Bill O'Reilly has been on a mission to first destroy the credibility of Rolling Stone, that fine upstanding DFH mag, which includes the author of the piece that brought down Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Michael Hastings. And secondly, he's now attacking liberalism in general and blaming McChrystal's downfall on the idea that he's a liberal, so he deserved his fate.
And you know BillO hates Michael Hastings -- who once upon a time ran some scathing pieces on Bill O'Reilly's sexual peccadiloes -- so as usual he brings on Bernie "I hate Liberals" Goldberg to attack Michael Hastings and call him a weasel. He's blaming Hastings for ruining General McChrystal, which is absolutely ridiculous. Hastings didn't make anything up and the general and his staff have not refuted anything at all about the article.
BillO has not been able to prove that the general is a flaming treehugger -- he says so in this segment -- but that doesn't stop him from promoting the idea anyway. BillO uses Lara Logan's opinion about how the military grants access to journalists. She is shocked that there were no rigid ground rules.
UPDATE: Read Glenn Greenwald's piece on Lara Logan's response to Hastings.
That in itself is meaningless since Rolling Stone has said from the beginning that they were granted access to write their piece in its entirety. Bernie says she knows what she's talking about, but he can't prove that Hastings sandbagged the general and a reporter is not there to do PR for the military. Good for Bernie. Then Bill delves into liberal-conspiracy-land with Bernie happily along for the ride.
O'Reilly: I don't know his ideology, but when I heard that her's an avowed liberal who turned off FOX News in his office, which as you know is the most widely watched network on all the army, marine and naval bases, all over the globe by far...FOX NEWS,FOX NEWS, FOX NEWS. When he did that and I heard that,"OK, maybe his own ideology brought him down. I wonder if general McChrystal is as liberal now today as he was today before the Rolling Stone article? So I think you live by the liberal sword, you die by the liberal sword.
Goldberg: Exactly, exactly, God created irony. If you're a liberal military man and you take a liberal journalist into your confidence and then he turns around and screws you, I mean that's what we call ironic.
Ahhh, it's all so ironic, Bernie. Well, BillO and Bernie get to their own warped version of what it means to be a liberal and how the media will treat you. You see you stupid liberal military men. All liberals in the media will bring you down in a cloud of shame if you talk to them. Beware, only the halls of the NRO are worthy for you because they will protect you no matter what you say. That's real journalistic integrity. Then Bernie says in a fit of hubris that if Hastings pretended to like McChrystal to win his confidence and he knew he was going to screw him before he did the interview, then Hastings is dishonest. It's killing these wingnuts that General McChrystal might actually be a lefty. The man dubbed the savior of Afghanistan even hates FOX News.
Bill's proof that he must be a liberal is found in Marc Ambinder's piece, which says he is a liberal and banned FOX News from his office. I like him a little more if this is true, but O'Reilly's idea that he got the axe because he was a liberal is absurd as usual.
Today there's a report in CNN which has a military spokesman saying that Hastings didn't fact check some of his quotes.
But days after his ouster, one military official who worked for McChrystal in Afghanistan has told CNN that many of the controversial quotes in the article were never meant to be used on-the-record. But at no point did the official dispute the accuracy of comments about the president or other key administration officials that appeared in the article.
If you have access as a journalist to do an article then he/she is not going to refrain from including controversial comments because you suddenly realize that you made a mistake in making those comments for the record for the fact.
Bill O'Reilly then defends his own "ambush" tactics by calling it "eye to eye' and 'face to face' with someone you want answers from directly.
O'Reilly: ...This Hastings is a weasel, Bernie. He's a weasel. You know he's a weasel. This is a weasel with a capital "W"
Goldberg: I suspect he is...
And there you have it, Michael Hastings must be a weasel and McChrystal is a liberal and deserved his fate.
