You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (2137)

PLAYS: (3331)

Bill O'Reilly held an extended whinefest on The O'Reilly Factor last night about how poor Rush Limbaugh was the victim of a "witch hunt" by racial political-correctness police. For a bunch of people of pooh-pooh the "victimology" of minorities, it would be hard to find a bigger bunch of crybabies than American right-wingers these days.

Indeed, that's a key part of what's going on here: In addition to Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity later that evening, O'Reilly -- with Juan Williams chiming in with his usual sycophancy, agreeing wholeheartedly that Limbaugh is being victimized by the conservative Republicans who run the NFL -- is basically claiming that blacks and liberals who are bringing up Limbaugh's long history of racially incendiary rhetoric are "waving the bloody shirt" -- "the demagogic practice of politicians referencing the blood of martyrs or heroes to inspire support or avoid criticism."

Watch how O'Reilly and Williams focus on three apparently bogus quotes attributed to Limbaugh -- while ignoring a mountain of genuine quotes that make the point irrevocable: Limbaugh does like to play the race card with divisive and false claims, and he does it with great frequency.

The one sane commentator O'Reilly brings on -- talk-show host Warren Ballentine -- manages to make this point with a handful of counter-examples, but even that is not really representative.

For every three bogus Limbaugh quotes, it's a very simple matter to provide thirty bona-fide comments that are consistent examples of real race-baiting rhetoric from Limbaugh.

But this is an old tactic of American conservatives: Turn their own foul behavior on its head, and accuse those who would hold them accountable for it. That's what "waving the bloody shirt" has always been about, since the phrase was first coined.

Wikipedia again:

Continue reading »

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (867)

PLAYS: (9355)

This weekend the righties got all worked up about the supposed "brutality" of union thugs in St. Louis who they say beat up a black conservative tea partier named Kenneth Gladney who came out to protest the Obama health-care plan on Thursday. They even had a big protest the next day, along with a press conference featuring Gladney in a wheelchair.

But take a look at the video of the supposed assault. It enters the scene a bit late -- an SEIU member is already on the ground and appears to be injured, but we can't tell what the cause was. As he's laying there, other SEIU members come to his protection, and one of them pulls down Gladney; both men fall to the pavement. Both quickly get back up. There appears to be little to it. [A section of the video showing the supposed assault is in slow motion.]

Indeed, it's readily apparent that Gladney seems completely unhurt. He wanders out to the crowd, chats with the cameraman, flags down a cop, and saunters back to where police decide to handcuff the man who knocked him down. As you can hear, the man protests that he was just keeping Gladney away from his fallen friend.

The next day, Gladney is at the press conference in a wheelchair. He claims to be too medicated to speak, so his lawyers and fellow tea partiers do it for him.

Does this seem real to you? Sure looks fake to me.

Right-wingers love to bring up cases of fake hate crimes and overblown racial-profiling claims as proof that these phenomena don't really exist to the extent that their victims claim. (See Ann Coulter for the most recent example, but Michelle Malkin has made a minor cottage industry out of this specious narrative.) But they sure do love it when a minority conservative can make a reverse-the-charges accusation (usually involving race) against liberals -- no matter how dubious the claims.

We can see, moreover, that the right-wing teabaggers intend to create as much physical provocation as possible and then claim victimhood when something erupts -- even when there's nothing. (See yesterday's history lesson for more on this.)

Even worse, this kind of nonsense creates permission for right-wingers to then indulge in the "defensive" violence we've read them fantasizing about on right-wing gun forums. You know, that "Second Amendment" threat we've been hearing.

At the end of the video, I've added a snip from a friend of Gladney's, who remarks: "I wish I'd been there with you, bro, it'd have turned out a lot different, I promise you."

That's what worries the rest of us.

"...when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws till Max said "BE STILL!" and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all..." - Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are.

Obama sails away a night and a day from the FOX Wild Things: Beck, O'Reilly, Coulter, Hannity, and Kristol.

Click here for larger image.

Open Thread below...

 The Factor has their special segments during the week with different teams joining BillO and one such duo features the dreaded Bernard Goldberg and the very decent Jane Hall. BillO interviewed Coulter earlier in the week after she made her anti-semtic remarks and he never even brought up what she said to his audience. He's a very shrewd guy when he tries to shield a friend from shame. Surprisingly, Bernie blasted him for his kissy-face-love-in-with Annie.

Download | play Download | play (h/t justabill)

Goldberg: You got very passionate about the Catholic sacrilege in SF, but when Ann Coulter made her comment about everybody should be a Christian, including all the Jews because they should be more perfected---man--I was waiting for you two to French kiss, I mean it was... it was -- you weren't the old Bill O'Reilly.

O'Reilly: I covered the controversy

Hall: She says anti-Semitic things, she says anti-gay things and no one seems to ever call her on it.

O'Reilly: You're right, maybe I should have said it was anti-semitic. I don't think it was anti-Semitic. I think it was just dumb!

Full transcipt below the fold

Continue reading »

 C&Ler Bill S. sent me an email tip on 10/08 and said:

Download | play Download | play

She appeared on CNBC's Danny Deutch (sp?) "Big Idea" show and shared her warped view of Christianity vis a vis Judaism. As usual she says the most patently offensive statements and then pretends that they're "fact." Deutch didn't take kindly to her definition of Christians as "perfected Jews" or her urging Jews (such as Deutch, I believe) to "get perfected."

COULTER: No, we think -- we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say. DEUTSCH: Wow, you didn't really say that, did you?

I had this at the beginning of the week, but couldn't get to it. Media Matters has the transcript...Her book is in the tank so you'd expect her to be idiotic, but her antisemitism really surprised Donny. And while Meridith Vieira finally says something this morning that needs to be said: Vieira: "So you're saying she should not be allowed on the air?" And admitted the media are all enablers: Vieira: "Of course we are. We're perpetuating it." She must have forgotten that The TODAY Show had Coulter on as an analyst last week. Meridith didn't even blink an eye when Coulter was giddy over the thought that Giuliani was crazy enough to bomb Iran. (transcript below the fold) Sarah Wheaton has a take.

Continue reading »