Bill O’Reilly is an idiot. Truly, honestly he is. He’s a partisan hack who bullies people when he can’t actually win a debate on the merits of his argument. Truly pathetic.

I’ve stopped watching his show, but I’ve got to pass on this segment of the show that’s circulating around the blogosphere. He interviewed a woman, a mother of a fallen soldier, who was supposed to be the “anti-Cindy Sheehan” who would come on and affirm that her son died for noble cause. Well, she didn’t… she stood by Cindy Sheehan and stood firm against O’Reilly’s leading questions trying to basically paint her has un-American.

For more on the whole Republican effort to smear Cindy Sheehan’s protest, you should take a look at this post. Watch the clip or read the links and then think about the visibility of this. They’ve got one of the highest rated talk shows on the biggest cable news network and a syndicated columnist basically dumping on this mother claiming she’s a tool of the “left-wing” and she’s desecrating the memory of her son just because they don’t like the point this mother is trying to make.

Live and let live? Guess not.

Update: A followup to this from Think Progress:

One of the more underhanded smears launched by the right wing came when Michelle Malkin said she didn’t think Casey Sheehan, Cindy’s son killed in Iraq, would approve of what his mom was doing. This morning Sheehan responded:

“I didn’t know Casey knew Michelle Malkin…I’m Casey’s mother and I knew him better than anybody else in the world…I can’t bring Casey back, but I wonder how often Michelle Malkin sobbed on his grave. Did she go to his funeral? Did she sit up with him when he was sick when he was a baby?”

Cindy also is standing tough against the rest of the radical right mouthpieces, calling Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Matt Drudge “despicable”:

“[They don’t have skin in the game. They don’t have anybody over there. They don’t have sleepless nights worried about their loved ones.”

Note to White House: Cindy Sheehan’s not giving up. You can listen to the rest of this morning’s interview HERE.

(You can support Cindy Sheehan by visiting her website, www.meetwithcindy.org.)

They have MP3’s of all the segments so you can listen to the whole interview. Look, whatever you think of her protest, it’s pretty sad that the thrust of the argument against her is that her son would’ve been ashamed. How the heck does any pundit or commentator know that? More importantly, how could you know better than his mother? Why is that even OK for a pundit to say?

Talk about the help she’s getting from groups who don’t support the war and/or the President. Talk about the fact that she got a meeting once already (perfunctory as it might have been) or the other facts here but don’t attack her person and her family. That’s just not called for.

I’ve generally thought that her protest was interesting but not all that significant in the great scheme of things. I’m starting to realize that maybe I’m wrong. Also, as an aside, assume for a moment that she’s genuine about this protest (I believe her, for what it’s worth)… if she wanted to start a protest but wanted free help to know how to get media attention or advice, who should she turn to? The mythical non-partisan media consultancy or foundation? Is there even such a thing these days when one vote or one stated position taints you as a liberal/conservative for life? Why is it “wrong” for her to have gotten help from these foundations? Why does that weaken her case at all. Judge her protest on the merits, not because she’s getting press or because some group somewhere issued a press release supporting her protest…

(found via Atrios)