Cable host Bill O’Reilly self-corrects!

THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 2013

And other imitations of life: Below, you see the way it looks when Bill O’Reilly “self-corrects.”

It happened last night in his opening segment, his famous Talking Points Memo. Bill was discussing Susan Rice and her ongoing misbehavior.

Then, he showed us how it looks when he, Mr. O., “self-corrects:”
O’REILLY (6/5/13): "Talking Points" doesn't believe Susan Rice lied. I believe she was told what to say and said it she did no investigation herself. But Ms. Rice knows, she knows who gave her the misleading talking points and she will not testify to that. Therefore, Susan Rice is the face of the Benghazi chaos.

And now she has been rewarded, promoted by a president who also refuses to explain what happened in Libya. Outrageous? You bet.

The President will also not explain the IRS situation. His defenders deny that former IRS Chief Douglas Shulman visited the White House 157 times. But he was cleared into the people's house 157 times. That is a fact.

Those who diminish the Shulman factor are lying directly to you. Of course, the White House can clear all this up very easily the President chooses not to and his acolytes defend that.
That “self-correction” went by so fast that very few Factor viewers noticed. In some ways, it’s just as well.

Since last Thursday, Bill has been saying that Shulman visited the White House 157 times while Obama was president. Last Friday morning, it became clear that there is no evidence supporting this claim—and that this number is almost surely massively inflated.

But so what? Bill just kept pouring it on! Last night, he “self-corrected.”

Or did he? Bill is now saying that Shulman was cleared to visit the White House 157 times. He may not have attended all those meetings. But he was cleared to go in, to enter “the people’s house.”

“That is a fact,” Bill harrumphed, presumably knowing it isn’t.

Presumably, Bill knows that this amended claim still isn’t true. As Garance Franke-Ruta made clear last Friday, the vast majority of the 157 meetings in question didn’t take place at the White House.

Presumably, Bill or his staff must know that by now. But Bill just kept dissembling last night, even as he “self-corrected.”

(To Bill, the people who challenge this bogus claim are “lying directly to you!”)

Millions of people get disinformed when cable hosts behave this way. For the third straight day, we ask our questions:

When will Glenn Kessler address this problem in his role as the Washington Post’s Fact Checker? When will Politifact screw its courage and fact-check Mr. O?

Today, we’ll add a third question: When will the New York Times publish a news report about this ongoing behavior? Its news when millions of voters get disinformed about major events. Last night was the fifth straight night that Bill has pimped bogus claims.

When will Kessler do his job? And when will fiery children like Maddow make this demand on the air?

10 comments:

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  2. hoodwink = "1. to trick or deceive. 2. Archaic. To blindfold. 3. Obs. to conceal."

    ReplyDelete
  3. The WH logs list 157 meetings. That's " no evidence"?

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    Replies
    1. Quaker in a BasementJune 6, 2013 at 8:03 PM

      That's right.

      Shulman was pre-cleared to attend 157 meetings, most of which were not in the actual White House. There is no reliable indication that he attended more than a very small handful. That is, indeed, "no evidence."

      Delete
    2. No, that means there's contrary evidence, which may or may not be a better indication. As long as we're trying to be precise.

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  4. "When will Glenn Kessler address this problem in his role as the Washington Post’s Fact Checker?...When will Kessler do his job?"

    Maybe when Bill O'Reilly gets elected to office or is appointed to a position in government.

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  5. Nature abhors a vacuum is a saying attributed to Aristotle. The simplest way to end speculation that Shulman's White House visits were nefarious would be for the White House to fill the information vacuum by telling the public how many visits Shulman actually made and what their purpose was.

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    Replies
    1. Quaker in a BasementJune 6, 2013 at 8:05 PM

      Nature abhors a vacuum

      That's right. And Nature would appreciate it if House Republicans would stop sucking.

      Delete
  6. Next you'll be asking what the heads of the energy companies who met Dick Cheney in the WH were told in the run-up to the Iraq Clusterfuck (how to divvy-up Iraq's oilfields?). When will this end?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. David in Cal ... David in Cal ... white courtesy telphone, please ... David in Cal ...

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