Something to do

If you’re looking for something interesting to do, go read about all the lying Bill O’Reilly’s been doing, as documented by MMFA. All of them are here. It’s really quite impressive. MMFA has shown itself to be pretty trustworthy so far, minus some distortion that Spinsanity noted, which was pretty mild. This item they have is pretty interesting (edited as much as I could to get the whole story in):

Professor DAVID COLE (Georgetown University): Well, the short version is I was invited to be on the show. I sit there as Bill O’Reilly is recording his intro, which is essentially that “The Factor” had established that there was a link between Iraq and al-Qaida. And then he says, `And Thomas Kean–here’s what Thomas Kean of the 9-11 Commission said over the weekend.’

Mr. THOMAS KEAN (9-11 Commission): (From “The O’Reilly Factor”) …we can find whatsoever that Iraq or Saddam Hussein participated in any way in attacks on the United States–in other words, on 9/11. What we do say, however, is there were contacts between Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Iraq–Saddam Hussein–excuse me, al-Qaida…

Prof. COLE: Well, so I’m impressed because he’s playing a balanced soundbite. Maybe all the things Al Franken said about him were not true. But suddenly he interrupts; he says, `We can’t use that. We’ve got to redo this.’ Two minutes of silence, he comes back re-records the whole segment verbatim, except when he gets to Kean, he doesn’t use the soundbite but instead paraphrases it to say that Kean had said that the 9-11 Commission has definitely found a connection between al-Qaeda…

Prof. COLE: I didn’t bring it up right away. But we were talking about a New York Times article, and he kept mischaracterizing The New York Times article. And his whole thing was about how we can’t have this spin from The New York Times; it’s dividing the country. `The spin must stop; our lives depend on it,’ he said. And he keeps mischaracterizing The New York Times article; I keep saying he’s not. Finally I say to him, `Bill, it seems like the pot’s calling the kettle black here, because I sat here five minutes ago and saw you re-record the intro to cut out a statement that you found’…

Prof. COLE: [...] But when he says sanctimoniously says, `We can’t have spin; it’s dividing the country; you know, the spin has got to stop,’ and then he starts accusing another media outlet of engaging in that spin–all I was saying was, `Look, Bill, you’re doing the exact same thing.’ And as soon as I said that, he literally blew up. He screamed at me; he called me an SOB three times. He said, `We will not put this accusation on air when we show the thing, and you’re never, ever going to be on this show again.’ And sure enough, when the show aired…

MURRAY: It was gone.

Prof. COLE: …he cut that out entirely, and there’s no `Thank you–you know, thank you very much, Mr. Cole. Goodbye.’


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