Bill O'Reilly led off his show by trying to denounce left wingers like all of us for blaming him for Dr. Tiller's death. He says he knew he would be the target because we hate him and FOX. How did you know we would call you out on Dr. Tiller? Maybe because of all your whacked out rants against him? What he said was true and that's that. He read off statistics from the Moonie Times and had on two Kansas law dudes (Khris Kobach, a law professor at Missouri and Brian Russell, teacher at Kansas) to help defend his cause. Usually, Bill has on an opposing--if somewhat ineffectual--view in his panel, but not this time. He couldn't risk his older audience getting hit with any of the truths surrounding BillO's outrageous behavior towards Dr. Tiller. He called him "The Baby Killer," again, the term he said originated with pro-life groups, but it's a name he used frequently against Dr. Tiller.
O'Reilly: When I heard about Tiller's murder, I knew pro-abortion zealots and FOX News haters would attempt to blame us for the crime and that is exactly what happened.
Later, Brian Russell disagreed with President Obama and said this:
Russell: Ideologically-driven killers rarely are influenced by anything other than their ideology. Obama got this wrong a few days ago when said that people become terrorists because they hear what's going on with Gitmo. No, they don't. They become terrorists because of ideology and just like this guy (Tiller's killer) almost certainly and exclusively because of ideology shot Tiller. These people who are saying that this drivel to you are as far off on their side of the issue as this shooter is on his.
Professor Russell thinks that since we point out O'Reilly's vitriol we're as bad as a freaking murderer. I called Russell on the phone and we had a heated exchange. I identified myself as a liberal blogger and he said he had to go in 5 minutes. I'll blog more about this later, but I told him that I was troubled by his last statement. A man who kills somebody does not have the equivalent ideology that I do on the left. That's insane. He tried to say that Bill O'Reilly had no influence on the killer and actually he took it a step further and said that no killer could ever be influenced by what he heard. I brought up the case of Jim David Adkisson and told him that Adkisson purchased Bernard Goldberg's book and listened to Bill O'Reilly and that was proof that these right wingers do influence people. He didn't believe me. I told him that I wanted BillO and his kind to take some responsibility for what they say and he disagreed. He kept saying he was an expert and I kept saying that his expertise didn't make him correct. He wouldn't admit that his last statement was meant as a blanket to cover Bill O'Reilly's vitriolic behavior with a defense and to also smear us by the hoisting on the values of a killer.
BillO targeted Kos and Huffington as usual. Hate is hate, Bill, and what we've argued for is not a silencing of your views, but to take ownership and responsibility for the hateful rhetoric that you and your right wing extremist buddies use that trigger violence in America against people with whom you disagree.
Later on, Bill's chief FOX News apologist, Juan Williams, came on to lick his boots and defend him even though he's pro-choice. Juan said he knew the left would use it against him and said that Bill O'Reilly never, never called for violence towards Dr. Tiller.
Here's Bill on the radio wishing he could kill Dr. Tiller.
OK. So, I'm the fascist, I'm the bad guy, I'm the problem. Not Tiller. No, he -- no, no, no. He's a good guy. Now, Tiller's pumping all kinds of money into obviously the attorney general race. He wants the guy that's gonna let him off the hook to win. Those of you listening in Kansas, you ought to know that. You know, I don't -- I'm not gonna tell you who to vote for. You guys know these guys better than I do, but I tell you what, anything Tiller wants, I'm voting the other way. And if I could get my hands on Tiller -- well, you know. Can't be vigilantes. Can't do that. It's just a figure of speech.
