I hate shouting matches like this, especially with a guy like O’Reilly. It’s hard to believe he has a show that people watch. It’s like watching Colbert except sadder because he’s not kidding. Genghis Conn over at CTLP summed this up well:

One thing I noticed about the “offensive” Lieberman/Bush pic in this segment was just… how… long it stayed up there on the screen. Disturbing choice, Fox editorial staff.

[continued in the comments]

It is odd, isn’t it? I had never seen the image before, either. I do wonder where he got it.

I do wonder. Given the insane amount of coverage the Lamont-Lieberman primary got from this site, MLN and other Connecticut blogs, isn’t it odd that none of us have seen it at least once?

That sort of nutpicking is nothing new, sadly. The Lieberman campaign got rather good at it last year–I remember that the Lamont blog warned people against commenting in the short-lived comments section of the Lieberman blog for just that reason.

Exactly the point of Dodd’s comments.

Of course, in trademark O’Reilly fashion, he lied about his San Francisco statement. Sure, Dodd didn’t know it was on the radio show, not the TV show, but it doesn’t change the fact that O’Reilly said he would tell San Francisco, if he were President, that he wouldn’t do anything if al-Qaeda blew them up. The great thing about Media Matters is they keep audio and video of the segments, so you can listen to it. Like the oh-so-offensive photoshopped pic, O’Reilly probably meant to be funny(?) and make a point, but it’s probably more offensive to be okay that about an attack on an American city just because you disagree with their politics.

One more note: A lot of speculation has come up that O’Reilly is targeting the YearlyKos convention because the DailyKos community was a large factor in the Democratic debates being pulled from Fox News. I really never try to understand why Bill O’Reilly goes crazy about something, but in the extended segment, Dennis Miller brought that up specifically (the Dem debates being pulled). Make of that what you will. And, by the way, what the hell happened to Dennis Miller? He sounded ridiculous and sycophantic. I guess that’s what it takes to get BillO to be nice to you…

There are several reasons I love the idea of President Chris Dodd, but a large one is that he’s generally up front about where he stands and is generally truthful about when he’s making political considerations and when he’s making principled stands (too many candidates try to turn everything in a matter of principle, treating us like children who can’t tell politics are being played).

Well, he’s going to do something I wish someone with debating skill would try to do: He’s going to appear on the O’Reilly Factor to defend his decision to attend YearlyKos. For those that haven’t been watching or listening, Bill O’Reilly has been comparing the site Daily Kos to the Nazi party and the Klu Klux Klan. He’s been using that as a bludgeon to try to smear Democratic candidates that are attending and to get sponsors, like JetBlue, to pull their support of the conference (JetBlue caved, though they defended their decision to sponsor the convention).

Chris Dodd is going to have a tough time of this, since Bill O’Reilly never plays fair on his own show, cutting off mics and flat out lying when he needs to make a point. Good luck, Senator, and thanks for speaking up.

Of course he shouldn’t have to do this. This is an interesting phenomenon, and while we’re talking about basic honesty in the media, it’s interesting to note that it only affects Democratic sites and groups. Basically, social media online allows users to contribute commentary, media, and ideas to a web site. Sites like DailyKos allow any user to create diaries that can be promoted to the front page in a democratic manner. It’s a pretty cool phenomenon, actually. One of the risks that come with it, though, is that people will post opinions that are unpopular or offensive or just weird. That’s part of being open.

So far, we’ve seen several attempts to misrepresent major supporters of Democrats when random users post offensive items. You might remember the controversy (in comments) when someone submitted an ad with Hitler imagery around Bush to Move On’s open ad competition. Though submitted by a third party and not endorsed by MoveOn (which took the ad down when they heard about it), conservatives and Republicans used it to discredit MoveOn. Of note, few voices were on TV explaining how the ad contest worked.

Bill O’Reilly is trying to do the same to DKos even though much worse stuff appears on his own site. I’ll leave you with a little video of Olbermann pointing out how Bill O’Reilly reacted to someone pointing that out.

No media outcry over his site, or Little Green Footballs or FreeRepublic… wonder why that is?