Bill O'Reilly was all worked up last night on his Fox News show about that DailyKos poll revealing the Republican base for the collection of nutcases that it's fast becoming -- thanks in no small part to Fox News.
He launched into a vicious attack on not just DailyKos, but the rest of the liberal blogosphere as well, comparing them to the Birthers:
Apparently the leader of the Kos brigade is writing a book comparing Republicans and conservatives to the Taliban, and so this poll was designed to back up his insane point of view.
The survey says 39 percent of self-identified Republicans believe President Obama should be impeached. Sixty-three percent believe he is a socialist. Only 42 percent of GOPers think the president was actually born in the United States. And 31 percent believe he hates white people.
Now, if you believe that poll, you also believe Nancy Pelosi once dated Dick Cheney. The poll is a fraud, as is the Web site. But what is serious is the hatred that ideological Internet nuts continue to spew out there, and they have enablers on TV and radio, as we all know.
In fact, President Obama himself is very annoyed by the continuing intrusion that cable news has upon his administration. On Wednesday, he said this while addressing Democratic senators:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: If everybody here turned off your CNN, your Fox, your, you know, just turn off the TV, MSNBC, blogs, and just go talk to folks out there, instead of being in this echo chamber where the topic is constantly politics.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Now, "Talking Points" understands the president's pique, but when you consider that the mainstream media has been very friendly to Mr. Obama, his concern about cable TV news rings somewhat hollow. I mean, just about every major urban newspaper in America loves the president, so I don't know why he's so annoyed that there are few verbal snipers on the tube.
What Mr. Obama should be concerned about is the growing acceptance of lies by some Americans on both the left and the right. For example, by investigating the birth announcements in two Honolulu newspapers in August of 1961, "The Factor" has proven that Barack Obama was indeed born in America. It would have been impossible for anyone to get bogus birth announcements into two newspapers. And why would anyone bother unless they knew baby Barack would someday become President Barack? The birther deal is just madness.
On the left, we already told you about the crazy Kos people, but somehow folks like Arianna Huffington are now considered legitimate news sources. That's what the president should be worried about.
It is now very easy to demonize anyone in America, to slander and libel them all day long. There's no question the president has been treated unfairly in some precincts, but the garbage flows both ways, and Mr. Obama should point that out.
That's right, it's not right-wing kookery that Obama should be concerned about -- it's the liberal blogosphere.
Of course, O'Reilly neglects to provide any examples in which the liberal blogs, either DailyKos or HuffingtonPost or for that matter any of the rest of us on the "far left", have actually traded in bizarre conspiracy theories or provably false information. Indeed, what we've all tended to be preoccupied with is the provably false information and bizarre conspiracy theories being peddled on Fox News.
So then he brought on Karl Rove to agree with him:
O'Reilly: Now, the DailyKos -- it's interesting, it's not a real power in America but it does get picked up by powerful people, which is usually the way this game works. These far-out websites on the left, and on the right, a little bit, but not so much, uh, filter their little garbage into the New York Times and other people and then it gets mainstreamed out.
They are presenting a picture of the Republican Party as a bunch of extreme loons. You know, they want Obama impeached, they think he's not born here, or that he's a racist, he hates white people. You know, what I'm trying to get at it is this:
There's no doubt there's an extreme element of the Republican Party in the conservative movement. There's no doubt. They're there. But how much do you think that is?
Rove mostly rambled on about profanity at liberal blogs, blah blah blah, and claims that their methodology was faulty because they simply asked people the same questions they're being asked by Fox News hosts.
But O'Reilly returned to his main point:
O'Reilly: I'm trying to figure out, I'm trying to calibrate, the extreme wing of the Republican Party and the conservative movement. Is it 20 percent? Fifteen percent? What would it be?
Gee, we dunno, Bill. According to the Kos poll, nearly two-thirds of Republicans think it's possible or probable that President Obama is a racist who hates white people (31 percent said no, 33 percent said they weren't sure).
Maybe -- since this is a question Glenn Beck has promoted on Fox News -- Fox itself should conduct a poll asking the question. Wanna bet it's significantly different?
Of course, we understand: It's essential for O'Reilly to minimize the insanity of the American right in order to keep peddling his BS on a daily basis. It's his living, and any threat to it will be summarily dispatched.
