didn't think the attack happened -- clearly defamatory toward Glick. Then, O'Reilly says that Glick blamed Bush the First and Bush the Second for "orchestrating the attack on their own country." A lie -- the word " orchestrate" never appears in the transcript. What Glick blamed on the Georges was "training militarily, economically, and situating geopolitically the parties involved ... " Despite O'Reilly's continued interruptions, Glick did manage to make clear that he was talking about "the people that trained a hundred thousand Mujahdeen ... radical extremists who were trained by this government." When Glick mentioned our government's training of the Mujahdeen (which, although Glick didn't mention it, included Osama Bin Ladin) O'Reilly said "I don't want to debate world politics with you ... I don't really care what you think." Later, O'Reilly says, "I'm not going to debate this with you." Shortly thereafter, Glick's mic is cut off and he is, apparently, thrown out of the studio. According to Glick, after the interview Bill completely lost his sh*t. He slammed his fist on the table and shouted "Get out! Get out of my studio before I tear you to f*cking pieces!" In a radio interview, Glick later explained the lesson that Al Franken and innumerable O'Reilly Factor guests would have benefited greatly from: "O'Reilly's not there to debate. He's there to intimidate, he's there to bait his [guests]. And that's why, when he said that stuff about my Dad, the reason why I was calm is not because that wasn't hurtful or outrageous, it was because that's exactly what he wants to do. He wants to push your buttons." Bill Moyers Bill Moyers has been repeatedly attacked by Bill O'Reilly. Mr. Moyers responded on his website. Released Dec. 4, 2002, by PBS's Now with Bill Moyers By Bill Moyers In a recent column and broadcast Bill O’Reilly makes a number of assertions about me, in matters large and small, that are both undocumented and false. It’s time to set the record straight. First, on a rather trivial level, Mr. O’Reilly asserted that I refused to come to the phone when he called. He’s not telling the truth. One of his staff called my assistant to ask if I would appear on Mr. O’Reilly’s show, but I declined. I would never refuse a call from Mr. O’Reilly, although my ears are not quite tuned to his decibel level. Mr. O’Reilly says I called him a warmonger. He is not telling the truth. Here’s what happened: In the aftermath of 9/11 Mr. O’Reilly, from his battle station at Fox, was calling for the United States "to bomb the Afghan infrastructure to rubble, the airport, the power plants, the water facilities, the roads." He went on to describe Afghanistan as "a very primitive country" and to say "taking out their ability to exist day-to-day will not be hard. Remember the people of any country are ultimately responsible for the government they have. The Germans were responsible for Hitler, the Afghans are responsible for the Taliban. We should not target civilians but if they don’t rise up against this criminal government, they starve, period." I puzzled over Mr. O’Reilly’s glib wish to make people endure "yet another round of intense pain" when the incredible suffering they were already enduring came from a totalitarian regime that kept them subjugated with terror and torture. It would be like punishing the inmates of Auschwitz and Buchenwald with further starvation and humiliation because they did not rise up against their Nazi guards. In the coming fight against terrorists, such a cruel disposition to visit pain on helpless people would make us like them and create sympathy and allies for their cause. In a speech soon thereafter I pointed out that "Afghanistan is a wasted land, full more of widows than warriors and that the people there have been so beaten down and run over and oppressed and exploited by the Taliban" that they couldn’t possibly rise up against the theocratic thugs ruling them, as Mr. O’Reilly said they must or be savaged once again, this time by Americans. His passion, I noted, is equaled "only by his stubborn, ignorant denial of complexity." As the transcript of the speech shows, I did not call Mr. O’Reilly a warmonger. It didn’t occur to me. Mr. O’Reilly went on to inform the readers of his column that I own the videos to my programs which are funded by public television and that "[Moyers] sells the videocassettes, keeping the proceeds." Once again he is not telling the truth. Public television rarely funds my work--I raise the money myself, from independent sources--but when it does, as with the case of my weekly series Now with Bill Moyers (Friday nights at 9 p.m. on Channel 13), PBS owns the distribution rights, the proceeds remain with public television, and my share is miniscule. True to form, Mr. O’Reilly is also failing to tell the truth when he alleges that I received the duPont-Columbia Gold Baton Award in 2000 for my documentary on South Africa because the Schumann Foundation, which I head, "had been giving the Columbia Journalism Review big donation money." If Mr. O’Reilly had any interest in the facts, he could easily have ascertained that the Columbia Journalism Review doesn’t select recipients of the duPont-Columbia Awards, and that the Schumann grant had been made four years earlier when the magazine faced a serious financial crisis and might well have disappeared. The Columbia Journalism Review ’s editor and dean when the grant was given were no longer around at the time of the Gold Baton Award. A little research would also have revealed that my work had received eight duPont-Columbia Awards before my association with the Schumann Foundation and before any Schumann grant to the Columbia Journalism Review . The magazine, I am pleased to report, survived the financial crisis and will no doubt survive Mr. O’Reilly’s attacks. As I say, Mr. O’Reilly could have ascertained all of this with just a little homework, but the facts would have cramped his style and the truth seems hardly his intent. He is not even original as a prevaricator. Most of his column is lifted from the work of another David Brock wannabe, Stephen Hayes, who poured out his spleen on me some months ago in that other bastion of Rupert Murdoch’s journalistic ethics, The Weekly Standard . Although I refuted the lies and errors in that tirade, Mr. O’Reilly recycles Mr. Hayes’ lies but not my refutation. And what’s more, Mr. O’Reilly ignores what’s on the record. The dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, Tom Goldstein, and the publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review , David Laventhol, wrote The Weekly Standard to debunk "Stephen Hayes’ ludicrous attempt to link the Columbia Journalism Review ’s praise of Bill Moyers to a grant from the Schumann Foundation." Employing his usual journalistic standards, Mr. O’Reilly never mentioned the letter. What to make of this? I report. You decide. Ludacris and Pepsi Bill O'Reilly, reading his viewer mail: "Finally tonight, the mail. ... About the attempted sponsor boycott against Rush Limbaugh by an anti-war group. "[from] Lise Rousseau, Lafayette, Colo.: 'Mr. O'Reilly, imagine my confusion as I watched you criticize the protester for organizing the Limbaugh boycott. Last August, I heard you tacitly call for a boycott against Pepsi for hiring [the rap singer] Ludacris. There is a lack of consistency in your rhetoric.' "No, there isn't. ... First of all, I never do anything tacitly. I do things directly. I simply said I wasn't going to drink Pepsi while that guy was on their payroll. NO boycott was EVER mentioned by me." —Bill O'Reilly on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, Feb. 4, 2003 O'Reilly a few months earlier: "So I'm CALLING FOR ALL RESPONSIBLE AMERICANS to fight back and PUNISH Pepsi for using a man who degrades women, who encourages substance abuse, and does all the things that hurt particularly the poor in our society. "I'M CALLING FOR ALL AMERICANS TO SAY, Hey, Pepsi, I'M NOT DRINKING YOUR STUFF. You want to hang around with Ludacris, you do that, I'm not hanging around with you." —Bill O'Reilly on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, Aug. 27, 2002. And the next day: "BECAUSE OF PRESSURE BY FACTOR VIEWERS, Pepsi-Cola late today capitulated. Ludacris has been fired." —Bill O'Reilly on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, Aug. 28, 2002. Polk vs Peabody Here's the deal. Apparently, O'Reilly had mentioned in multiple interviews that his old syndicated tabloid news show Inside Edition had won two Peabody Awards, which he described as "the highest journalism award in the country." The only problem being: Inside Edition never won any Peabodys. It had instead won a Polk Award, and that only happened more than a year after Bill left the show. The story, called "Door to Door Insurance," aired in February 1996. It was a piece about predatory insurance companies who took advantage of poor and elderly residents of Arkansas. Transcript from CSPAN2 O'REILLY: We're supposed to be on here for 15 minutes, this idiot goes 35. Okay? All he's got in six-and-a-half years is that I misspoke, that I labeled a Polk Award a Peabody. He writes it in his book, he tries to make me out to be a liar -- FRANKEN: Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no... O'REILLY: HEY, SHUT UP! FRANKEN: (stunned) I won't shut up! O'REILLY: You HAD your THIRTY-FIVE minutes! SHUT UP! FRANKEN: (still stunned) This isn't your show, Bill! Had it actually been 35 minutes? Not even close. But it probably seemed like it from O'Reilly's seat. Anyway, once he saw that he'd gotten Al on the defensive, Bill immediately calmed down. He was back in his element. After all, this is what he does every day on his show: push the interview subjects off-balance and capitalize on any rhetorical errors they make while they're squirming. Meanwhile, Franken proceeded to squirm energetically. O'REILLY: (to the audience) This is what this guy does. This is what he does, all right? FRANKEN: You can't tell me -- O'REILLY: This is what he does. FRANKEN: (to the moderator) Take control, Pat -- come on! HOST: I think -- I think I need a whistle and a striped shirt. My job is not a referee. FRANKEN: Maybe I went on long because I got some laughs, Bill! At which point, Bill knew he was in complete control of the discussion. So then he twisted the knife a little by parroting Franken's appeal for the moderator to step in: O'REILLY: (to the moderator) Can you please control him? O'REILLY: (continuing) This guy accuses me of being a liar, ladies and gentlemen, and on national television, because I misspoke. Because I called a Peabody a Polk. I didn't mention we won four National Headliners, okay? This is what this guy does. He demonizes me, all right? And then other people pick it up. Now, if it's important to you that I misspoke and labeled a Peabody a Polk -- FRANKEN: You didn't just misspeak! O'REILLY: That's fine, that's fine. Okay? This is what he does. He's a vicious -- and that is with a capital "v" -- person who's blinded by ideology. And that's all I'll say in rebuttal. That's enough for now but if you want to read 8 more lies in O'Reilly's interview with Bob Fertik go to this link.
So, two things A) if true. wow. really really petty. I guess he is a lying liar B) Give some evidence of the claims that O'rielley made, and then, go to the nieghboorhood and look at the house. Like I could say, hey I was born and raised in League City, and someone would be like wow, thats a really rich neighborhood, when in fact i was raised in the dumpy part of town, not lower class, but not dumpy, plus I've always heard O'Reilley say he was raised in a middle class neighborhood so this becomes even more of a non issue in my mind... I've seen O'Bill be harsh on people but he always gives them the last word, and I (trust me my parents watch it every night) have never seen him tell a guest that they caught him and that it is their own opinion. As to those others, well those are all very debatable as to whether they are true or not. O'Bill sticks to the issues and I think its sad that he lets such a half wit like Franken get under his skin, but I think he is trying to show the bias in the media towards liberals. I've always noticed it before he even said a word. Actually I just asked several of the liberal employees in my office if they thought, CNN, Time, and Newsweek had liberal slants and they all said yes. Now there's a conservative voice and everyone gets mad at them.
Franken deals with all of this in his very well researched book. You don't even have to line his pockets, go to the library and read it. See the above post and read the book. Franken documents several cases where O'Reilly shouts people down and even one where he cuts the mic and kicks the guy out of the studio. BTW, Al also deals with the "liberal media" that O'Reilly and Coulter expound about so much. It is refreshing to see statistics and research in place of the rhetoric and unsubstantiated claims made by the right wing pundits.
Mulder that tells me nothing more than O'Bill is a fiery Irishman who is not always right.... however, a Lying Liar who does nothing but lie all day is a really dumb way to present him, because he's not, maybe sometimes his sources are a little off. I'd still believe anything he said over what Franken says anyday. I mean, wow, that writing is pretty good rhetoric. Just little things, like trying to have an objective tone and then saturating it with statements to obviouosly evoke pity for the people O'Bill attacks. Pretty Objective Al. Apparently O'Bill just walks into studios and loses it. Although I've watched him for the past 5 years and never seen him do that...
So, he is an angry man who doesn't bother to do research. Even though Franken does meticulous research and documents his sources where O'Reilly doesn't? Of course he doesn't do it on camera. I never claimed that Bill is stupid. If you had actually read the post above, you would see that Bill refrained from losing it until they are off the air. Again, I challenge you to read something that doesn't line up with your way of looking at things (if "Lies..." is too scary for you, try "Pigs at the Trough" by Arianna Huffington) to see if your beliefs hold water in the face of facts, numbers, and documented sources.
I've listened to him for five minutes for the past 5 years, and that's exactly what he did. Terry Gross, on Fresh Air, simply tried to quote an article that he was ranting about. And he lost it. I've listened to that show for years, and he was almost the least professional person I've heard on the show, and that includes such wonderbeings as Ike Turner, the worst guest ever: Ike: "Terry Gross! That book is lies! It's all lies, Terry Gross!" Terry: "You mean the book coauthored by Tina, your former wife." Ike: "Yes! Terry Gross! Lies! That book is lies cover to cover!" Terry: "So you've read the book, Ike?" Ike: "Terry Gross, NO! Why would I read those lies!"
Like I said before Andy, it is a no brainer that O'reilly is a Fiery Irish guy. Thats part of the appeal. And can you give some examples of Coulter and O'Bill just throwing out slander with no back up at all both after the statement (within 20 days) or before the statement (within 2years) i.e. somebody says somehting like Treason, do they have to give their explanation of it again and again. I mean, Al is pretty big on Lying liars, a childish catch phrase, but he has a book, I mean does he always have to refer to it... every time he says lying liars... And what does Al provide of evidence in reference of their not being liberal bias... My view of it is an overall liberal tone that underscores everything. Like articles that go up on CNN.com really early in the morning when a liberal messes up that are quickly taken down or taken off the front page before the rest of day break hits and people see it, and then when a conservative screws up, its like front page ticker taping across the screen, you're getting emails about it from the site and its like all hell has broken out...
Believe me, I'm not a fan of O'Reilly's, but those first 3 seem pretty petty to me. Hardly worthy of a book. As far as the 4th, can any of those actually be proven either way? They seem like opinion to me. Personally, I think Franken and O'Reilly are both blowhards just using eachother to sell books.
I agree that the first two may seem petty, especially the second. But the third one gets me because he always (or at least used to when I could stand to watch him) claimed to be independent. The Polk/Peabody one is hilarious just because his response to being wrong is so funny. I think Franken meant it to be funny, but O'Reilly got so pissed about it that it's become a big deal.
B-Bob, did you read the thing TheFreak put up... I mean O'reilly went in there trying to show that they would not read a good article but a bad one, so he was was just mad when she refused to read the good article....because it was proving his point. Yes maybe he reacted in a bad way but the poor guy has Al Franken snooping around his old nieghborhood determing if it is lower class or high middle class. And Andy, I'd rather read things from the Atlantic Journal and th National Review then get any information from O'Bill or Al Frankken, read imadrummer's quote, its probably not far from truth...and he does do his research...
O'Reilly always claims to be independent. This doesn't mean that in one point or time he wasn't. See Pat Buchanan, or General Clark, everybody's new favorite hero for that one...
Actually it was Gross who was unprofessional, according to the NPR Ombudsman. Maybe you missed it - posted earlier.
