Friday, June 22, 2007

O'Reilly Only Accepts Answers That Agree With Him

What happens if you say something on the O'Falafel Factor that Bill O disagrees with? I hope there isn't anyone that is expecting a reasoned debate about the facts surrounding whatever the current issue is. Sometimes he yells at his guests (such as relatives of 9/11 victims), sometimes he points his big nabby fingers at you and other times he just cuts off your mic. The latter is exactly what happened to Robin Swanson when debating the anti-Hillary crowd on the left.

From The California Majority Report:


In the midst of a debate where O’Reilly was trying to pit the Left of the Democratic Party against Senator Hillary Clinton, I dared to disagree with his premise. I had the audacity to suggest that the fissures about the war in Iraq were actually in the Republican Party, not in the Democratic Party.

O’Reilly was clearly perturbed that I didn’t allow him to bully me. So, mid-sentence, apparently taking his cue from the season finale of the Sopranos, he cut my audio and video feed. Fade to black.

For a news organization that laughingly calls itself "fair and balanced," this was a new low. O’Reilly claims that his program is a "No-spin zone," but apparently, it’s "No-speech zone" if you disagree with him.

O’Reilly’s censorship of guests who don’t perform on-cue like trained monkeys is truly Orwellian. If you disagree with him, you don’t exist -- he cuts your feed.

Orwellian O'Reilly is nothing more than a partisan hack that makes his money off of fostering fear and hate on the right. His audience is pretty much all wingnuts and other Republicans. If you care to, here is the video of the incident care of Crooks and Liars.

Now, not to knock Robin, but why even bother going on his show? Trying to refute O'Reilly's talking points while his sycophantic audience feeds off the fire he spews is pointless. Those people are going to believe whatever they want to and that is why so many Republicans turn to Fox News. Deep down inside they know their views are completely off-base. Fox News exists to give them an illusory grounding for their thoughts.

It is definitely a brave act to go on their shows and be yelled at, demeaned and mocked, but we certainly aren't going to gain anything positive from those experiences.