O’Reilly Lambasts ‘Despicable’ Media Coverage Of The Ft. Hood Massacre
On Friday night’s episode of The O’Reilly Factor the host pulled no punches, launching directly into an especially vicious Talking Points segment aimed at Ft. Hood gunman Major Nidal Malik Hassan, but mostly the media’s portrayal of the killings. O’Reilly was indignant as he called out the “far left loons” who questioned the role that public policy played in these “vile crimes.”
Armed with examples, O’Reilly began by incredulously showing a New York Times headline that read “Told Of War Horror, Gunman Feared Deployment” and continued with examples from the Washington Post (“For Hood has felt the strain of repeated deployments”) and even Dr. Phil‘s appearance on Larry King Live. “The fear got him and he just snapped,” said the “dopey” doctor.
Blaming foreign policy for mass murder, O’Reilly said, is “unbelievably stupid and insulting to the military.” Hassan is “a coward” — either “a Muslim terrorist or a crazy person,” according to O’Reilly. “That’s it — those are the choices,” and for Newsweek to claim that “the two wars currently being waged are taking a psychological toll” is offensive. “Media that use tragedy to ram home political points are despicable,” he said.
O’Reilly was incensed enough to conjure the name of murdered abortion specialist Dr. George Tiller, claiming that after his murder, the left wing media blamed only the Fox News host, due to the “problem with personal responsibility” on the “far left.” Guest ally Bernie Goldberg called it a “politically correct virus” in the “lamestream media.”
O’Reilly then touted his huge viewership numbers from the previous night — something covered extensively by Mediaite — claiming that Fox News had wiped MSNBC and CNN “off the face of the earth,” before stating, “The guard has changed in this country — the media guard has changed.” And looking at the numbers, it’s hard to deny. O’reilly’s justification for this, though, is far more debateable.
To hear him tell it, cable news viewers knew that Fox News would provide the honest take — spin-free, of course — without any of the… healmostsaidabadword! But you get the idea. On the other hand, there may be reason to believe that consumers of the news are flocking toward partisanship, eager to hear their beliefs echoed back to them. Whatever the case, numbers don’t lie.
Check out O’Reilly’s entire Talking Points segment and interview with Golberg in the clip below:
