e***@mediamatters.now
2009-06-10 19:45:21 UTC
Right-Wing Violence Will Continue, And Fox News Will Have to Answer
For It
By Eric Boehlert, Media Matters for America. Posted June 10, 2009.
Agitators like O'Reilly and Beck traffic in incendiary rhetoric and
it's pretty obvious where it's leading to.
If Fox News is going to continue to traffic in hateful,
vigilante-style rhetoric, then folks at Fox News, as well as their
apologists in the GOP Noise Machine, are going to have to come up with
better talking points to spin away the consequences of the right-wing
madness they're so eager to incite.
They need a better line of defense because the one they trotted out in
the wake of the right-wing assassination of abortion provider Dr.
George Tiller was wholly unconvincing.
It was just as feeble as the defense Fox News' Glenn Beck tried to
employ in May to distance himself from the accused right-wing cop
killer in Pittsburgh who seemed to mimic Beck's language about how
President Obama was coming to take away everyone's guns.
The Fox News crew is going to need better talking points because I
fear the violence -- the bouts of right-wing domestic terrorism -- are
likely to continue. As long as Fox News and the Noise Machine refuse
to back off the incendiary language that they're actively
mainstreaming, the political violence, visible just months into
Obama's historic first term, may have only begun.
Note that during a jailhouse interview, Tiller's suspected killer
claimed that similar assassination plots against abortion providers
are already being planned.
And please note what you did not hear from virtually anyone on the far
right who addressed the Tiller story last week. Yes, they tried
furiously to distance Bill O'Reilly from the controversy or suggest
there was nothing problematic with the "baby killer" rhetoric he used.
But what you did not hear was anyone condemn, or even take issue with,
O'Reilly's on-air crusade.
Why the silence? Because militia-style vigilante rhetoric has become a
cornerstone of the conservative media movement in America, and it's
now proudly championed by Fox News on a nearly hourly basis.
The fact is, I couldn't find a single prominent voice within the GOP
Noise Machine who even hinted that O'Reilly's relentless attacks on
Tiller were in any way off the mark or, in light of the vigilante
Kansas church killing, needed to be reconsidered, that they should
have been dialed down. And that's why the ugliness has only begun.
The unconvincing right-wing defense in the wake of the Tiller
assassination last week was twofold, with the second layer even
thinner than the first. The first was that when conservatives were
hounding and demonizing Tiller for years, they were merely debating
the issue of abortion. And surely nobody in America opposes a healthy
debate, right? Nobody opposes "sharp political disagreement," as
Michelle Malkin sugarcoated the Tiller attack, right?
Second, Noise Machine leaders claimed that liberal commentators do
exactly what O'Reilly and Beck have been accused of: using violent
political hate language that puts people's lives in danger. That claim
has been made over and over, yet conservatives can't actually produce
any proof -- can't find any hateful liberal quotes -- to buttress the
claim.
That's because both talking points are complete fabrications.
First, the idea that O'Reilly and company simply debated Tiller's work
is laughable. O'Reilly's never been interested in any kind of
back-and-forth about the abortion issue. He just rants and demonizes
the other side. And in the case of Tiller, O'Reilly portrayed him as a
lawless executioner. As Mary Alice Carr, vice president of
communications for NARAL Pro-Choice New York, wrote in a recent op-ed
for The Washington Post, "O'Reilly knew that people wanted Tiller
dead, and he knew full well that many of those people were avid
viewers of his show. Still, he fanned the flames."
And besides, if O'Reilly had merely been debating abortion -- if he
had said nothing about Tiller that was regrettable or out of line --
why did O'Reilly at least twice last week falsely claim that he'd
never called the doctor a "baby killer"?
Still, according to Brent Bozell's NewsBusters, O'Reilly had simply
"spoke[n] critically of Tiller's abortionist practices" and merely
"used harsh words to describe Tiller."
Decide for yourself. Since FNC defenders often refuse to reprint
O'Reilly's quotes, here's an unvarnished look at what he said about
Tiller; here's what he said before an anti-abortion zealot
assassinated Tiller and then claimed his actions were justified:
"In the state of Kansas, there is a doctor, George Tiller, who will
execute babies for $5,000."
"For $5,000, 'Tiller the Baby Killer' -- as some call him -- will
perform a late-term abortion for just about any reason."
"Tiller has killed thousands, thousands of late-term fetuses without
explanation."
"No question, Dr. Tiller has blood on his hands."
" 'Tiller the Baby Killer' out in Kansas, acquitted, acquitted today
of murdering babies."
"This guy will kill your baby for $5,000, any reason. Any reason."
"If we allow Dr. George Tiller and his acolytes to continue, we can
no longer pass judgment on any behavior by anybody."
"If we allow this, America will no longer be a noble nation."
As for the Noise Machine's fallback position, it's that liberal
commentators do exactly what O'Reilly and Beck have been accused of:
trafficking in hateful rhetoric that endangers innocent people.
Making the charge at NewsBusters, Noel Sheppard claimed:
[A]s [Keith] Olbermann and his ilk on MSNBC and throughout the liberal
blogosphere routinely referred to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney as
murderers, would they have been responsible if someone had
assassinated either of these former White House members?
Sheppard was sure that Olbermann had called Bush and Cheney murderers.
He was sure Olbermann's references to the POTUS and VP were "equally
provocative" as O'Reilly's references to Tiller.
Except, of course, Sheppard failed to produce a single Olbermann quote
that even comes close to the seething, unhinged hate rants that
O'Reilly unfurled for years against Tiller. Meaning, there is no
comparison between what O'Reilly said about Tiller and what Olbermann
has said about Bush and Cheney. Yet this entire right-wing defense
hinges on the idea that the language was identical. That there's a
moral equivalence.
Desperate to move the spotlight away from O'Reilly's irresponsible
actions, conservatives last week tried to claim that liberal pundits
might be responsible for the killing of a military recruiter in
Arkansas who was gunned down by a Muslim convert trying to send a
political message. Why the liberal pundits? Because they had created a
dangerous anti-military atmosphere.
Beck made that very claim on his radio show [emphasis added]:
BECK: Well, let me ask you this. I had to really search the news long
and hard to find out about the two recruiters -- the two soldiers that
had been killed by the Muslim convert, that were gunned down in
Arkansas. I had to really look hard for that. Is anybody asking is
Keith Olbermann responsible for the death of those two soldiers? Keith
Olbermann has railed against recruiters. Keith Olbermann has railed
against the baby killers that our U.S. soldiers are. He's railed
against this war. MSNBC was right all over the story about how our
troops are torturing and killing innocents. Has anybody asked if he's
responsible?
Slight problem. Neither Beck nor anyone else on the right last week
could find any hateful, violent anti-recruiter attacks launched by
liberal media personalities. (Let alone baby-killing quotes.) Why
can't they find the rhetoric? Because nobody on the left with any sort
of national platform has targeted military recruiters in recent years.
If they had, Malkin would have included the damning quotes in her
column. (Either that, or she needs to hire a new researcher.)
Have there been, over the years, occasional efforts on the left to ban
military recruiters from campuses and other environments? There
certainly have. Can conservatives point to any kind of wholesale hate
rhetoric or vigilante-style calls to action by mainstream liberal
pundits and commentators designed to dehumanize and demonize military
recruiters? Of course they cannot. (And sorry, Code Pink
demonstrations don't qualify as mainstream media commentators.)
Because if conservatives could have found those kinds of irresponsible
attacks, they would have thrown them back in everyone's faces last
week.
But apparently, they don't exist.
As far as I know, there are no gotcha, hateful, get-the-recruiter
quotes to hang around the necks of Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow or
anyone else on the left for the simple reason that high-profile media
liberals haven't led dangerous crusades to target military recruiters
the way O'Reilly led a dangerous crusade against Tiller. And the way
Beck has against Obama.
As a rule, media liberals don't traffic in irresponsible,
militia-style rhetoric. But agitators like O'Reilly and Beck do, and
now conservatives can't make that fact go away.
That's why the Fox News crew and its eager apologists are going to
have to come up with a better line of defense. Because as long as Fox
News peddles its incendiary vigilante rhetoric, the right-wing
violence in America will continue, and Fox News is going to have to
answer for it.
For It
By Eric Boehlert, Media Matters for America. Posted June 10, 2009.
Agitators like O'Reilly and Beck traffic in incendiary rhetoric and
it's pretty obvious where it's leading to.
If Fox News is going to continue to traffic in hateful,
vigilante-style rhetoric, then folks at Fox News, as well as their
apologists in the GOP Noise Machine, are going to have to come up with
better talking points to spin away the consequences of the right-wing
madness they're so eager to incite.
They need a better line of defense because the one they trotted out in
the wake of the right-wing assassination of abortion provider Dr.
George Tiller was wholly unconvincing.
It was just as feeble as the defense Fox News' Glenn Beck tried to
employ in May to distance himself from the accused right-wing cop
killer in Pittsburgh who seemed to mimic Beck's language about how
President Obama was coming to take away everyone's guns.
The Fox News crew is going to need better talking points because I
fear the violence -- the bouts of right-wing domestic terrorism -- are
likely to continue. As long as Fox News and the Noise Machine refuse
to back off the incendiary language that they're actively
mainstreaming, the political violence, visible just months into
Obama's historic first term, may have only begun.
Note that during a jailhouse interview, Tiller's suspected killer
claimed that similar assassination plots against abortion providers
are already being planned.
And please note what you did not hear from virtually anyone on the far
right who addressed the Tiller story last week. Yes, they tried
furiously to distance Bill O'Reilly from the controversy or suggest
there was nothing problematic with the "baby killer" rhetoric he used.
But what you did not hear was anyone condemn, or even take issue with,
O'Reilly's on-air crusade.
Why the silence? Because militia-style vigilante rhetoric has become a
cornerstone of the conservative media movement in America, and it's
now proudly championed by Fox News on a nearly hourly basis.
The fact is, I couldn't find a single prominent voice within the GOP
Noise Machine who even hinted that O'Reilly's relentless attacks on
Tiller were in any way off the mark or, in light of the vigilante
Kansas church killing, needed to be reconsidered, that they should
have been dialed down. And that's why the ugliness has only begun.
The unconvincing right-wing defense in the wake of the Tiller
assassination last week was twofold, with the second layer even
thinner than the first. The first was that when conservatives were
hounding and demonizing Tiller for years, they were merely debating
the issue of abortion. And surely nobody in America opposes a healthy
debate, right? Nobody opposes "sharp political disagreement," as
Michelle Malkin sugarcoated the Tiller attack, right?
Second, Noise Machine leaders claimed that liberal commentators do
exactly what O'Reilly and Beck have been accused of: using violent
political hate language that puts people's lives in danger. That claim
has been made over and over, yet conservatives can't actually produce
any proof -- can't find any hateful liberal quotes -- to buttress the
claim.
That's because both talking points are complete fabrications.
First, the idea that O'Reilly and company simply debated Tiller's work
is laughable. O'Reilly's never been interested in any kind of
back-and-forth about the abortion issue. He just rants and demonizes
the other side. And in the case of Tiller, O'Reilly portrayed him as a
lawless executioner. As Mary Alice Carr, vice president of
communications for NARAL Pro-Choice New York, wrote in a recent op-ed
for The Washington Post, "O'Reilly knew that people wanted Tiller
dead, and he knew full well that many of those people were avid
viewers of his show. Still, he fanned the flames."
And besides, if O'Reilly had merely been debating abortion -- if he
had said nothing about Tiller that was regrettable or out of line --
why did O'Reilly at least twice last week falsely claim that he'd
never called the doctor a "baby killer"?
Still, according to Brent Bozell's NewsBusters, O'Reilly had simply
"spoke[n] critically of Tiller's abortionist practices" and merely
"used harsh words to describe Tiller."
Decide for yourself. Since FNC defenders often refuse to reprint
O'Reilly's quotes, here's an unvarnished look at what he said about
Tiller; here's what he said before an anti-abortion zealot
assassinated Tiller and then claimed his actions were justified:
"In the state of Kansas, there is a doctor, George Tiller, who will
execute babies for $5,000."
"For $5,000, 'Tiller the Baby Killer' -- as some call him -- will
perform a late-term abortion for just about any reason."
"Tiller has killed thousands, thousands of late-term fetuses without
explanation."
"No question, Dr. Tiller has blood on his hands."
" 'Tiller the Baby Killer' out in Kansas, acquitted, acquitted today
of murdering babies."
"This guy will kill your baby for $5,000, any reason. Any reason."
"If we allow Dr. George Tiller and his acolytes to continue, we can
no longer pass judgment on any behavior by anybody."
"If we allow this, America will no longer be a noble nation."
As for the Noise Machine's fallback position, it's that liberal
commentators do exactly what O'Reilly and Beck have been accused of:
trafficking in hateful rhetoric that endangers innocent people.
Making the charge at NewsBusters, Noel Sheppard claimed:
[A]s [Keith] Olbermann and his ilk on MSNBC and throughout the liberal
blogosphere routinely referred to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney as
murderers, would they have been responsible if someone had
assassinated either of these former White House members?
Sheppard was sure that Olbermann had called Bush and Cheney murderers.
He was sure Olbermann's references to the POTUS and VP were "equally
provocative" as O'Reilly's references to Tiller.
Except, of course, Sheppard failed to produce a single Olbermann quote
that even comes close to the seething, unhinged hate rants that
O'Reilly unfurled for years against Tiller. Meaning, there is no
comparison between what O'Reilly said about Tiller and what Olbermann
has said about Bush and Cheney. Yet this entire right-wing defense
hinges on the idea that the language was identical. That there's a
moral equivalence.
Desperate to move the spotlight away from O'Reilly's irresponsible
actions, conservatives last week tried to claim that liberal pundits
might be responsible for the killing of a military recruiter in
Arkansas who was gunned down by a Muslim convert trying to send a
political message. Why the liberal pundits? Because they had created a
dangerous anti-military atmosphere.
Beck made that very claim on his radio show [emphasis added]:
BECK: Well, let me ask you this. I had to really search the news long
and hard to find out about the two recruiters -- the two soldiers that
had been killed by the Muslim convert, that were gunned down in
Arkansas. I had to really look hard for that. Is anybody asking is
Keith Olbermann responsible for the death of those two soldiers? Keith
Olbermann has railed against recruiters. Keith Olbermann has railed
against the baby killers that our U.S. soldiers are. He's railed
against this war. MSNBC was right all over the story about how our
troops are torturing and killing innocents. Has anybody asked if he's
responsible?
Slight problem. Neither Beck nor anyone else on the right last week
could find any hateful, violent anti-recruiter attacks launched by
liberal media personalities. (Let alone baby-killing quotes.) Why
can't they find the rhetoric? Because nobody on the left with any sort
of national platform has targeted military recruiters in recent years.
If they had, Malkin would have included the damning quotes in her
column. (Either that, or she needs to hire a new researcher.)
Have there been, over the years, occasional efforts on the left to ban
military recruiters from campuses and other environments? There
certainly have. Can conservatives point to any kind of wholesale hate
rhetoric or vigilante-style calls to action by mainstream liberal
pundits and commentators designed to dehumanize and demonize military
recruiters? Of course they cannot. (And sorry, Code Pink
demonstrations don't qualify as mainstream media commentators.)
Because if conservatives could have found those kinds of irresponsible
attacks, they would have thrown them back in everyone's faces last
week.
But apparently, they don't exist.
As far as I know, there are no gotcha, hateful, get-the-recruiter
quotes to hang around the necks of Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow or
anyone else on the left for the simple reason that high-profile media
liberals haven't led dangerous crusades to target military recruiters
the way O'Reilly led a dangerous crusade against Tiller. And the way
Beck has against Obama.
As a rule, media liberals don't traffic in irresponsible,
militia-style rhetoric. But agitators like O'Reilly and Beck do, and
now conservatives can't make that fact go away.
That's why the Fox News crew and its eager apologists are going to
have to come up with a better line of defense. Because as long as Fox
News peddles its incendiary vigilante rhetoric, the right-wing
violence in America will continue, and Fox News is going to have to
answer for it.