Rachel Maddow Responds To Bill O'Reilly On Fox's Manufactured Racial Outrage

Rachel Maddow is my "American Idol".

By Wednesday, the facts of the Shirley Sherrod video had been made public and it had become absolutely clear that the video posted online by Mr. Breitbart and cycled and recycled through various Fox "News" shows had been intentionally cut-and-pasted to make it appear that Ms. Sherrod was a racist.

The video was of Ms. Sherrod speaking at a NAACP meeting.

At the time that the video was made and up until a short while after Breitbart posted the misleading mash-up and Fox "News" picked it up and ran with it, Ms. Sherrod had been a long-time employee of the US Department of Agriculture.

Sadly, Breitbart's and Fox "News" politically-motivated, baseless and spineless attack of Ms. Sherrod led to her being summarily fired from her job.

This was only the latest in a string of Fox "News"-championed, right-wing, politically-motivated, and virtually fact-free hatchet jobs. It was the second operation in which Fox saturated its "news" programs with clips from a video that had been heavily-edited to create the appearance of something that wasn't the least bit true (I believe it's called "Fraud".).

The previous one was also heavily-edited and shown repeatedly on Fox to manufacture belief in a lie. The "ACORN 'Pimp and Ho'" video was quickly followed by much indignant bluster from the GOP and lead - in the blink of an eye - to ACORN being de-funded and utterly destroyed.

Since then, that same video has since been found to have been edited so as to be intentionally misleading. And, various government investigations into ACORN found that ACORN and its employees had done absolutely nothing illegal.

In the latest scam, Breitbart edited the (nearly 3yr. old) NAACP video so that it gave the appearance that Ms. Sherrod was a racist.

Fox "News" picked up the story and paraded it over the airwaves, repeatedly. Fox's intellectually-challenged talking heads all voiced their shock and outrage at what the video appeared to show.

And, just to make sure that Fox's viewers understood their (manufactured)message, they made sure to call Ms. Sherrod a "racist" on-the-air, as well.

An important point here: Ms. Sherrod is, decidedly, not a racist.

What Mr. Breitbart had edited out of the video were the parts of Ms. Sherrod's speech where she spoke about helping - through her resources at the Department of Agriculture - some poor, white farmers. (He couldn't leave those parts in the video, of course, because then it wouldn't support the lie that they were manufacturing.)

Well, tonight, Rachel Maddow calmly took Fox "News" to task for it's continuing, deceit-filled, deplorable, politically-based and damaging tactics.

Tactics which Fox has been carrying out with reckless abandon and with absolutely no regard for those who are harmed as a direct result of them. For example: All the employees of ACORN who - due the the intentional Fox smear campaign - lost their jobs and Ms. Sherrod; etc. (IMHO, Fox should have to take the "News"-part out of their name.)

Turns out, over at Fox last night... Bill "Snidely" O'Reilly had to allow some time during his show to respond to what Rachel had said about his network.

O.K., Mr. Bill... Let's hear your explanation/excuses/denials...

Snidely O'Reilly's response to Rachel Maddow's fact-based, clear and concise criticism of Fox "News" was simply this... that his ratings are bigger than hers.

I kid you not. That was pretty much the beginning and the end of his rebuttal.

Oddly enough, Ol' Bill failed to mention that a cartoon: Sponge Bob Squarepants, a cable-based wrestling show and The Closer all get better ratings than he does... thankfully, Rachel thought of it, though.

Somehow, I'm not the least bit surprised that Billy is one of those "mine's bigger than yours"-kind of guys.

Sure Bill... regardless of the situation, just keep telling yourself that yours is bigger and maybe - if you're real good - it'll come true.

Nah. It won't.

Mr. O'Reilly offered no explanation. No, "Listen, Rachel, you're taking it out of context." nor a "Perhaps we at Fox made an unintentional mistake or two." (like they'd ever admit to that).

In fact, even after replaying a clip of Rachel's statements about Fox - on his show - Mr. O'Reilly didn't even attempt to deny what Rachel had said about Fox "News" and its unabashed snake-oil shenanigans.

Then again, how could he deny it, when it's all true?

That said, it is Fox of which I'm speaking and they're all about fabricating lies to appear as truth - dishonesty.

Neither did Mr. O'Reilly attempt to defend Fox's unseemly activities, either.

No, he just made a play to avoid explaining Fox's blatant and unethical practices by creating a diversion...

Don't look at/think about/ask why Fox is intentionally fabricating and then broadcasting utterly false information and presenting it as factual... No, instead, think about the fact that my ratings are much better than hers (hehe)."

O'Reilly's "My ratings kick your ratings a**" sounded a lot like the immature, boastful, stick-your-tongue-out-as-you-sit-in-the-sandbox response of a child.

You've got higher ratings? Well, bully for you, Bill.

Now, if you can focus your attention for just a moment... Talk to us about those knowingly fraudulent videos Fox broadcast and the on-the-air slander/libel that Fox employees participated in on-the-air that cost people their jobs... And also about Fox's intentional attempts - through these fraudulent smear campaigns - to ignite the fires of racial tension in America?

In the brief TRMS clip, below, Rachel responds to Snidely O'Reilly.

The difference between them is that Rachel responds to O'Reilly with Truth, Intelligence, Integrity and Grace (as well as humility and humor).

Truth, Intelligence, Integrity and Grace are four priceless characteristics which Fox "News" is painfully and obviously without.

Not only that, they are also four things which not even the most skilled fraud-makers at Fox can manufacture.

Enjoy!

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