O'Reilly And The Murder

The great liberal blog, crooksandliars.com, holding the host of The O'Reilly Factor partially responsible for the recent murder of the Kansas doctor who performed late term abortions, commented sarcastically

And never mind that Dr. Tiller was made into a national cause celebre, accused of "executing babies" by none other than Bill O'Reilly and the crew of far-right transmitters at Fox News.

No connection there, folks! Move along, move along.

Keith Olbermann, unsurprisingly continuing his anti-O'Reilly campaign, observed

For four years, on at least 28 occasions, that‘s what was said on Fox News Channel. Nazism, al Qaeda, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Stalin, baby killing pedophilia, Tiller the baby killer, again and again and again.

From the objectivity corner, the folks at PolitiFact.com found that going back to 2005, O'Reilly mentioned Dr. Tiller 42 times and on 24 times referred to him as a "baby killer."

And thanks to dailykostv, we have O'Reilly's campaign against Dr. Tiller on video:





If- if- anyone but Scott Roeder is responsible for the murder of Dr. Tiller, it is Bill O'Reilly.

But no one (assuming the accuracy of what we now know, that only one individual took part in the crime) but Scott Roeder is responsible for this offense. Oh, Bill O'Reilly and a portion of the fanatical wing of the pro-life movement contributed to the atmosphere which was a precondition of the murder. But the principal of individual responsibility should hold sway, and no one but the actual assailant should be held accountable for the slaying.

But that doesn't let the Fox News host off the hook. It seemed only reasonable, almost inevitable, as Gabriel Winant wrote on salon.com on May 31, that

When his show airs tomorrow, Bill O'Reilly will most certainly decry the death of Kansas doctor George Tiller, who was killed Sunday while attending church services with his wife. Tiller, O'Reilly will say, was a man who was guilty of barbaric acts, but a civilized society does not resort to lawless murder, even against its worst members. And O'Reilly, we can assume, will genuinely mean this.

Surprise! It didn't happen. After a perfunctory condemnation of the murder, O'Reilly on June 1, with a notable lack of humility or discretion, declared

no back pedaling here. I report honesty. Everything we said about Tiller was true and my analysis was based on those facts. It is clear that the far left is exploiting the death of the doctor. Those vicious individuals want to stifle any criticism of people like Tiller. That and hating Fox News is the real agenda here. If these people were so compassionate, so very compassionate, so concerned for the rights and welfare of others, maybe they might have written something on things about the 60,000 fetuses who will never become American citizens.

Now suppose you have a neighbor whose son tragically died a couple of days earlier of a drug overdose. You go next door, maybe with a homemade cake or one from a mix, to join others in grieving with the family. Another neighbor is there and uses the occasion to decry the epidemic of drug use in America; identify drug addicts as "leeches" on the taxpayers; maintain that addicts are responsible for most serious crime in society; and complain about "lenient" judges without the backbone to do more than slap the wrists of these offenders. You, and everyone else at the family's home, would be aghast and appalled- and perhaps contemplate, as O'Reilly once did for Tiller, "a special place in hell for this guy." Not the right time or place for expression of these resentments (however valid or sincerely held), everyone would agree. And perhaps wonder: is this guy emulating Bill O'Reilly?



(For a perspective on Roeder as a domestic terrorist, check out this from The Young Turks)