This transcript is a living, breathing example of just how dangerous and bizarre a phenomenon Fox News is. Watch as Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter jerk each other off, breaking every rule of journalism and not even trying to hide their prejudice and loathing. (They’re going on about David brock’s Media Matters, which has the audacity to provide actual transcripts of what O’Reilly and his thugs say, much to their embarrassment.) That last section about “Bad people” — too, too much.
O’REILLY: In the “Unresolved Problem” segment tonight, as we told you last week, we are closely watching the far-left smear websites to make sure they are held accountable for damaging people, something they do on a regular basis.
Now, our policy is to not name the websites, because, well,
they’re beneath contempt. They want that kind of publicity.
[…]
O’REILLY: Yeah, but on a policy basis, what they’re trying to do on these far-left smear sites is intimidate people with whom they disagree, and then choke off their ability to get their message out. I mean, freedom of speech means nothing to these people. They really want to just bludgeon anybody with whom they disagree, or am I wrong?
COULTER: No, you’re right, though. I mean, the one thing that perplexes me is why they want to keep me off only CNN. You know, why not Fox? Why not MSNBC?
O’REILLY: Well, they know that Fox isn’t going to play their game.
COULTER: David Brock has something against MSNBC?
O’REILLY: Yeah, they know Fox isn’t going to play their game.
COULTER: What about MSNBC?
O’REILLY: Nobody watches them, with all due respect. I mean, it’s true. Nobody watches the network. It doesn’t mean anything.
COULTER: Well, I think it’s an excellent use for George Soros’s money to keep republishing the things I say on CNN.
O’REILLY: OK, but to answer your question, CNN is perceived to be a left-wing outlet, and they don’t like your voice on the left-wing outlet. But, you know, aren’t liberals or far-left people supposed to be champions of freedom of speech? Isn’t that what the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] is all about?
COULTER: No, of course not. They’re Nazi block watchers. This is what they’re good at.
O’REILLY: They’re Nazi what?
COULTER: Block watchers, you know. They tattle on their parents, turn them in to the Nazis. They’re little Nazi block watchers.
O’REILLY: See, this is why they don’t want you on CNN there. You’re calling them Nazis. They don’t —
COULTER: Coincidentally, Sean Hannity doesn’t want me on CNN either. I think he might be paying for this website.
O’REILLY: Why not? Why doesn’t Hannity want you on CNN?
COULTER: Because he only wants me on his show.
O’REILLY: Oh, he wants full control of you. OK. Now, you’re —
COULTER: Which he basically has.
[…]
O’REILLY: OK. So you believe that these people want to hurt you, and now you have to have security with you?
COULTER: It’s not just me. It’s David Horowitz. It’s [MSNBC contributor and former Republican presidential candidate] Pat Buchanan. It’s [Weekly Standard editor] Bill Kristol. If you go speak at a college campus, I promise you, if you don’t have a security detail, they will physically attack you, because they are the party of ideas, and they’re so intellectual their ideas just can’t fit on a bumper sticker. You know, everything else they’re always saying about themselves. But when it actually comes time to formulate a counterargument, all they can do is throw food.
O’REILLY: All right. But it gets to be frightening. And I — look, in my own case, I have to have security, and obviously —
COULTER: Any conservative does.
O’REILLY: Yeah, but I think liberals, some — well, I don’t know. Look, there’s no question —
COULTER: No liberal has to have security. Though I’d like to change that.
O’REILLY: Well, there’s no — let me just ask you this. Do you believe that these smear sites on the Internet are encouraging violence against you and others?
COULTER: They may be intended to. I think what mostly encourages violence is their incapacity to formulate an argument.
O’REILLY: All right. That’s a different thing.
COULTER: And they do have the reaction of a 4-year-old.
O’REILLY: So you don’t believe that they actually want to see you harmed, these left-wing smear sites?
COULTER: Oh, I do think they — oh, the websites? Well, who knows? It’s all kind of a mix. I think they want to keep me off CNN because — I don’t know why it’s just CNN. Like I say, why not the Cooking Channel? I’m going to have to start my own petition to keep Ann Coulter off all stations.
O’REILLY: All right. Be careful, Ann. They’re bad people.
COULTER: Thank you.O’REILLY: They are bad people.
COULTER: They are bad people.
O’REILLY: And that’s not an ideological statement. They are bad human beings, doing what they’re doing.
THIS is journalism?? Now, there are left-leaning TV newspeople and commentators, but never, ever will you see a similar conversation on the three major networks or PBS – this is literally a perversion of journalism, a hand job. Bad people?? Since when do journalists and commentators make judgements like this? Fox is a disease; there is nothing even remotely similar on the left. Nothing. (And if you say there is, I have just one request: email me the transcript.)
1
By Gordon
December 5, 2005 @ 12:03 am | Comment
2
By Gordon
Damn tags.
December 5, 2005 @ 12:03 am | Comment
3
By Other Lisa
“I have a list!”
December 5, 2005 @ 1:01 am | Comment
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By richard
I am really glad you brought up Dan Rather, in typical kneejerk rightwing fashion. 🙂
Rather fucked up mightily and paid mightily. But he never played games that are comparable with what O’Reilly and Coulter do every day of the week – and they never get in trouble for it, but instead reap huge financial rewards. You show me anything – anything at all – that Dan Rather has ever said that you feel can be held up as comparable to this circle jerk, where he passes blatant judgement on whole groups of people as “bad people” – you can’t because it doesn’t exist. No real journalist who did this would keep his job. Yeah, Rather believed a bad source but it wasn’t an act of grotesque political grandstanding. Rather committed suicide with what he did, bringing down a once illustrious career. Coulter and O’Reilly commit far more egregious sins, consciously and consistently, every night. And they never apologize, and they never resign, and they are never disgraced.
I eagerly await the transcript I asked for.
December 5, 2005 @ 1:17 am | Comment
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By Ming
You call these 2 …. journalist? may God help America!
From’ve what read, these two are just some trashes with lots of shit spewing out of their mouths.
December 6, 2005 @ 12:17 am | Comment
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By Lookithere
No they are not journalists. They do not hold themselves out to be journalists or newsman anchor and its unfair and downright hysterical of some to hold them to the same high standard.
A standard that’s been deviated from to put it mildly by a certain news anchor thats mentioned here.
To put you in the right perspective, its like saying I don’t like Al Franken for his blatant bias and lack of journalistic ethics.
You can get away with the first count, but not the latter.
Pundits are paid to be hyperbolic.
December 6, 2005 @ 1:06 am | Comment
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By richard
Wrong, lookit. Al franken is not a hired nightly commentator on a major news network. Coulter and O’Reilly are. Fox is a news station. its commentators have journalistic responsibility. There is no comparable type of program on any other news network. if you believe there is, I again ask for a transcript. What’s that? Cat got your tongue?
December 6, 2005 @ 2:07 am | Comment
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By Lookit
“Fox is a news station, its COMMENTATORS have journalistic responsibility.”
Thats some stretch there, perhaps its not too unreasonable to expect the same kind of responsibility of a janitor who sweeps their recording studio.
Last time I checked, commentators are paid to have an opinion. They re not journalists in the sense they go around like a gofer and dig up news and report them as are. Without editorializing; you can find plenty of these in nightly news of the big three.
Perhaps its a perception problem. Perhaps Foxnews presents them as if their words are to be taken as gospel truth, but perception works only with a cooperating recipient. Is this what ails you?
As for comparable programs of a liberal slant, the closest I can think of is Chris Matthews, but he is cable, perhaps not what you re asking for.
But it seems there’s a good reason why you re hard put to come up with one such legitimate comparison; the studio executives are business people, they don’t do things that have no percentage to them.
December 6, 2005 @ 4:24 am | Comment
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By richard
Commentators have a SLANT. They are subjective. but they are chosen as commentators because they have risen through the journalistic ranks after paying their dues. Show me one other station that puts on circle jerks like this. Just ONE. Chris matthews and David Gergen and pat Buchanan had long careers in politics and journalism. O’Reilly and Coulter are pure pornography stars, there to titillate with lies, shock, schlock and mutual masturbation. To be a pundit you’re supposed to earn it – nearly all those writers on the Op-ed pages, whether we like them or not, started as reporters. none compare to the imminently ignorant O’reilly, Hannity and other Fox clowns. Nne sit there and jerk each other off — “these liberals are bad people. Yes You’re so right, they’re such bad people. That’s right, they’re really, really, REALLY bad people, these liberal smearers.” Unheard of. Unprecedented, unbelievable. And if Al Franken – who is not a network commentator, but a critic and clown – has ever done anything even close to this, i’d love to see the transcript. Because I criticize the left and right alike, and I’ve never seen this kind of thing anywhere else but on Fox. Never. Find me a parallel transcript from Franken or other liberal lightning rods and I’ll tear it apart. But you can’t, because it doesn’t exist. this is a perversion peculiar to Fox and only Fox. It has nothjing to do with comentary or punditry, but with unabashed smearing of liberals as criminals, as bad people…. If you doubt this, read up on Ann Coulter, who says liberals are guilty of treason.
December 6, 2005 @ 4:30 am | Comment
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By lookit
I am beginning to see you real gripes.
I visit your site occasionally and am well acquainted with the way likeminded posters go after what they don’t like.
Now when it’s on national television but for different points of views, you feel compelled to take exception.
But apparently there’s a nationwide viewership for this kind of sensatioalism.
December 6, 2005 @ 5:55 am | Comment
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By richard
Can’t argue with that.
December 6, 2005 @ 7:52 am | Comment
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By GI Korea
I am willing to bet that if Al Franken and Michael Moore had their own television news show they would be saying similar things about conservatives. Could it be that they don’t have their own shows because nobody would watch them. I think the Air America stations are an indication of this.
However, people are willing to watch O’reilly. O’reilly doesn’t hide who he is and if you watch the program you know what to expect a libertarian coservertive viewpoint. Could it be that many people watch his show because many people agree with his viewpoints.
December 10, 2005 @ 12:30 pm | Comment
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By Ann
The part at the end about “they are bad people” was, I think, about people that threaten news pundits and require them to have security when they go to a campus to give a talk. Do you disagree with the claim that it’s bad to physically attack people simply because you don’t like their opinions? Would you say that those that physically attack conservatives are “good people”?
Granted, the discussion could have been clearer. But I think that you’re interpreting it the way you want it to be, without trying to figure out what those comments actually meant.
You obviously don’t like O’Reilly’s opinions, and you have every right to dislike them and him. But he’s a commentator, he provides analysis and color, and he reminds people constantly on his show that he’s not a news reporter. Have you analysed his journalistic background in detail, or are you assuming it’s faulty because you don’t like his opinions?
I don’t watch O’Reilly’s show regularly because his personality starts to bother me if I watch too often (and Coulter is much worse, in terms of style). But clearly some people like his style, and I always learn something from his show that I probably wouldn’t hear otherwise.
Why do you hate Fox News with such vehemence? Shouldn’t we have alternative news sources? Aren’t your objections based more on style than on substance? Given how closely they’re watched, Fox News must be pretty accurate, since muck-rackers are never able to turn up much against them other than stylistic objections such as yours. If you don’t like commentary, don’t watch it.
December 12, 2005 @ 3:07 pm | Comment
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By richard
You have no idea what you are talking about. I’ve been tracking Fox for years. The “bad people” reference is to David Brock and the “smear” sites. Nearly every thinking person hates Fox news. If you don’t hate Fox News, you;’re either an idiot or a right-wing shill. If you don’t hate Fox News, fuck off forever.
December 12, 2005 @ 4:41 pm | Comment