Bill O'Reilly Hits New Heights of Sophisticated Discourse: 'I'll Beat You With a Bat'

[marmar]

via AlterNet's PEEK:



Bill O'Reilly Hits New Heights of Sophisticated Discourse: 'I'll Beat You With a Bat'

Posted by Meteor Blades, Daily Kos at 5:00 PM on February 5, 2009.

The war of words escalates to threats of schoolyard violence.



Bill O'Reilly has declared war against The New York Times for its superb January 31 call-out of those like him who have injected racism into the immigration debate. You can read David Neiwert's excellent overview of the status of that war at Crooks and Liars.

As Bernie Goldberg quite rightly says in the following video-clip of O'Reilly's Foxaganda show Wednesday, reasonable people can disagree about what U.S. immigration policy should be. But if people do disagree, he thinks the war of words should be escalated:

Watch: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/125580/bill_o%27reilly_hits_new_heights_of_sophisticated_discourse%3A_%27i%27ll_beat_you_with_a_bat%27/


O'Reilly: The New York Times attacks me, Bay Buchanan, Jim Pinkerton. We're all racists, white supremacists, because we don't want blanket amnesty, open borders, all of this. Disturbing. We expect these kooks to do that. They're going out of business, we ... we know that. But how should... if you were me and you woke up on Sunday and read that ... how would you have reacted?

Goldberg: Well, I would probably gotten a baseball bat and gone down to The New York Times with it and found the person who wrote the editorial. But that's me. Look, here's the thing: Immmigration is a complicated issue and reasonable people can disagree. All right? But I don't think the people at Mount Olympus, at The New York Times, really want a serious discussion about it ...

O'Reilly: No, they don't.

Goldberg: ...because, because then you'd have to ask some uncomfortable questions. I'll give you one of them right now. May ... should we stop all immigration to the United States from Mexico for 10 years so that the people who are here, the immigrants who are here, can assimilate and become real Americans, and not just Mexicans living in the United States to make money? Now if you ask that, you run the risk of being called a racist, just like you were. You know ...

O'Reilly: Well, I'm going to get your baseball bat. I've got a couple, but I have good ones and I don't want to break them. We'll be down there together. Because I think they are just corrupt.

Just a joke. Right, Bernie? Right, Bill? Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.

David Neiwert, who has a long career of looking at the disturbing calls to violence by right-wingers, and the disturbing results, had this to say about the subject last July.

Right-wingers love to "joke" about mowing down, rounding up, and otherwise "wiping out" all things liberal. It's become a standard feature of conservative-movement rhetoric. And whenever anyone calls them on it, they have a standard response: "Aw, c'mon -- it's just a joke!"

In reality, of course, rhetoric like this has historically played a critical role in some of the ugliest episodes in American history, as well as thousands of little acts of xenophobic brutality: functionally speaking, it gives violent -- and frequently unstable -- actors permission to act on these impulses. People like this always believe they're standing up for what "real Americans" think -- and the jokes tell them that this is so.

Of course, even though they cablecast their fantasy vendettas to the nation, we all know Bill and Bernie would never personally beat up an editorial writer. Makes no difference. Armchair thugs are still thugs.


http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/125580/bill_o%27reilly_hits_new_heights_of_sophisticated_discourse%3A_%27i%27ll_beat_you_with_a_bat%27/

[Sebastian Doyle]

1. Falafel Boy's a Ramones fan. Who knew?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3TB_BJLrn4

[tularetom]

4. Yeah well I want him to be sedated

[stevedeshazer]

5. Not surprising...Johnny Ramone was a rabid right-winger.

<snip>

Johnny Ramone, was indeed, an unforgettable character. While the Ramones were being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, Johnny took his opportunity at the microphone to make his allegiances known. "God bless President Bush," he said, "and God bless America." Bedecked in his trademark torn jeans and black leather motorcycle jacket, he understatedly thumbed his nose at he lockstep orthodoxy of the rock establishment. Now, that is punk rock.

"I said that to counter those other speeches at the other awards," Ramone told the Washington Times. "Republicans let this happen over and over, and there is never anyone to stick up for them. They spend too much time defending themselves."

On his website, Ramone assembled Top-10 lists of his favorite baseball players (Greg Maddux), guitarists (Jimmy Page), singers (Elvis), Elvis films (Loving You), and horror films (Bride of Frankenstein). He even listed his favorite Republicans: Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Charlton Heston, Vincent Gallo, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sean Hannity, Ted Nugent, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Barr, and Tom DeLay.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/beard200409170630.asp

[Sebastian Doyle]

9. Don't remind me.

I try not to think about that too much, because I love the band. But however repugnant his beliefs were, he let Joey get away with writing "The KKK took my baby away" and "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg", so he must have either had some redeeming qualities (either that or he was even dumber than Chimpy if he didn't know what the songs were about)

[stevedeshazer]

14. Joey wrote the lyrics, Johnny played guitar.

Joey was awesome, but late in his life he wrote an adoring song about Maria Bartaromo of CNBC.

Go figure.

[tularetom]

2. He could probably be goaded into attempting it

I think this guy is suffering from such a huge inferiority complex that if enough people wrote him telling him he was too big of a p___y to tak a ball bat over to the NY Times he would do it just to prove he was a man. Of course he would be immediately subdued probably arrested for attempted battery and made to look like an utter fool.

[lpbk2713]

3. Coultergeist's weapon of choice.

What have they got going on here?

[liberalmuse]

6. Guess what, BillO The Clown?

You should never, underestimate the power of a middleaged woman who feels she's been scorned (I'm talking Bush and the past 8 years) with a baseball bat.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

11. I had a client,

a middle-aged woman, never married, who'd been the girlfriend of a guy, a gambler, man-about-town type who also had never married (and still lived with his father). They went together for years. Lots of years. Marriage was never discussed, but it was always assumed that they were a couple.

So, he meets Margie. She had been a cheerleader in high school and was the perky type. My client was tall and sophisticated and very European-looking. Italian-American.

He starts dating Margie, behind my client's back. (She wasn't yet my client.)

My client found out.

He had just spent several years lovingly restoring a black-and-white 1955 Packard Clipper. The car - I'd seen it at the beginning and through all its stages - was gorgeous. Big black boat. Just unbelievable.

My client got a baseball bat. She had keys to his house and his garage.

Do you really need to be told the rest of the story?

[gratuitous]

7. Talk is cheap, Billo

We know you have someone reading DU, and we think you're all talk and no action, Billo. Sure, sitting in your air-conditioned studio surrounded by your lackeys is one thing, but it's another story completely when it's time to put that big talk into action, isn't it?

Wimp.

[Ikonoklast]

8. Two old geezers with baseball bats. Making threats.

I would think that they would have them taken away from them quite handily by someone younger, stronger, and with a badge.

I wonder if this pasty gasbag will ever be arrested for making terroristic threats.

[The Wizard]

10. Some people are saying

O'Reilly and Goldberg are gay lovers. Neither of them has ever denied being the other's gay lover.
There are unanswered questions that have to be addressed. Why is Goldberg silent on this issue? O'Reilly, a known sex crazed lunatic, would not comment.

[Cheap_Trick]

12. This pathetic little bitch has lost the last microscopic sliver of sanity he had left.

Loofah boy has gone round the bend now.

[Cid_B]

13. These are the paragraphs he is talking about

......It is easy to mock white-supremacist views as pathetic and to assume that nativism in the age of Obama is on the way out. The country has, of course, made considerable progress since the days of Know-Nothings and the Klan. But racism has a nasty habit of never going away, no matter how much we may want it to, and thus the perpetual need for vigilance.

It is all around us. Much was made of the Republican mailing of the parody song “Barack the Magic Negro,” but the same notorious CD included “The Star Spanglish Banner,” a puerile bit of Latino-baiting. It is easily found on YouTube. Google the words “Bill O’Reilly” and “white, Christian male power structure” for another YouTube taste of the Fox News host assailing the immigration views of “the far left” (including The Times) as racially traitorous.

......

_________________________________________________________________

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/opinion/01sun1.html?_r=2

_________________________________________________________________


O'reilly stated that his views on immigration are nowhere in line with those of the KKK etc...

edit:Typo, its still early

[moriah]

15. "I don't fight, I don't argue. I'll just hit that btich with a bottle." n/t