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Bill O’Reilly: “Lynching Party”

by Mark Boyer | February 20, 2008

oreillylist.jpgOn his radio talk show yesterday, Bill O’Reilly took a call from one of his listeners addressing Michelle Obama’s apparent gaffe from earlier in the week (“for the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country.”) The caller, who identified herself as Maryanne, claimed to have insight into the character of Michelle Obama, saying that she is “very angry” and “militant.”

In response, O’Reilly came to Obama’s defense with this bizarre rant:

You know, I have a lot of sympathy for Michelle Obama, for Bill Clinton, for all of these people. Bill Clinton, I have sympathy for him, because they’re thrown into a hopper where everybody is waiting for them to make a mistake, so that they can just go and bludgeon them…That’s wrong. And I don’t want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there’s evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels. If that’s how she really feels — that America is a bad country or a flawed nation, whatever — then that’s legit….[Media Matters has the full quote and clip]

This raises a several questions: Was this — as it seems — a veiled attack on Michelle Obama, and an attempt to stir up racist sentiment in the far right? And the corollary: does this represent a new line of attack for the conservative smear machine, to try to portray Michelle Obama as a militant, anti-USA African American? And how will FOX News respond? Golf Channel anchor Kelly Tilghman made a similar reference to Tiger Woods in a January telecast when she joked that Woods’ rivals should “lynch him in a back alley.” The Golf Channel was forced to suspend her for two weeks in response to public outrage — will O’Reilly get similar treatment?

Sure, O’Reilly was apparently defending Obama against potentially harmful rumors, but his choice of words is the only part of the exchange that will be remembered. And what if there is indeed “evidence” or “hard facts”? Then he does want to go on a lynching party?

O’Reilly b-quote photo via agitprop

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Reader Comments

Comment Number:
1
Written by:
Dorothee
Posted on:
February 20, 2008 at 3:23 pm

Yikes! Bad choice of words there, Bill…

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
aec
Posted on:
February 20, 2008 at 7:48 pm

Mr. Boyer, I don’t quite understand what you mean by “his choice of words is the only part of the exchange that will be remember.”

See, what I take away from this is complete and total surprise that O’Reilly _didn’t_ want to go on a lynching party. It’s almost as if he’s recognizing that, normally, he’d drag anyone through the mud for suggesting that they had ever not been proud of America. But not this time.

What’s his game here? I’m not convinced that this is his covert way of stirring up racist antipathy toward the Obamas. His viewers need to be told _exactly_ what to think and do and say. If Bill starts coming out with this reverse psychology shit…

Do you think that maybe Bill realizes that Michelle could’ve - should’ve - turned herself around midsentence but didn’t, and that that doesn’t make her an America hater?

Seems like a lot of heart for Billy-O to muster, but still…

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
Mark Boyer
Posted on:
February 20, 2008 at 11:20 pm

Good point, Mr. aec: this stuff is totally characteristic of O-Reilly. So much so that it might be forgotten by the end of the week. He’s held to a completely different standard than other pundits.

I have no idea what his real motive was here though. It’s likely that he hates Michelle Obama and that he views her as an America-hater, so maybe he had some other reason to want to disagree with the caller. It sort of seems like he needed to disagree with the caller to a point, because the caller was spewing unsubstantiated shit. So in a way, he might have been defending Michelle-O, while intentionally slipping in hateful slurs.

Now I’m really drifting into the realm of conjecture though.

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
lisa
Posted on:
February 21, 2008 at 9:18 am

Bill O’Reiley chose the wrong choice of words. It is threatening and offensive to African Americans to use the word, “lynching,” in any context. Bill is now hated by black America officially. And he really needs to watch what the hell he is saying. If I were Michelle I would press charges against him for threatening my life, because in the f#%$@ up history of this country to lynch is to kill, and a threat is against the law!

Bill should have to do community service in the housing projects of the southside of Chicago for 3 days for that comment!

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
Hassan
Posted on:
February 21, 2008 at 6:48 pm

There have been a lot of comparisons to the David Shuster “pimp” fiasco and also with Don Imus, and the outcome in both cases was an eventual return to media for these guys, granted with names besmirched.

But nevertheless, despite what we might think are fire-able offenses, I think folks like O’Reilly will keep doing what they’re doing, in some way or another, like the way it’s been for other shock jocks.

Comment Number:
6
Written by:
stupidcontard
Posted on:
February 22, 2008 at 1:02 am

Dildoreilly is typically the biggest buttkissing contard tool who says crap just to stir controversy and try to make himself somehow relevant with his overly biased opinions no matter how stupid. That being said, his statement in my opinion is no more controversial than Michelle’s. I listened to her rousing speech at least 4 times before I even figured out which sentence the pathetic contards made such a fuss over. Totally a NON story, even Bilbo said so.
The only REAL story in this, is that this usually obnoxious idiot, actually took up for not only Michelle Obama, but for the Clintons! I’m quite sure that listening back on it, he can’t believe it himself, and like me, the socalled “controversial sentence” he uttered, is completely overlooked because it was meant with no more “malice” than Michelle’s utterance of newfound pride in her country.
Both statements were made as a matter of fact, and neither was worth ANY of this media BS. If nothing else, I can see why the pathetic contards NEED to grasp at any little straw, as they know their days are numbered. Just the numbers from the Wisconson primaries, showing Obama and Clinton getting a million votes between them in their race, while McStain and Huckleberry got less than 400K between them in theirs give a good idea of what they’re facing. WE on the other hand don’t need to be wasting time with this crap. Dildoreilly will continue to spew idiocy and the tools will listen to him like he means something, and he will still just be an insignificant falaffel weilding pervert hypocrite, and this will not matter, as it shouldn’t.

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