Bill O'Reilly took to his Fox News bully pulpit last night to defend his good name in the wake of George Tiller's murder. There's been a whole lot of finger pointing after Tiller's killing, and some of it's in O'Reilly's direction.
O'Reilly was playing victim, saying he knew as soon as he heard about Tiller's murder that the "pro-abortion zealots" and "Fox News haters" would tar him with his own words. Those words -- repeatedly referring to Tiller as "Tiller the killer" or "Tiller the baby killer" -- O'Reilly credited last night to "pro-life groups." O'Reilly has also said Tiller had "blood on his hands" and called Tiller's medical
practice "Nazi stuff" in league with Mao's China and Soviet Russia
Last night, O'Reilly preached to a panel of sycophants -- Kansas secretary of state candidate Kris Kobach; Brian Russell (the attorney for Linda Carter, the mistress of former Kansas AG Paul Morrison), and O'Reilly regulars Juan Williams and Mary Katherine Ham. They all played O'Reilly apologist, kissing his ring and giving him the affirmations he craved.
Over the years, Tiller had been a target of many O'Reilly rants. In 2007, O'Reilly sent a camera crew to ambush Tiller.
Last night,
O'Reilly reported on what was supposedly the real agenda of the "far-left": They're going
to exploit Tiller's murder to silence anti-abortion activists and Fox
News.
Crooks and Liars highlights this quote from Russell on Monday's O'Reilly Factor (my emphasis).
Salon has a pretty great dissection of Monday's Factor. So does News Hounds.Ideologically-driven killers rarely are
influenced by anything other than their ideology. Obama got this wrong
a few days ago when said that people become terrorists because they
hear what's going on with Gitmo. No, they don't. They become terrorists
because of ideology and just like this guy (Tiller's killer) almost
certainly and exclusively because of ideology shot Tiller. These people
who are saying that this drivel to you are as far off on their side of
the issue as this shooter is on his.
Media Matters did a lot of digging into the O'Reilly/Tiller archives and found this gem from the radio factor.
Or listen for yourself."And if I could get my hands on
Tiller -- well, you
know. Can't be vigilantes. Can't do that. It's just a figure of speech."
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