O'Reilly evidence

That seems doubtful to me. On the other hand, I would readily agree that his comments about the purposeful war on him by the NY Times was unreasonable. Y'all must never get involved in any decent discussions in person. If that was ranting, then I've surely been in danger of physical violence at least four or five times in the last couple months. I've experienced ranting. That was not ranting. Y'all need to spend more time in the real world or something.He was pretty agitated in the middle when Terry was quoting things he called libel, then reading the libel afterwards. I would not have been near as nice as O'Reilly was, however. I think I'd have left much sooner.On the other hand, maybe the reason he didn't is that he wanted to look like the calm victim of attacks. Maybe you're right about that. I didn't hear it. I heard excerpts; ones O'Reilly chose. Despite their being chosen by O'Reilly I agree with you that he "actually helped provide answers for the president." However, that very point makes me wonder how much he really avoided controversial issues. He covered a couple in the excerpt. He went out of his way to make it easy on the president, but he didn't seem to be avoiding the issues. So you and Terry Gross think Schraf's opinion of Al Franken is naive and silly, right? She's recommending a comedy book to me so that I can learn about Bill O'Reilly? Are you willing to say that to Schraf's post above? You did emphazise the word comedian.

truthlover responds to me:

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You did not just say that, did you?

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He storms out!

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She didn't even know he had left. He wasn't in the same room.

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And how does that mean he doesn't storm out? One can only storm out when in the actual physical presence of another person? The concept of "storming out" requires a grand physical sweep, preferably with some sort of flowing garment that can cause ruffling of the loose papers and fluttering of the candles in your wake?

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Personally, I think the flavor of the response you gave to my entirely typical request for references does enough for what I was trying to get across for me to leave it there.

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Yep. You claimed that X doesn't exist. Now that you have been shown that X does exist, you're going to whine and hope nobody notices.

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I personally have heard him refer to people as morons on several occasions.

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And yet, he constantly says he doesn't do that. He continually claims that he would never, ever do that because to do that would mean that he had no integrity.So what does that tell you when he does it?

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I just said he was honest

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The man has never said an honest word in his life.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

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I have no reason not to believe Al Franken makes up a lot of what he says.

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Well, there are 13 pages of detailed references at the back of the book.Unless you think that The Washington Post, the Boston Herald, or The White House among other sources are all fake or something, I really don't know why you think that the entire book is almost nothing but lies.

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I looked at his book in the bookstore long before I ever heard you suggest it to Percy, and it didn't look very reliable.

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Why not, because he says things you don't like to hear?

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I heard O'Reilly's answer to Al Franken's charge about the Republican/independent thing, and it seemed believable to me. What gain could O'Reilly possibly get by registering Republican and publicly saying he was Independent?

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Because he could don the air of someone who was truly independant, undecided, and not a partisan hack. Seems to me this would be a big advantage in the politcal commentary game.I would think that was obvious.

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Listen, I have been on the receiving end of a lot of slander & libel. Fox News ran a completely negative news story on us with about two minutes of slander from a family that hates us, and they followed it with about 8 minutes of inuendo and suggestion. A pastor in Florida wrote a 19-page refutation of us, with numerous out-of-context quotes from our web site, most of which was written by me. Then I was called as a witness in a custody case, and grilled about more out of context quotes from our site, which wasn't even up anymore. Prodigy's message board once had two people claiming that I propositioned a 13-year-old boy by email, and they had the email to prove it.

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I'm in a "cult." People will produce all sorts of accusations. I've learned not to trust those accusations, because I've seen what's been done to us and to me, and I've seen the witnesses produced to prove those false accusations were true.

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I'm sorry that Fox did that to you.That's the kind of thing that O'Reilly does to people, and I have seen it on the TV with my own eyes.

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I believe O'Reilly when he says he didn't know he was registered Republican.

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I don't.

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The man seems honest to me,

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He seems like a pathalogical liar and a bully to anyone who disagrees with him to me.Look, I watched him browbeat, berate, and cut the mic of a young man on his show who's father had just died in the WTC bombing because that kid had the audacity to oppose our military action.Weeks, and then months later, he completely misrepresented what the young man said on his show.I SAW it with my own eyes.Either he is deliberately lying, or he is an irresponsibly sloppy journalist.The man is a egomaniac with an anger management problems, who also has a problem telling the truth.

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and I have yet to see the motive for any of the lies they've accused him of telling;

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Why would he lie multiple times (these are documented) about winning two Peabody awards, one of the most prestigious awards for journalism, while he was host of Inside Edition?Gee, I just don't know why someone who wants people to view him as a serious journalist would lie about getting journalism awards. You stumped me there!(Inside Edition won a single Polk award, about a year after Bill left the show)Then, he started to lie about having ever lied about getting two Peabodies!

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nor to see one of those lies that's even significant.

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You don't think that a wanna-be journalist lying about getting prestigious journalism awards is significant?You don't think that lying about what a guest said on your show is significant?

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If the man were going to lie, don't you think he'd find better things to lie about than how he's registered at the polls and the name of an award that can be researched by anyone?

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Clearly, he has found better things to lie about.OTOH, how often do you think that Fox News viewers ever look anything up or fact check anything ever said on that network?ROTFLMAO!Considering that a well done survey found that Fox News viewers are the most likely of any news consumers in the US to have the least accurate view of some of the most heavily-covered events, such as the Iraq invasion, it seems that they are extremely unlikely.People listen to O'Reilly's "No Spin Zone" in order to cheer for the team, demonize the "libruls" and to be told what they want to hear.

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I don't have any reason to believe Fox is not a real news corporation.

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I do, and so does the non-partisan media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting: F.A.I.R. has a whole section on Fox's extreme right wing bias

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I listen to their five minute news on the hour on the way to and from work, and I listen to NPR news if I have time in the car at other times in the day. NPR is more thorough...sometimes so thorough it's boring...but otherwise they don't seem much different to me.

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You don't watch the TV news, which is where the majority of people are getting their news in the US.There is a big, big, big, big, big difference.

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I did find out last month on our Dallas trip that FoxNews is the most popular morning news program there. I don't think most people agree with you,

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No shit that Fox is the most popular news station in DALLAS, TEXAS.Besides, when did the popularity of something make it good, or accurate, or correct, or high-quality, or authentic?

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and "most people" seem a better source than Al Franken's book of accusations.

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Al Franken's book is referenced pretty well. What about "most people" in Dallas? Have they hired a team of Harvard students to fact check for them, like Al did?I really can't believe you are using these fallacious arguments, Truthlover, you know better.

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And that link I followed from you in the last thread this was discussed was simply inaccurate. FoxNews couldn't be any more slanted than that article you sent me to. (One of their three "myths" that FoxNews watchers think is true proved not to be a myth, but to be quite true. Definitely makes their statistics useless.

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What, exactly, are you talking about? What "myth"?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 04-03-2005 08:15 PM

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Just a note: you didn't get that socialist term from me. I don't refer to democrats or left-wingers as socialists, unless they call themselves that.

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No, you got it from me.See, you claimed that you listened to a broad range of political radio, from right, moderate, to left-leaning commentators.I suggested that what you actually were listening to were far radical right ultra-conservative, regular conservative, and moderate conservative voices.I said that moderate liberal, liberal, and radical Socialist voices were pretty much absent from our airwaves, so to claim that you listened to a true broad spectrum of conservative and liberal opinion was not really accurate.Everybody knows that talk radio is heavily, heavily weighted with conservative voices. It is simply the truth.That's why AirAmerica was such a big deal when it came out.There was nothing else like it.Anywhere.In the whole country.

Al Franken is a comedian, yes.But he's also very, very smart.He is also very bright and well-educated. He's a Harvard graduate and a former Fellow with Harvard's Kennedy School of Government at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy.He's one of our country's best bolitical satirists, right up there with Molly Ivins if you ask me.

schrafinator writes:

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There was nothing else like it.

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Anywhere.

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In the whole country.

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Well, there was Randi Rhodes in Florida who had the number one radio talk show in her market, including Rush Limbaugh, but she wasn't syndicated.That's why Air America picked her up. She had a very successful liberal talk show format.Picky, picky....

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Schraf,Going on a trip for a couple days. I'll get back to you after that.1. Comments about Al Franken being a comedian were directed at others. I'm assuming he's trying to make a point more than being a comedian.2. I'll look at your FAIR link. Thanks for giving it.3. You mentioned several things in your post I hadn't heard mentioned before, but I'll address all that specifically.4. I never said talk shows weren't heavily over-represented by the right. I totally agree that's obvious. (I also hope what I said is that I've heard left-wing talk shows, not that I've heard them as much as right-wing ones. When I was listening to the guy in Atlanta, I heard him more at least as much as I heard right-wingers, because I didn't hear political talk shows that much until O'Reilly started coming on during the drive home a year ago or so.)Gotta run...back in a couple days

I listen to RADIO Power over the internet, I highly reccommend it. They carry Randi Rhodes, the Young Turks, and some other guys from Michigan. ForbiddenProbably not going to be very pleasant over dialup, tho.

Ok, I have to back off.Been reading the FAIR reports for about an hour. The reports on Inside Edition and on guests on interview shows didn't affect me much. I don't really consider that news (nor O'Reilly's program...talk shows & news are two different things).I did find, however, the reports on the background of Fox management. I can't say I was surprised that they were right-leaning, just surprised at how much.I read the report saying that 35% (or something close to that) of Fox watchers thought most of the world supported our invasion of Iraq, and I was completely at a loss how that could be. I thought, "Surely no news network actually reported that the world was supporting the invasion of Iraq." It still seems unlikely any news network reported that as news, but if people are watching interviews with conservatives all day long, I can see how they could get very skewed vision.Anyway, on that subject, I'll just back off. I suspect that the 30 minutes of FoxNews that's on in the morning (and then repeated the next half hour) such as I saw in Dallas is probably not that biased, and that you're talking about the network overall being biased, including the analysis and talk shows, and the FAIR report backs you up very well.On Al Franken's book:You asked why it didn't look reliable to me. Well, it started with the title. Then I opened it and glanced through it, and read what seemed pretty anecdotal to me, and decided I couldn't trust the guy. It really never came back up, though I read you and Percy discussing it briefly. Then, it came up now, and Terry Gross called it satire. Terry and O'Reilly argued about a review of it, so I read the review. The review acted like Franken's Harvard panel was a joke, too, and I wondered if the reviewer (Janet Maslin) was suggesting there was no such panel.I'll take a closer look the next time.On O'Reilly:There's definitely more to the guy than I realized, although descriptions of his rage are highly exaggerated, if the Terry Gross interview is any example.On the Peabody/Polk thing, his "you'll never find a place where I said I won a Peabody" seems even worse than the Peabody/Polk mistake, exaggeration, or lie.This whole discussion also made me realize how well-known this guy is. I was figuring it out, anyway, from his comments about his TV show, but the emotion involved in the attack on him was a better indicator. I laughed when I heard him list his opposition to the death penalty as a non-conservative position, because I'd already heard him say once why he was opposed to the death penalty (not a harsh enough punishment). It's clearly not a laughing matter to y'all.Anyway, if the above wasn't clear enough; I was wrong, and y'all were right (except on the Terry Gross interview). Obviously, defending Bill O'Reilly doesn't have a great future in it.

Just for the record, the guy I was listening to in Atlanta was very, very liberal; almost unbearable for me to listen to. There was an evening guy on in Sacrament, too, (this was the early 90's), who was every bit as liberal as Rush was conservative. (Sacramento's where I used to listen to Rush.)

Thanks so much TL, for taking the time to read my link and think about what I said.I figured it was just a matter of you not really having the full picture about Fox News and O'Reilly.FYI, if you ever get a chance to see Outfoxed, you will see the interview with that boy who had just lost his father in 9/11 and you will see how O'Reilly just about rips him a new one, right there on the air.For anyone who wants to consider himself a professional jounalist, he behaves in a very intimidating, thuggish, and thoroughly unprofessional manner.I like to watch the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and they often have this very, very funny bit where they have a short script made of an exchange between hosts and guests on one of the political commentary shows, like Hannity and Colmes or Crossfire, only the parts are read by gradeschool children.Very illuminating as well as funny,because the exchanges are not much more than juvenile mudslinging; utterly contentless namecalling.

Schraf,A couple things:I want to see if I can find the original poll that you referred to about the three misperceptions. You linked to informationclearinghouse.com (here)in the other thread, and it said the one misperception was that there was evidence of "close" pre-war links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. I followed a link the other night that quoted what must have been the same poll, and it used the wording "clear" pre-war links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda as the misperception.The 2nd link was much better, at least breaking down the stats on the three misperceptions. The informationclearinghouse.com link didn't, and I think it's very loose and sloppy. The fact is, there were pre-war links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. (I went ahead and read the pertinent sections of the 9/11 commission report, and that's what I'm referencing now.) Were they close links? Probably not, as they didn't lead to any proven cooperation in any activities. Were they clear links? Well, yes. So, when you reference Fox listeners as having 80% who hold to at least one misperception, I'm not surprised, because it's not really true that all three are clear misperceptions.That, and it still seems very difficult to believe that 35% of anyone believed that the world generally supported our invasion of Iraq. I'm very curious what the original question was and how it was phrased. I don't listen even to conservative talk radio enough to be an expert on it, but what I have heard was full of complaints about European lack of support, not suggestions that the world supported us.Anyway, that'll be the next project. I'll wander back to FAIR, find the "three misperception" article there, and see if there's any way to get the original survey.Not that it's terribly important, but politics does arouse a lot of emotion and some hard lines being drawn that I'm not sure are so clear as they're claimed to be.

truthlover writes:

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The fact is, there were pre-war links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda.

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No, there weren't. That's one of the lies. There were no ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq. How could there be? Bin Laden hated Hussein. Iraq was a secular country.No links. The administration makes a great deal of hay regarding a supposed meeting in Prague, but it never happened. Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani never met with Mohammed Atta in Prague.There was no connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq.

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it's not really true that all three are clear misperceptions.

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Incorrect.And the fact that you think one of them isn't a misperception should be telling you something. You, too, are holding onto a misperception.There was no link between Al Qaeda and Iraq.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/There click on the link for chapter 2, The Foundation of the New Terrorism. On page 62 of that document, you will find:

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With the Sudanese regime acting as intermediary, Bin Laden himself met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995. Bin Laden is said to have asked for space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but there is no evidence Iraq responded to this request. As described below, the ensuing years saw additional efforts to establish connections.

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Later, p. 66:

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In mid-1998, the situation was reversed: It was Iraq that reportedly took the initiative.

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As I said earlier, there is no evidence that these meetings were fruitful and led to significant cooperation, but the meetings happened repeatedly over many years, initiated by both sides. Iraq even offered Bin Laden a safe haven when things weren't going so well with the Taliban.This is all according to the 9/11 commission report. I'm completely ignoring the fact that the Bush administration apparently still claims a close link, because of meetings between Al Qaeda operatives and Iraqi officials.You can have whatever opinion you want of how strong or weak a link that was, but you can't ask someone whether there was clear evidence of a link and then publicly say they hold a misperception when they say yes; not without being guilty of the same poor reporting others are being accused of. All that in a post barely over 100 words long. I don't know why we need news when we have you.

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You can have whatever opinion you want of how strong or weak a link that was, but you can't ask someone whether there was clear evidence of a link and then publicly say they hold a misperception when they say yes; not without being guilty of the same poor reporting others are being accused of.

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The point is, though, that there was not at all the sort of link that Fox News listeners and Bush supporters thought there was.The point is, there was no reason at all to invade Iraq in connection to 9/11, but Bush and Co. and Fox News succeeded in making a great many American people believe that there was a very close connection between Hussein, 9/11, and WMD. (The nonexistent WMD came later in the run up to war, though)A sizeable percentage of the US public actually thinks that the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi, TL, not Saudi. Where do you think they got that idea?I am willing to bet a good chunk of change that most Fox News watchers and Bush supporters haven't read the 9/11 commission report at all..This message has been edited by schrafinator, 04-08-2005 07:07 AM