03 August 2007

WWW. Smackdown

Last night, two titans clashed: Bill O'Reilly and Senator Chris Dodd battled over the Senator's attendance of the YearlyKos convention on The O'Reilly Factor.

For weeks, O'Reilly has attacked the Daily Kos as a "smear website" quoting comments posted on it such as "Tony Snow should die from cancer, the pope is a primate, and Israel deserves to be attacked." O'Reilly's outcry over JetBlue's sponsorship of the convention even led the airline to remove its name from the website. When he heard that several Democratic presidential candidates, including Senator Dodd, were attending the convention, O'Reilly quickly objected - declaring that the candidates' presence legitimized "hate speech."

In response, the Democrats have pandered to these net nuts. Hillary Clinton asked her supporters on her website to "tell Bill O'Reilly to stop smearing grassroots progressives." Senators Clinton, Obama, and Edwards and Governor Richardson all are attending this weekend's convention.

But the most egregious pandering came last night when Senator Dodd tried to smack O'Reilly for his attacks on the Daily Kos.

I disagree with O'Reilly that the Daily Kos is responsible for its vile comments. Because there is so much traffic to the website, it would be very difficult to regulate comments. I also believe there is a place for such comments to be posted freely - so people can see the hate that the far left spews in text. The far right does not have clean hands, as O'Reilly reported earlier this week with his expose on the Free Republic. But the far left seems more enmeshed in hate - and in broadcasting that hate on the Internet - than the far right.

At the top of the segment, Senator Dodd came out swinging - charging that O'Reilly was being disingenuous in showing only a select number of comments and pictures. In this case, Senator Dodd had the high ground, but he quickly lost it. As the brouhaha ensued, Senator Dodd tried to equate O'Reilly with the Daily Kos, claiming that O'Reilly had said Al Qaeda should attack San Francisco. Fuming, O'Reilly countered by asking the Senator where O'Reilly had said that. The Senator fumbled - revealing his source for O'Reilly's supposed comment was probably Media Matters talking points - and O'Reilly called him on it. From there, Senator Dodd declined, showing he was merely pandering to the Daily Kos.

Comedian Dennis Miller responded to the Dodd interview afterwards, and hit the nail right on the head: the Senator was simply trying to talk up support for his dying presidential campaign.

Sad but true. Indeed, the Senator's presidential campaign is well described.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

actually... Sen. Dodd didn't mention Media Matters. BillO say it. You should watch the clip before you comment on it

Brian Bolduc said...

Actually...

Sen Dodd didn't know what he was talking about. He made a complaint virtually the same as one from Media Matters. The problem was that Media Matters had the particulars about the comment wrong - and Dodd made those same errors.

As Dennis Miller said, Sen Dodd probably has never watched the O'Reilly Factor - or read the DailyKos.