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O’Reilly: No Backpedaling Here
Oh what do you know, Bill O’Reilly isn’t sorry. Responding to criticism that his attacks on George Tiller—he aired 29 segments about him in the past few years—may have helped incite his killer, O’Reilly said “No backpedaling here … I report honestly. Every single thing we said about Tiller was true, and my analysis was based on those facts.” While O’Reilly said that “Americans should condemn the murder,” he went on to say that “When I heard about Tiller’s murder, I knew pro-abortion zealots and Fox News haters would attempt to blame us for the crime. … Those vicious individuals want to stifle any criticism of people like Tiller. That — and hating Fox News — is the real agenda here. Finally, if these people are soooo compassionate — so very compassionate, so concerned for the rights and welfare of others — maybe they might have written something, one thing, about the 60,000 fetuses that will never become American citizens. Or am I wrong?”
Genni2002
"my analysis" sounds a bit over the top technical just like "vicious individuals want to stifle any criticism of people like Tiller" protests a wee bit much!! O'Reilly can't even just say sorry and leave it. No, he not only can't, he must also rub salt in the wound... a really mean guy!
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n--Y--jdavxcWednes
He could not have anticipated that when he publicly and repeatedly called a doctor a "government sanctioned murderer of innocent children" that someone would take action? Check the law. If you incite violence, you are responsible for it.
Genni2002
Doesn't he have an obligation to say something such as:
if anything that I said or did caused this guy to think that shooting a person you do not agree with is appropriate, then I am truly sorry.
A little sense of remorse would be correct. Why do all these people on TV think that they should be paid a lot of money, spew a bunch of crap (such as the investment shows, for example), but not be held accountable for anything? If they aren't influencing anything, what the hell are they doing having these opinions and rants?
maluminse
Yea exactly. Hitler had nothing to do with those that followed him either. Or Jim Jones. Jim Jones didnt 'make' those people drink kool aid and die.
Ottoheinz
O'Reilly shaped and supported the mindset of the killer and other unstable militants like him by saying the doctor was a murderer and a nazi. O'Reilly's kind of rhetoric will inveitably lead the crazies to take action, it's just too harsh.
O'Reilly wanted the abortion doctor to be stopped by legal means, but his rhetoric implied that a different action be taken. Do I think he should be sorry for this? I don't care about O'Reilly himself but I'm just sick of politicans and pundits who abuse their station with rhetoric that far exceeds the situation.
pricklypear
I disagree.
jus1drun
i think the issue of late term abortion is a festering sore even without religious considerations of which i have none. anyway i watched the big O last night and have seen his show from time to time. i'm not qualified to declare him mean but boy oh boy there is some one who is a bit more than a wee bit full of himself! it's all about fox and him. have they gotten that big? i must have missed that memo.
AiriqS
Yes, Fox is that big. Ratings for April:
1. "The O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News): 3,498,000 total viewers
2. "Hannity" (Fox News): 2,566,000 total viewers
3. "Glenn Beck" (Fox News): 2,230,000 total viewers
4. "On the Record with Greta van Susteren" (Fox News): 2,173,000 total viewers
5. "Special Report with Bret Baier" (Fox News): 2,047,000 total viewers
6. "The Fox Report with Shepard Smith" (Fox News): 1,915,000 total viewers
7. "The O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News, repeat): 1,723,000 total viewers
8. "Your World with Neil Cavuto" (Fox News): 1,520,000 total viewers
9. "America's Newsroom" (Fox News): 1,505,000 total viewers
10. "Studio B with Shepard Smith" (Fox News): 1,314,000 total viewers
11. "Happening Now" (Fox News): 1,247,000 total viewers
12. "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" (MSNBC): 1,237,000 total viewers
13. "The Live Desk" (Fox News): 1,210,000 total viewers
14. "Larry King Live" (CNN): 1,093,000 total viewers
15. "Anderson Cooper 360%u2033 (CNN): 1,058,000 total viewers
Even an O'Reilly re-run had 70% more viewers than Anderson Cooper.
hairy-bear
I've always wondered about what percentage of those viewers of each show are watching other shows on the same network. If those viewers are only watching each show and no others it's, what, 20 million people watching Fox give or take? Most likely they're watching multiple shows so it's really fewer than 20 million. There's 300 million people in the US. Either way the overall percentages are really very small (a minority of Americans, if you will...and from the sounds of it Fox News personalities would feed off the idea of being/becoming the minority). So would it be safe to say that more people wouldn't even know what Big O, Hannity, and Beck were saying if Fox News weren't news itself? Gets me thinking about the number of people crossing between Rush and Fox too...
smitisan
I can't believe that many people still watch television. That's 60,000 fetuses who will never become American cannon fodder.
showmestategal
Your friend ruppert sure gave erroneous numbers maybe he needs to use a truthful Poll about fix news numbers--MSNBC IS WIPING THEIR NUMBERS OUT !
Everybody Loves Keith, Rachel & Chris for truth in journalism--Not that ego-maniac idiot oreilly or hannity and his hannidates........
Khrish
Well that just means that we have 70% of the American viewers that are stupid or just can't believe that he is so stupid.
Wednes
My Gods, that is terifying!
ezspdr
Just goes to show you how many right wing zealots are out there waiting to pounce.
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n--Y--monet767This user is no longer registered.
n--Y--charles116Garrison
1% of America watch O'Reilly. Ooooo......
veganliz
This just shows how ignorant O'Reilly is. The abortions that Dr. Tiller preformed were on women who would either have died in birth, or on fetuses who would not have survived (missing brains, spinal cords, or with other terrible deformities). Dr. Tiller provided a vital service to American women who had no other option. I don't understand the abortion argument to begin with. To say that a fetus that is not viable to begin with has more rights to my body and as an individual than I do, is ridiculous and insulting. I hate it when men try to force their insight and beliefs on womens bodies.
leslie1
When we go down the path of "The end justifies the means"
we are in serious trouble. America is slipping down that path and I fear that religious right wing nuts will stop at nothing to push us farther along it. Bill O'Rielly, with is constant critizing and complaining, is like a rotten apple in a barrel slowly, ever so slowly making sure the whole barrel is rotten.
fanofgrendel
Any barrel that has a so called doctor killing hundreds of babies just before they are born is pretty rotten to begin with.
Ritarita
fan-
You speak out of ignorance.
You don't know the circumstances
Of these abortions.
If you did you would regret
Your most uninformed opinion.
Most of the circumstances
Are not in your realm of
Experience or comprehension.
Khrish
What a statement coming from someone who cares more about taking care of the unborn and killing the born. Even the bible ask, when talking about love: How can you love me whom you have never seen/met, and hate your neighbor who you see everyday?" Why is it necessary for people to determine what is best for people that they don't even know? You are no better than the radical muslins that you rail against.
johnjohnson68510
The murder of Tiller is a terrible thing. I am religious and politically I am of the right. I am not a nut, and neither are my friends and family. We prayed for Tiller and his family; may they have comfort, and may the infinite mercy of God be enough to protect his eternal soul.
ezspdr
If I am not mistaken, Khrish, MUSLIN is a fabric!!!???
ezspdr
Ah the right. Get Fox and O'Rielly to do your dirty work and have B O put ideas in idiot's heads, have him kill the doctor then.......pray for the doctor. What is wrong with the country??
PhotoshopAbuser
Well, I hope the old man is happy now. He finally got someone killed.
One has to wonder if he will put it on his resume.
JackJack
O'Reilly didn't get someone killed. If Rush loses his kidney should we go after Wanda Sykes?
Tiller, a late term abortion doctor has for years been a target. His then biggest supporter was KS Kathleen Sebulis, now O's health queen bee.
We're a free speech country; people, on air personalities, journalists report their views and it is just that "their views."
Hawnzz
If someone shoots or stabs him in the kidneys... perhaps.
O'Reilly has crossed a line. He doesn't have a right to go on television and target a human life. That doctor was doing a legal medical procedure. (Whether we like it or not.) Late term abortions, in this case... were performed in the instance where the life of the mother was at risk. It was not a form of birthcontrol.
Just because you disagree with someone, doesn't give you the right to kill them.
PhotoshopAbuser
While the free speech thing is true, O'Reilly is living proof that evolution fails every once in awhile. Him and that limburg guy are just hate mongers. They rarely say anything of substance and seem to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
debbieqd
Hmm...someone else used that same kind of free speech expressing "his views." His name was Adolf Hitler.
Khrish
Rust Limpballs didn't lose his kidneys and the went after Wanda Sykes anyway. Before the dinner could end, the reporter were spewing how she stepped over the line. I have yet to hear them say that Limpballs or any of these other blowhards that spew their venom, have stepped over the line. What more do they have to say to be considered "stepping over the line"? We have all found the weapons of mass destruction.
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n--Y--charles116drexco
Bill O'Reilly sounds like the rap stars he criticizes. For years he's has been commenting how much rap causes violence. He blames that rap artists have a direct affect on violent actions in society. Now that someone blames O'Reilly on a violent actions, what's the first thing he says? "Don't blame me." He has just as much influence, directly or indirectly, on society as the group he criticizes. We will always voice our opinions whether people are listening or not. Why not, we all have the right to voice what is in our minds whether we're rappers, the media, or just the average Joe. Violence is a product of society and we are all to blame. I just can't stand a hypocrite.
Foxfan
I think our court system must look in to Billy O'Rielly reports. I beilieve his "outrageous report' has inspired this killer to kill a law abide citizen. After all, he did not break any law. What is our country came down to? A law abide citizen goes to church and get killed - because he had a different view point? The doctor did not break any law. I believe under the name of "first amendment" rights - some of these tv and radio reporters and stirring up lots of hatered in our society. I hope we all should stand up together againt this kind of propaganda and proper authority should take actions. One day people will start fleeing America - because no one stopped this.
I think legislation should be introduce to ban this kind of "Bully and trash" reportings.
Issywise
O'Reilly and other choice foes are calling scores of millions of their fellow citizens murderers or condoners of murders. Sow the wind and inherit the storm. Of course, some weak link in their chain of hate broke and killed. It happens with regulatity.
Mr. O'Reilly and his boss Mr. Murdock should not be allowed to spew this hate without the law requiring an opportunity for a response over the public airways. Reinstate the fairness doctrine and at least the public airways will carry countering information and argument. Murdock's desire to make optimal profits is not the highest value involved in public airways.
Public policy is supposed to be based on rational discussion, not the most horrific name-calling that can be mustered--and decades of it. If you accuse somebody of a profound crime, you should be responsible enough to fix a defensible principle to homicide laws. That I don't agree with them that life begins at the formation of the zygote makes me a murderer in their eyes. Why not on formation of the gametes? The Bible says masturbation is a sin. Why aren't these fanatics calling for the criminalization of masturbation as destruction of life? They completely disregard the woman's privacy and autonomy in order to vindicate their policy preference. The law is supposed to be rational. Where is the rationality to just arbitrarily fixing a point in time in a biological process and then criminalizing everybody who disagrees. The law now considers when life if viable and the rights of the mother as against the impulse of some to draft her uterus into national service.
They are reckless extremist, haters, zealots who hope to impose their preference on all of us through the coercive power of the state by bullying and hate.
Bill O'Reilly shouldn't be shut up, but his boss should have to make room for countering reason and facts. We've traded Jefferson and J.S. Mill for Dr. Goebbles and the ad man Harry Morgan.
God damn them all. They are no more religious that the other Jihadist who also would govern by hate and certainty that they and they alone know what God wants our laws to be.
johnjohnson68510
"God damn them all"? Which is worse, to lose your life, or to lose your soul? Aren't you glad you don't actually have the power to pull _that_ trigger!
Issywise
Yeah, I don't claim the authority to damn people from a hereafter. Actually, those people are neither good Christians nor good citizens in a republic. The former requires (consult the Book of Job) some modesty. Those claiming that they know what God wants American laws and policies to be are lacking in the necessary modesty to be truly religious. Person's claiming to know that answer to policy question by special godly revelation has been the plague on human society for six thousand years. I don't God hangs with those folks in the afterlife. If they read their Bible's with less than a self-glorifying viewpoint, they'd understand that they lack the requisite modesty toward God to be acceptably religious in his own biblically expressed eyes.
Their lacking in citizenship in a republic results from the requirement that one participating citizens accept the notion that reasoned good faith discussion of policy choices will most likely result in the selection of the best policy and acceptance of it by all. Those who have God's instructions whispered into their ears cannot participation in good faith in reasoned discussion of policy. If you know God's will, any acceptance of a different perspective is compromise with apostasy--at best.
Our tens of millions of religious zealots are a danger to democracy itself: they place their god-given instruction above any respect for the process of self-government. In a republic, power and policy originate from the people: Lincoln's "Government of...the people." In their view, the policy question is determined by God, communicated to them and must be imposed on civil society. Those who disagree are murderers.
Centrist
I don't think reinstating the Fairness Doctrine will have much effect. Most people these days get their TV over cable. The FCC only has legal control of over over-the-air broadcasting, which is a public medium. Cable networks are under no obligation to provide "fairness". My local cable provider (Comcast) broadcasts CNBC and Fox News but doesn't even offer MSNBC (which, according to Fox pundits is left wing) as a choice.
rustyr315
I think it is safe to say that most rational people regardless of political leanings feel that abortion is not good or right. The difference is the right wing religious nuts want to oppress their agenda on everyone. It is amazing that most religious fanatics have this trait. It is of the same ilk that is going on in Pakistan with the reinstatement of Sharia law. Oppression and Terror are the tools of control that fanatics wield regardless if it is done in the name of Jesus, Jehovah, Allah, or and another figure. I wish the fanatics would just leave people alone but then they would'nt be fanatics would they? What do they care, in their minds, they are going to 'heaven' anyway. Let the non-believers' "burn" in hell as it were. I find it humorous that the same fanatics that oppose a womens right to choose also oppose the most logical and effective means of limiting abortions (i.e. contraception, sex education etc.) I wonder when are government is going to spend has much energy on domestic terrorists as it does on terrorists half a world away....
namedujour
You're right. I can't think of any woman yelling, "Yippee! I get to have an abortion!!" Abortion is a painful personal decision, and the opinions of the unsympathetic, the self-righteous and the lowly evolved should not weigh in. This is particularly true with regard to the abortions Dr. Tiller performed - babies who were dead, or dying, and parents who were brokenhearted.
It's a control issue. The right wing doesn't want government interference, right? Listen to them whine about "big government" and "socialism". Yet they demand government involvement to control highly personal things, like who you can marry, whether or not you can easily obtain any information about how to conceive a child or the tools to prevent its conception, and whether or not you have any say in bringing the fetus to term.
So "Big Government" isn't bad when it's in your bedroom. It's only bad when it looks over your shoulder while you try to cheat and tries to regulate your irresponsible financial behaviors, or helps people who don't have the means to help themselves. It's only good when THEY say it's good.
Their platform is a form of insanity.
Ritarita
And you're right.
Excellent post.
jolebo
You are soooo right on.
Hawnzz
I could of written your post. In fact I say those things over and over and over again. Right on the money.... Good post indeed!
johnjohnson68510
Well, thank God our enemies are insane. Otherwise we'd have to diaglogue with them.
cliffbennett
Well said.
It's been that way for a long time -- "We're for less government, and at the same time, for having the government control those darn liberals in any way possible."
Yeah, right. What hypocrites.
I just wish news media commentators would call them on it more often.
tankertodd
Killing a late-term baby is wrong unless it's to save the life of the mother. It's murder. Not hard. Killing dying babies is murder. And control is the domain of the Left - control of schools, control of frikkin' carbon dioxide, control of GM and Chrysler, control of labor policy, control of wages, control of trade. Who is lowly evolved when one is so clueless and obtuse?
theoPitt
You guys are all nut jobs, except tankertodd. This article is about you wanting to blame O'Reily for the murder. Not big government vs small. And we are talking late term abortion. You know, turning the baby around backwards to it comes out feet first, and leaving the head in mommy. Then shoving scissors in the back of it's little skull, then sucking the babies brains out to kill it. PLEASE tell me when this HAS to be done to save mommy?
You are probably all the same crowd that does not believe in Capital Punishment becasue someone innocent may be put to death by accident.
Of course all those babies are guilty of trying to kill mommy, so they must die.
Do you still want to back up your argument under the context of "late-term abortions" and calling for O'Reilly to be responsible for the murder and this makes Conservative hipocrits because they want less government? Really?
Or will you continue to spout off how conservative all want less government until it comes to abortion?
It was not an excellent post Rita. It had nothing to do with the story. Its just your chance to bash the opposition yet again.
namedujour
Wow, theopitt. Imagine you calling someone else a nut job.
Have you educated yourself AT ALL on late term abortions? The operative word is "educated". Late term abortions involve babies that are dead, or have no brain, or have health issues that guarantee death but the mother doesn't have the emotional or physical strength to carry the baby to term. It isn't a sudden change of heart at the last minute to rid oneself of a child. It's a medical issue that requires compassion from people like yourself, who have none.
Bill O'Reilly is just a shock jock who wants to stir up people who are UNEDUCATED about things like this, and push his ratings up. Some of the people who are UNEDUCATED about things like this get all worked up and kill people. There you have it. They did it again, and Bill O'Reilly was their cheerleader.
And someday when you're on death row for no reason, we'll let you die. Will that make you happy? I'd hate to think that we're saving capital punishment just for the guilty.
mutterhals
If christians are so compassionate, why are they going around shooting people for performing lawful medical procedures? That should be the issue at hand, not this scum f@cker's ill managed 'reporting'.
Khrish
I find it so hard to understand how people who know nothing about the personal lives of others can demand what happens in other folk lives. I know noone who is pro-abortion. We are pro-choice. Just as you have the right to decide for your family, everyone else should be affored that right. No one who is Pro-choice has decided to come to you and tell you that you can't have a baby so how the hell do you decide you have the right to decide that someone else must have a baby. Get out of other folks lives and work real hard to better your own. Bet you won't have time to meddle with others' lives if you take the time to clean up your own.
tankertodd
Don't lstereotype all Christians because one guy kills someone. What would happen if I commented on a black person killing someone by saying "if black people are so compassionate, why are they going around shooting someone?" It wouldn't fly, because it would be ignorant and bigoted, just like your comment. I hope you correct this.
JackJack
Tiller's killer was a "right wing zealot"?
He was a "progressive" who simply was fed up w Tiller killing babies in near full term. Or maybe he was mad that the doctor performed a late term abortion on his wife, his daughter? This horrific killing is far more personal than a simple belief.
Progressive2
JackJack he was a right wing nutjob ,like you.
theoPitt
too bad your mom didnt decide to late term you, progressive
Issywise
His assumption that the doctor assisting the woman's exercise of legal rights was a murderer was either a religious or a moral attitude held by him.
Calling murder for revenge "progressive" reveals that there is something very amiss in your moral and intellectual make-up.
You've earned a measure of the contempt that the murder himself earned.
Khrish
Were they your babies he was killing? Then what business is it of yours. And besides why aren't some of you giving the insurance companies hell for not agreeing with you on the time of conception. They won't cover a child until it is born into the world.
ezspdr
Is there a double standard here? The holy right says it is murder to end the agony of a mother who is in jeopardy or a fetus that may be in jeopardy of not making to birth or one that may be deformed or handicapped in some way, yet how do they show their feelings? One of them kills a doctor. Obey our rules or die. Who are the animals....the killers or the group spewing out the poison?
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n--Y--charles116Garrison
It's not a baby until it's born.
Stahrdance
Exchuse me JackJack....... Exactly what is it about this murderer that makes him "a progressive"?? I take offense. Or was that just your right wing zealot tit for tat?
And you know that it was "far more personal than a simple blief" how?
There seem to be a lot of people out here with no first hand personal experience in abortion or late term abortions... simply opinions or beliefs about it. So I guess that makes your theory BS.
Genni2002
JackJack, based on your argument it would be correct to attack people who have sex that doesn't result in a baby. You best not be having any kind of sexual activity. If you do, you are killing a bunch of potential unborn babies.
oddmanout
Memo to Bill: Yes, you are wrong.
kscr14
Everyone is starting to seem really manic to me.Keep sanity in check everyone.It is a good thing.
squiggy
Yes and giving O'Reilly more credit than he is worth. Everyone is as rabid as the shooter it seems.
rowdygirl
It's insane to blame anyone in the media for this lunatics actions. I'm pro-life, but I would never kill someone who disagreed. This person has problems with the law going back to the mid 90's. O'Reilly didn't incite him to kill this doctor anymore than I could.
Why do the liberals want to blame everyone on the right for anything that goes wrong in their "perfect world"? How about some mourning for all the innocent children that this doctor murdered in the name of freedom of choice? Who speaks for them?
Issywise
Come on rowdygirl. Nobody can make the argument for legal culpability. But what about social responsibility. The argument against choice has been framed as a campaign against murder--O'Reilly vends that argument out to millions every night.
If you let a blind man in a wheelchair push himself into traffic, you can foresee that he's going to get run over. You have a moral and civic responsibility to reduce the level of danger. O'Reilly must know that killings will result from labeling tens of millions of Americans as either murderers or condoners of murder.
The policy question is when does protectable life begin. There two viewpoints on this in America--the one embodied in law and the one you hold. Rather than discussing which principle best serves the law's need to protect life, individual rights and operate on a principled, rational basis, you guys are just pointing your fingers and shouting, "murderers!" You damn well know that the weak among you will snap and homicides will result, but you don't have the citizenship or religious discipline to participate in a civil debate.
Screw you and your like's dismissal of everybody who disagrees with you as either "liberal" or a "rightwinger." God gave you the light to think. Keeping a democracy requires you keep that light burning. Quote chanting team slogans and wrestle with the horrible thing that has happened and the horrible things that are happening with your participation.
Stahrdance
Who speaks for them?
Your God I guess.. if there is one. Judge not lest you be judged.
Words have consequences... yours... O'Riley's.
angst7
Lets begin with the correct idea that anything written by Think Progress is only going to go one way. Even for this group to think that O'Reilly talking points had any thing to do with the killing of Tiller is disingenuous, stupid and their usual hate filled columns. I am surprised that they just didn't print the Olbermann rant from last night. Think Progress is one of the few sources that the sleazy Olbermann get his "news". This whole article is pathetic!
Issywise
angst7
Slogan spouting team think expressed with painful redundancy does not address the serious issues suggested by this killing. Dismissing all that is said that you disagree with by ad hominem attack on the person making a point is not valid reasoning. In this case it is cheerleading, partisan--ideological group chanting.
Did you say pathetic?
Khrish
Well I suppose it makes you sleazy if you want to allow people the right to make their own decisions about what is best for their lives? O'rielly and his ilk are nothing but blowhards who do just what the hell they want with their lives and then reach out to control yours because you are dumb and backwards enough to let them. They are earning big bucks to keep you in the backward mode, even to having tea parties to beg the government to let you pay more taxes so that they (Rust Limpballs and the boys) so that you can allow them to continue to live in the style to which you have accustomed them. Idiots!
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