Opinion: Hoisted on his own repartee
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No one can peruse the web for more than a few seconds these days without getting the clear impression that the production of political outrage in America is reaching a near-high. Imagine what it’ll be like at this time next year as the party’s national conventions roll around.
With the volume so high, it’s hard to be noticed without YELLING LOUDER. Bill O’Reilly on the Fox News Channel is one of the better notice-getters, judging by his ratings. The other night he got going about the leftist website the DailyKos and the sponsorship of the YearlyKos convention by JetBlue airlines.
O’Reilly, as is his wont, lifted some quotes from the website. Regarding the return of Tony Snow’s cancer: ‘The world would be better off without him.’ Regarding the head of the Roman Catholic church: ‘The pope is a primate.’ Regarding an assassination plot against Vice President Cheney: ‘Better luck next time.’ And ‘Evangelicals are nut cases.’
O’Reilly compared the website to the Nazi Party and Ku Klux Klan because they all peddle hate.
Now comes a response....
The Dodd for President campaign, in the voice of Communications Director Hari Sevugan, issued a news release defending the website’s community as ‘populated by a diverse cross-section of the American public...(with a) wide range of ideas, many of which Senator Dodd does not agree with. But to selectively choose the handful of the most extreme comments from the millions of voices in the conversation and fashion that as representative of a whole community is patently unfair.’
The Dodd release then proceeded to take a whole bunch of O’Reilly quotes out of context too. ‘You know, if Carter were president today, we’d be speaking Arabic.’ ‘I think (the ACLU is) a terrorist group.’ ‘And if al Qaeda comes in here (San Francisco) and blows you up, we’re not going to do anything about it.’
Anyone want to up the ante? The Comments section is open below.
--Andrew Malcolm