Recently on his show, Fox News self-proclaimed “commentator” Bill O’Reilly engages in a heated “debate” with Joan Walsh of Salon.com over abortion, specifically late-lerm abortions and Dr. George Tiller. Again and again, he asks Walsh her feelings on late-term abortions in the context of his lead story for the night, “the far left on the attack”. Rather than summing it up, here’s the YouTube clip.
Bill O’Reilly still maintains that everything he mentioned about George Tiller was true and not inappropriate: calling him “Tiller the Baby Killer”, saying his has blood on his hands, that his legal clinic was an “abortion mill”. “My constitutional rights say I can say what I say,” O’reilly said. “You can say what you say, as vile as you say it, you can say it, and I would never condemn you for saying it. You are misguided, you have blood on your hands because you portrayed this man as a hero.” (Read Joan Walsh’s response here.)
I appreciate that O’Reilly has his views, just as Keith Olbermann on MSNBC has his views. But I’ve not heard Olbermann accuse a doctor legally practicing medicine of murder, launching incessant vile attacks over and over, no doubt inciting the intense hatred in the far-right groups that lead them to bomb abortion clinics, threaten practitioners and as we realized mere weeks ago, kill a man inside his church simply because they disagree with the service he provides. Free speech ends when you incite violence or threaten public safety. It’s why you can’t yell “fire!” in a crowded theatre. I’d like to post here Olbermann’s comment on Fox News and Bill O’Reilly, and the inciting of this domestic terrorism. He suggests that an advertising boycott of Fox News would do nothing, but instead we should politely ask any establishment with Fox News Channel on their television to turn it off, and tell anyone you know who watches Fox News to stop doing so. I for one will do my part, not because I’m for the right to choose and that I believe I shouldn’t be allowed to decide the reproductive rights of any woman, but because I don’t think anyone should have to die for what they believe in. I don’t believe that a television personality, however popular or whatever their ideological vies, should be allowed to incite hatred and violence and ignore all culpability in the matter. I believe that humanity needs to be better than that.
Yesterday, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama critiqued Republican candidate John McCain’s economic policies, stating they are similar with those of current President George W. Bush. “You can put lipstick on a pig … it’s still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It’s still going to stink after eight years,” Obama said.
While the phrase “putting lipstick on a pig” isn’t new by any means, it shares a word with one of Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s phrases from her RNC acceptance speech last week: that the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is lipstick. The McCain campaign seems to think Obama’s comments were a jab at Governor Palin, calling the phrase “sexist” and demanding for Senator Obama to apologize.
Now I, personally, don’t understand the fuss. If you’re going to attack Palin, why not do it on all the blunders that keep popping up since McCain picked her to fill out the Republican ticket? I also thought it would be interesting to see what kind of articles Fox News had on the election thus far, and figured comparing the same article from multiple news outlets would be the best way to compare. (For the record, I first read the article from MSNBC.com, and that was posted from the Associated Press wire.)
Fox News’ article reads fairly well, and doesn’t scream right-wing bias (that must be saved for in-house stories and television). It does add some more substance from their own reporting, as opposed to the AP wire copy, including this bit from a McCain supporter, former Mass. governor Jane Swift (R):
It was “pretty clear to the crowd that he was leveling” the insult at Palin, she said.
“It’s clear to me … that Senator Obama owes Governor Palin an apology,” Swift said, calling Obama’s comments “disgraceful.”
She said, “This is just the latest in a series of comments that many folks like me will find offensive.”
Shoddy wording aside (the quotes don’t flow well together), there’s no retort from an Obama supporter relating to the same incident, aside from the mention of the Obama camp’s response to McCain’s objection to the original statement.
From the Fox News website, I found my way to the we-wish-we-were-like-the-Post Washington Times (for those unfamiliar with it, the Washington Times is considered to be the right-leaning paper in Washington, D.C.) and their article on the same story. Again, nothing out of the ordinary.
Nedra Pickler, the AP writer who penned this story, has seen her share of controversy when covering elections, including an article questioning Obama’s patriotism and that Obama and McCain have differing views on balancing the budget by 2013 (they are actually in concurrence, according to Bloomberg News).
As this post went to publish, the AP story and the version on MSNBC matched in terms of content (aside from adding section headings in places). The only thing I found off was MSNBC didn’t include the links to the respective campaign’s web sites, while AP and the Washington Times do. Related to that, notice that the Obama link takes you right to the BarackObama.com home page, while the McCain link goes to a page that will play a sappy video clip on something heroic he did a long time ago and ask you to support their cause (if you haven’t visited the site recently or have Cookies disabled) before moving on. The Obama link, by including /index.php at the end, bypasses that, even if you have cookies enabled and haven’t been to the Obama web site. While I’m not sure how many people will follow the links who haven’t before, it’s still shows some “advantage” to one campaign over the other. I blame AP for that one.
