Olbermann fact checks O’Reilly again over Malmedy…
Tonight on Countdown the subject of the Malmedy massacre and Bill O’Reilly’s accusation that Americans massacred Nazis came up again. On Tuesday’s Factor, O’Reilly had Wesley Clark on again and, as with the first time the two talked about it, O’Reilly again claimed that Americans massacred Nazis in Malmedy. The first incident was chronicled on ICN here…
A clip from The Factor was played of a viewer email pointing out to O’Reilly that the Americans were massacred and not the Nazis. O’Reilly responded that some Nazis were executed after Malmedy: “In the heat of the debate with General Clark, my statment wasn’t clear enough Mr. Caldwell…after Malmedy some German captives were executed by American troops.”
Olbermann then retorted:
Wrong answer. When you are that wrong - when you are defending Nazi war criminals and pinning their crimes on Americans and are caught doing so - twice - You are supposed to say, “I’m sorry, I was wrong” and then you’re supposed to shut up for a long time.
Instead FOX washed its transcript of O’Reilly’s remarks Tuesday. Its website claims O’Reilly said “In Normandy” when as you heard in fact he said “In Malmedy”. The rewriting of past reporting worthy of George Orwell has now carried over into such online transcription services as Burells and Factiva.
Transcripts are notoriously sloppy so I’m not convinced that it’s a given that FNC changed the wording. The likelihood is that the transcription service got it wrong.
UPDATE: Crooks & Liars has the video…
Thank you for a sane analysis! The transcripts aren’t even done by Fox. An outside company (the same one that MSNBC uses) produces them and is solely responsible for their accuracy. In fact the transcripts are copyrighted by that company (voxant). As far as I can tell, it has read that way since it was posted, and hasn’t been doctored by Fox (not likely that they could do so, given that the transcript copyright belongs to voxant). As you suggested, probably some college kid at voxant who never heard of Malmedy thought it sounded like Normandy.
Comment by johnny dollar — June 1, 2006 @ 9:40 pm
I have a hard time believing that there was such a facile, innocent switch from Malmedy to Normandy. Hard as it is to believe, they aren’t tethered together in most people’s brains, so the replacement of one for the other looks suspicious, indeed.
But the larger point by Mr. Olbermann is even more important than whether FOX is directly or indirectly responsible for the transcript error: O’Reilly had twice blamed US forces for war crimes at Malmedy and twice he was wrong. When confronted with his error, he tried to day it was the viewer’s misunderstanding. One onlyh has to look quickly at the transcript posted on Gen. Clark’s web site–an accurate one–to see that o’Reilly’s explanation of what he said is impossible.
Comment by moi-meme — June 1, 2006 @ 10:02 pm
Let’s try to be honest here. He never said it was the viewer’s misunderstanding. He admitted that he misspoke and corrected what he said.
Comment by johnny dollar — June 1, 2006 @ 10:50 pm
NO, he didn’t Johnny. LET’S BE HONEST.
QUOTE: “In the heat of the debate with General Clark, my statement wasn’t clear enough Mr. Caldwell. After Malmedy some German captors were executed by German troops.”
That is not “I misspoke” that’s “I wasn’t clear.” BIG difference. He messed up. He does it a lot. Whatever, not the point here — the point is that he refused to apologize.
The transcription thing is probably not intentional. However, the bulk of the problem here is his CONSISTENT mis-use of facts to make a faulty point.
Comment by WestCoastBlogger — June 1, 2006 @ 11:49 pm
Since it was the second time that O’Reilly ‘misspoke’ to accuse US soldiers of the exact same atrocity, I doubt it was simply a transcription error.
See the independent transcript from 30 May 06 at Securing America
http://securingamerica.com/node/1047
and
here’s the transcript from the first incident on 30 Oct 05
http://securingamerica.com/node/272
I wonder how many veterans have just switched channels permanently.
Comment by kat — June 1, 2006 @ 11:51 pm
Well I see “I wasn’t clear” as weasel words for “I misspoke”. But you’re right, he could have been more forthright. But at least he admitted it. Keith has been wrong about O’Reilly at least a half dozen times that I have documented, and yet to even make a weasel words correction. And I doubt he will do that for his unsupported claim that Fox doctored its transcript either.
Comment by johnny dollar — June 1, 2006 @ 11:56 pm
Johnny,
You appear to have no problem whatsoever with Bill O’Reilly’s egregious by any standard mistakes.
He didn’t “admit” anything. He sure as Hell didn’t apologise for anything either, and THAT is what was called for.
Why you continue to defend the guy is mind-boggling, considering what you’d do to KO if he claimed that Americans Troops were cold-blooded murderers at Malmedy instead of victims.
It just makes your bias perfectly clear. I wonder what Bill will have to do for you to STOP defending him. Maybe if he changed parties.
—
p.s. -> please PayPal me a crisp johnny-dollar for every “but Keith makes mistakes too” in your future posts in this thread
Comment by trey — June 2, 2006 @ 12:15 am
Hey JD — you’re alright. ;)
Comment by WestCoastBlogger — June 2, 2006 @ 12:17 am
Really? I’ll take your “impartial” word for it that KO has been wrong a half dozen times, but how many are we up to with BOR? 100? 500? 1000? And please explain WHY it would be fixed in his “brain” that Nazis were VICTIMS of genocide?
Comment by museglet — June 2, 2006 @ 12:21 am
Well I see “I wasn’t clear” as weasel words for “I misspoke”.
I could see that being plausible for the first time it happened. I can’t see it for the second time unless he just spaced it. Of course there’s no way to really know…
Comment by Spud — June 2, 2006 @ 12:23 am
Poor JD, everybody is always against him. I ALMOST feel sorry for him. NOT!
Comment by Fred — June 2, 2006 @ 1:35 am
Yeah, poor JD has to keep up the ad revenue with an entire site dedicated to the subversive Mr. Olbermann. “Hard work”, but someone’s gotta do it.
Comment by museglet — June 2, 2006 @ 3:43 am
Johnny,
Do you have the video from Special Report where they show a satellite photo North Korea at night?
kat, museglet, Fred, trey, WestCoastBlogger, moi-meme
BO’s point was that atrocities occur in every war. I have been hearing that exact quote, said by many talking heads all over the news media, for over a week; even including one of the infamous ‘7 generals.’ O’Reilly definitely screwed up his facts in making his point; but to say he ‘mis-used facts to make a faulty point,’ is to do and say exactly what you say he is doing. It’s like politicians arguing over what ‘is’ is. Sure he screwed up his facts, but his point wasn’t faulty. And if you think it is faulty, you should go after the entire news media. And remember this people: BO has never made KO one of the top five stories of the day or made him the worst person; he never goes that low. KO and many others make misstatements all the time, but most of us don’t obsess about them, or even bother to mention them.
And tanne,
Last night, within five seconds: “Which of these stories…” He was right there on the left. It’s smart marketing-the teaser at the very beginning-then who knows where in the show it will be. At least once a week, sometimes 2-3 times.
Comment by erljr — June 2, 2006 @ 6:43 am
Oh, so THIS is the next point we’re going to try to use to defend the indefensible, erljr–”Atrocities occur in every war,” eh? WELL DUH! THAT IS NOT THE POINT!
Everybody but the most stupid people on the planet knows that atrocities occur in every war. The point the Clueless O’Reilly was trying to make was that it’s really no big deal! Really? It isn’t? It doesn’t matter? And it doesn’t matter whether they were independently condlucted by a single soldier who was off his rocker, or were ordered by the higher command–or the soldiers were taught to commit atrocities as part of routine warfare? It doesn’t MATTER??? You BET it does!
And it doesn’t MATTER that O’Reilly got this teeny tiny weeny detail wrong–that the soldiers committing atrocities at Malmedy were not Americans, but NAZIS? So now it’s like, American soldiers, Nazis, hey, what’s the difference, what’s a few atrocities among enemies, c’est la guerre!
He DID “mis-use facts to make a faulty point.” Moi-meme did NOT.
“Sure, he screwed up his facts, but his point wasn’t faulty?” Oh my God! That is such a flimsy defense, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry!
And now BO is STILL better than KO because “he’s never made him one of the top five stories of the day or made him the worst person; he never goes that low”? Oh my God. You are REALLY reaching now. BO has compared KO and Al Franken to a DJ who threatened to rape and kill the wife and daughter of one of his rivals–but because his TV show happens not to be formatted to a “top 5 stories” of which he can make KO part, and because he doesn’t have a “worst person in the world” feature he can put KO in, he is still a morally superior human being…EVEN THOUGH HE GOT THE ACTS OF NAZIS CONFUSED WITH THE ACTS OF AMERICAN SOLDIERS WHO WERE MASSACRED.
Oh, and if setting up a straw man to attack KO doesn’t work, let’s try protective coloration: ALL the media screw up. Oh yeah! Well, guess what: Most of them try really hard not to screw up facts like who got massacred in a war battle and blame the victims! If someone in the news media said “President John Kerry said this morning that…” you’d be calling for them to be fired! Even if it was just a slip of the tongue! So please don’t give us that wimpy “All the media make mistakes” and “KO makes mistakes” excuse. KO EVEN SAID THAT LAST NIGHT! It doesn’t excuse this, it just doesn’t!
And then you close all this by going back to last week and saying KO often puts something about O’Reilly in his tease at the show opening and that’s the only reason why people are watching him–to see him beat up on O’Reilly. Well, if that is true…and I’m not saying it is, but if it were ever proven to be the case…maybe it’s time you and the other “We will defend O’Reilly even if he carves up and eats a live baby on his show” fans had better ask yourselves why.
Of course, you will probably tell yourselves it’s all because those mean nasty people just hate poor wittle Bill for no reason. Yeah. None at all.
Like Bill, you and Johnny Dollar and everyone else like you has run out of excuses, yet you STILL grasp at straws and cry “But…but…Olbermann’s WORSE.”
You disgust me.
Comment by tanne — June 2, 2006 @ 7:05 am
Erljr–could you please decipher the last paragraph of your post–it really doesn’t make a bit of sense. I thought that’s what teasers were for-to show a preview of a show. And no, this is not the first time that Fox has taken part in revisionist history when Bill O’s mistakes were involved. They’ve even deleted things off the website like audio when he’s told a whopper in the past. I’m not saying Olbermann is perfect-he’s got the largest ego of any news anchor I’ve ever watched and I really wonder sometimes how much he plays to the left just to improve ratings, not about his actual philosophy or beliefs. I wonder if Fox was a lefty leaning channel if he’d lean right, but there is absolutely no doubting that Fox has let some whoppers get out there on the air, something which JD has never, ever had a problem with. I guess if JD was as willing to go after Fox as he is Olbermann, I might actually take his opinions seriously but until he is willing to be. . . you know, fair and balanced. . . not so much from me.
Comment by MGM — June 2, 2006 @ 9:51 am
OMG!!! Shocking!!! RATS defending American Soldiers. NOT! You know why I have no problem with BOR making a mistake like this? It’s because he isn’t hate America , hate the military kind of guy. Just look at the Haditha story, he’s going to wait for the investigation to conclude before jumping to conclusions like that Murtha scum and I don’t even want to know what the RATS over at Kos or DU are spouting about Haditha.
Comment by Lurker — June 2, 2006 @ 10:31 am
O’Reilly makes my skin crawl!
Comment by jan — June 2, 2006 @ 11:00 am
I wonder if KO will be doing any reporting from the field? And i’m not talking about the baseball field either. Oh yeah, he’s too busy crying about LOCKUP which leaves his demo ratings in the dust.
Comment by Terance — June 2, 2006 @ 11:15 am
Olbermann is a 100% goofball who needs a magnifying glass to find his ratings, among other things.
Comment by Caroline S. — June 2, 2006 @ 12:06 pm
That Olbermann never, ever leaves that studio unless it involves being in another city for a baseball game? He never left the studio during the Tsunami, not when the Pope died, not during any of the hurrianes, nothing, never, nada, just once. Oh, he can talk about what other people see all day long but he can’t actually bring himself to go there and report on something himself. Name me one other “anchor” who never leaves the studio. Just one. You can’t. There aren’t any but him.
Comment by Have you ever noticed? — June 2, 2006 @ 12:53 pm
Lurker, I don’t get it either. The left is idolizing Murtha because he’s jumping the gun accusing our military of “cold blooded” murder. They will be incredibly disappointed and suicidal if our guys are proven innocent.
Yet if (and I’m not sure whether he did) O’Reilly makes anywhere near such a claim, he’s satan personified. Different rules for different people, I guess.
Comment by Missy — June 2, 2006 @ 12:55 pm
Have you ever noticed?,
Well, O’Reilly never leaves the studio either, although he’s willing to do his show in other studios besides his main one in New York. Then there’s Lou Dobbs, Alan Colmes, Brit Hume, Chris Mathews, Dan Abrams, and John Gibson.
MGM,
I agree with what you said. Add that Olbermann screws up lots more than O’Reilly, but he’s just a blip on the radar, so he’s not under the scrutiny that O’Reilly is. You could compare that to the President, who’s under lots more scrutiny than individual Senators and Congressmen.
Comment by erljr — June 2, 2006 @ 2:04 pm
^
If you check out BOR resume he’s earned his spot in the studio. This guy worked his way up to where he is now. Check out the Wiki page on him.
Comment by Lurker — June 2, 2006 @ 2:11 pm
I don’t watch Fox but I know that Lou Dobbs, Anderson Cooper, even Larry King at Fox have all left to go on location where news stories were happening or to do interviews. I rarely watch Zahn. At MSNBC, Dan Abrams, Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, Tucker Carlson, and Rita Cosby have all reported from the scenes of major news stories. Olbermann? Not once in over 3 years on air. And yes, O’Reilly has reported from danger zones too. But not Olbermann. Unless you count the threat of an oncoming baseball to be a threat.
Comment by Have you ever noticed? — June 2, 2006 @ 3:56 pm
The comments here should be unbelievable to me, but sadly, they’re not. A discussion of BOR accusing American soldiers in WWII of mass murder of German NAZIS (virtually impossible to wrap one’s mind around the concept) devolves into a discussion of KO’s “in the field” reporting history. Pathetic, but that’s why guys like BOR prosper. Joe McCarthy, before he re-invented himself as a “Communist hunter” who ended up destroying lives of patriotic Americans with his demagoguery, was known for similar accusations. He also claimed that Americans had murdered NAZIS, and I would guess that’s where BOR got his false information (which he claimed to be “documented”): it takes one pathological liar to know one. The fact that FOX would continue to “cover” for this man says more about FOX than it does about BOR.
As for KO, those of us who first saw him in L.A. recall him as the best sports journalist in town at the time. And although he did go to many sporting events, he was always limited by his inability to drive after the N.Y. subway accident. He is journalist/anchor/broadcaster, and MSNBC obviously feels he is best utilized in studio, not being driven around to a location just to stand there so he can say he was “there” (although after 9/11 he did great stringer reports for CNN which were broadcast over a local all-news radio station). In any case, the true journalists out there know who is a real one and who is just a talk-radio host. Unfortunately, not many here seem to care.
Comment by museglet — June 2, 2006 @ 4:21 pm
Presumably, MSNBC would have pilots to fly planes and drivers to drive cars to take him anywhere he’d want to go to cover a story in the field, and that head injury happened nearly 30 years ago. I fail to see how that impacts his willingness to go into the field and broadcast from a breaking news story. ESPN had this same problem with him when he was a sports anchor. It’s not because he can’t go, it’s because he just doesn’t want to-he’s a studio rat.
Comment by Have you ever noticed? — June 2, 2006 @ 6:31 pm
Being in the field does not an anchor make. I like it when Chris Matthews gets out and does something — even when Joe is live it’s pretty good. But I’m not going to like Bill or Keith any less because they stay in the studio.
My memory says KO’s done remote shows twice - during one of the 9/11 anniversary dates — and during the 2006 election, he did a week of shows from Boston before the convention.
Comment by WestCoastBlogger — June 3, 2006 @ 1:56 am
That head injury is one of about 10 medicial conditions that Olbermann has that limits his ability to get out of a defined geographic region and cover a story on the get go.
He has done his show remote a few times. 9/11 anniversaries and the political conventions come to mind.
Aaron Brown rarely left the studion either, and I didn’t see people jumping on him for it.
Comment by BlogThat — June 3, 2006 @ 2:18 am
You’re missing the point. Olbermann isn’t a journalist, he doesn’t report. He merely reads off a teleprompter. Sure he writes his own material, but using sourcing from other, real reporters. His “medical conditions?” Trumped up by him to avoid having to report from the field like his much harder working colleagues. Talk to his co-workers at ESPN: they’ll tell you he used all of his sick days and theirs too and was notorius for using the “I’m sick” line when there was something he didn’t want to do, namely, be sent somewhere to actually cover something in the field. He’s not a true reporter or journalist nor will he ever be. He’s a giant talking head who likes to pump up his own ego and inflate his alleged journalistic credentials. He and O’Reilly have far more in common than Olby would care to admit.
Comment by Have you ever noticed? — June 3, 2006 @ 9:00 am
No, we are NOT missing the point…YOU ARE. Because YOU ARE LYING.
I was waiting, just waiting, for the “Swiftboating of Keith Olbermann” to start…and here it is. Faced with something Bill O’Reilly has said that is so terrible and inexcusable that all the usual attempts at deflecting criticism of him fail…”Let the Swiftboating of the Person Who Called Him On It Begin!”
After all, SOMETHING has to happen…we can’t let the collective memory of this story be that Bill O’Reilly LIED about American soldiers and compared them to Nazis…so, quick! Let’s turn the collective memory into the accusation that KEITH OLBERMANN HAS NEVER LEFT HIS STUDIO TO REPORT ON ANYTHING RISKY, THAT HE USES A 26-YEAR-OLD HEAD INJURY AS AN “EXCUSE,” AND THAT HE ONLY READS SCRIPTS OTHER PEOPLE HAVE WRITTEN FOR HIM OFF A TELEPROMPTER!
Problem with all of these accusations? They’re FALSE.
1. The accusation that Olbermann has never gone out into the field and reported on anything risky…FALSE. In September of 2001, when he did not even have a TV SHOW, a RADIO SHOW or any kind of a steady gig anywhere, he VOLUNTEERED his reporting services after 9/11. He volunteered them to radio and reported from Ground Zero and the area around it for 40 DAYS. He won an Edward R. Murrow Award for it. I don’t think I have to tell you what is being said now about Ground Zero and the dangers of the air around it at that time. He wore a mask, but how do we know this won’t come back to give him medical problems someday? Also, let’s not forget: in the days just after 9/11, no one had any way of knowing New York wouldn’t be attacked yet again. He was putting his life on the line every day he went to Ground Zero, where so many people had gathered to report that they would have made a nice target indeed. It didn’t require him to drive or to be driven anywhere. (And please, it doesn’t matter how old his head injury is, any more than it matters how old Stevie Wonder’s blindness is, OK? Please! What a red herring!)
And damn right he writes his own scripts. There is no shame in writing one’s own scripts for a NATIONAL and WORLD-NEWS-ORIENTED news program using other people’s reporting. What’s he supposed to do: fly over the whole world like Santa Claus in one day so he can do nothing but his own reporting from Iraq, Washington, and wherever else news is happening? That’s absurd. No network news anchor can do or does that. The difference between Olbermann and the rest is that most of them can’t even write their own scripts, much less do it with eloquence. HE CAN.
As for the comments above that are supposedly “inside poop” from ESPN about his alleged goldbricking: Put it this way, believing every anonymous Internet source who claims to be able to tell you “tales out of school” about a celebrity is pretty damn stupid, don’t you think? Poor “Haye you ever noticed?”, hoping to make himself sound special. Well, guess what–I can tell everyone here that I’m Keith’s wife and that he had bacon and eggs for breakfast this morning…but THAT DOESN’T MAKE IT TRUE! Ah, and I notice you called him “Olby”…the favorite nickname of the likes of Bob Cox and Johnny Dollar…ah, you boys give yourselves away!
OK, enough with the crap. The Swiftboating of Olbermann is done. It has been cast to the four winds because it is groundless and false. We have here a man who won a Murrow Award, vs. a man who SAID he won a Peabody Award when he didn’t! Now when the guy who says he won a Peabody Award when he didn’t says that Americans slaughtered Nazis at Malmedy, and the guy who DID win an Edward R. Murrow award corrects him and says no, it was the other way around, the Nazis slaughtered the Americans and you are insulting the Americans’ memories by LYING TWICE about it…who are you going to believe?
I know who I will. The guy who’s earned the right to call Bill O’Reilly a fool.
Comment by tanne — June 3, 2006 @ 9:51 am
Tanne, stop the Keith Olbermann hero worship. He’s no one to worship, trust me. He’s not well-liked by his colleagues, they consider him to be a perfect pain in the ass. He’s unstable as they come. And he will once again flame out spectacularly at MSNBC just like he has flamed out everywhere he’s ever been. That’s just who and what he is. Trust me, he would do or say anything to promote his career. How can you possibly watch his show and not realize it’s one giant ego-fest? He cannot get through a single show without a reference to himself, I don’t want a newscaster who talks about himself, I want one who reports the news accurately, and fairly and doesn’t talk about himself for an hour. Take off the blinders and really watch that show. See how he only has guests on who agree with him? At least BOR has on people who will try to put up a (feeble) defense and that’s more than I can say for Olbermann. He’s not who or what you think he is. He’s not a God, he’s a very flawed human being.
Comment by Have you ever noticed? — June 3, 2006 @ 12:06 pm
Off the subject for a moment: What’s with the term “swiftboating”? What did John O’Neill et al say that was not proven true about Kerry? I’ve got a brainstorm: since John Kerry must have signed his form 180 by now, we can view all of his military records and see for ourselves!!
I’m sorry; my mistake. Kerry has STILL not signed the form!!! He was supposed to during the Presidential campaign (remember, even Bush’s DENTAL records had to be revealed); after losing, he went on MTP and told Tim Russert he’d do so right away. But that never happened.
Now back to Keith: tanne, the reason people are so critical of your hero is that he’s critical of others. He relentlessly attacks O’Reilly; he’s gone after others at Fox, and even after Anderson Cooper!!! And now that O’Reilly may have actually messed up on something of substance, it’s like Keith is “crying wolf”.
And this Polk/Peabody award that you, Keith and Al Franken constantly bring up? I’m assuming you must be in the media to know the difference, but I doubt whether the rest of the world either knows the difference or cares. It may have been an honest mistake on O’Reilly’s part; maybe not. But is it really that big of a deal to you? It seems to be the only major thing you guys continuously bring up about O’Reilly. But your tactic’s not working!!!
Comment by Missy — June 3, 2006 @ 1:26 pm
Why “swiftboat” Olbermann? He’s done quite the job swiftboating himself and his career over the years without any outside assistance from anyone else. Tanne? A word of advice for you? Olbermann is not perfect. No one is. Just as Johnny Dollar can find no wrong with Bill O, you can find no wrong with Olbermann. Neither one of you is credible as a result. Until both of you see that neither one of those guys is perfect, your blustering and defending will fall on deaf ears.
Comment by Have you ever noticed? — June 3, 2006 @ 1:51 pm
OK. I see what you guys are still trying to do, and I see it quite well.
Because you can’t possibly defend the horrendous thing Bill O’Reilly did, you have decided the only thing to do is distract by making the topic not his sins, but the “sins” of Keith Olbermann and, yes, even John Kerry.
Well, it’s not going to work.
First, Have you ever noticed?, I put no credence whatsoever in “tales out of school” posted to the Internet about ANY celebrity if I don’t know the source. When I look at Keith Olbermann, I see someone who seems to have friends everywhere who like him a great deal and who has been at one job now for the past three years and is doing better at it every year, and is even welcomed back at ESPN Radio. Second of all, when I watch his show I see someone who reports the news accurately, who even has people on the show who don’t agree with everything he says and, when he does bring himself into it, only brings it to humanize the show. Not a god, just an interesting anchor person. I’ve never seen him attack Anderson Cooper, for the record.
Second: you want to know the TRUTH about John Kerry and Swiftboating. read “Lapdogs” by Eric Boehlert. And that’s the last I’ll say about THAT attempt to distract from the subject.
The Peabody Award? Personally, I’ve never brought it up before this thread. But it’s just one of the many things Bill has lied about. He never won a Peabody, and he didn’t even win a Polk! Yeah, the show he was working for once won a POLK Award–AFTER HE LEFT!
Missy, I never said Olbermann is perfect. But his mere lack of perfection doesn’t make him wrong about this. And what exactly is this that we’re talking about? Thanks, glad you asked! Let’s get back to the REAL subject and review:
1. Bill O’Reilly got his history ass-backwards about what happened at Malmedy, and said that American soldiers massacred Nazis, when in fact it was the Nazis slaughtering American soldiers, thus insulting American war dead.
2. He did this not once, but TWICE.
3. He said it in front of a four-star general, implying smugly that HE knew more about war atrocities and their history than the four-star general did.
4. He even blamed an American military group that wasn’t THERE!
5. Afterward, his network either scrubbed the transcript to make it look as if he hadn’t said exactly what he said, or asked the transcript services to do it for them, or supplied the services with pre-scrubbed transcripts. The transcripts have gone back and forth since then–isn’t that interesting? They seem to keep changing!
6. When a viewer called him on what he said as being inaccurate, rather than apologizing, he said he simply “wasn’t clear,” and quickly muttered something about how what he REALLY meant was that soon after the Nazi massacre of Americans, retaliatory killings of Nazis by American soldiers took place. Which of course, whether or not it is true, is NOT what he said AT ALL. He wasn’t really apologizing; he was trying to cover up by saying the viewer simply misunderstood him because he wasn’t “clear” enough, and then fudged it by saying he meant something else that it is easy to see he did NOT mean.
7. And why did he do all this? He did all this to imply that if AMERICAN soldiers conducted a mass execution of Nazi soldiers at Malmedy during WWII (which they did NOT), then it was OK and justifiable for American soldiers to INTENTIONALLY KILL CIVILIANS! How many ways is THIS wrong? Let’s count:
–It equates soldiers killing other soldiers with soldiers killing civilians;
–It implies that “two wrongs make a right” and “anything goes in a war” (funny, that’s not what the Geneva Conventions say)
–It impies “if it was OK for American soldiers to slaughter Nazis in WWII, it’s OK for them to slaughter civilians in the Iraqi war”
–It is PREDICATED ON A FALSEHOOD TO BEGIN WITH, which effectively makes all the other points MOOT because even if you ARE going to make a flimsy attempt to judge the present by the past, YOU CANNOT DO IT BY USING A PAST HISTORICAL EVENT THAT DIDN’T EVEN HAPPEN!
For all this, Bill O’Reilly shouldn’t even be on television anymore, much less worshiped and adored the way he is by those who defend him no matter what he spews. But these are the facts. This is what he did.
Now, can a single one of you defenders of him find a way to defend him by using facts and without, in the absence of facts, attacking Keith Olbermann instead?
I’d like to see you try.
Go ahead. Try.
You can’t.
Comment by tanne — June 4, 2006 @ 12:28 pm
If you Google “oreilly malmedy”
Your first hit is http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/oreilly062705.asp
“After German SS troops massacred 86 American soldiers at Malmedy in Belgium on Dec. 17, 1944, some units like the U.S. 11th Armored Division took revenge on captured German soldiers.”
TITLE The limits of dissent Jewish World Review June 27, 2005
This quote, from an old O’Reilly article, makes it clear that he was not mixing up the perpetrators with the victims in the Malmedy incident. He clearly was aware that American troops had been the initial victims. When he used the term ‘Malemedy’ he was referring to the original incident and its aftermath.
If any one at MSNBC had done the most rudimentary fact checking it would have been clear that Olbermann’s charge was false.
Comment by Jonah — June 4, 2006 @ 3:36 pm
Jonah, thanks for locating that article. It should clear up any confusion that arose regarding O’Reilly’s knowledge or statements on the subject. Anyone reading it will probably drop the subject. Except for…
tanne!!!!!
Comment by Missy — June 4, 2006 @ 5:06 pm
So let me get this straight: now the BOR “spin zone” is defending the indefensible by quoting none other than: BOR!—pulling something out of his a** for the THIRD time. You guys are great though—if the internet had been around in the 50’s when another demagogue, Joe McCarthy, was making up his lies, he would have gotten his own radio show, a TV show, and we would have been told he was a brave “truth-teller” too.
One last time: Haditha and Malmedy HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER. The Germans/Nazis MASSACRED Allied forces, while committing GENOCIDE throughout Europe. It’s an insult to the memories of those who died there for our newest 21st century demagogue to even attempt to make a comparison between Iraq and WWII, WHATEVER the blowhard meant or didn’t mean to say.
(Great post, btw, Tanne)
Comment by museglet — June 4, 2006 @ 8:46 pm
When he used the term ‘Malemedy’ he was referring to the original incident and its aftermath.
Then he needs to be clear about that up front because you mention Malmedy without putting it into context and people are going to assume you are referring to the execution of Americans.
If any one at MSNBC had done the most rudimentary fact checking it would have been clear that Olbermann’s charge was false.
It’s not MSNBC’s responsibility to figure out what O’Reilly’s intention was. It is O’Reilly’s responsibility to make himself clear…
Comment by Spud — June 4, 2006 @ 11:06 pm
musgelet (whatever that means),
Help me here - isn’t there a term used to describe the phenomenon when a conversation has degraded to such a level that Joe McCarthy or Nazism must be invoked? You probably know the term; I guess it’s one of your common tactics. You already used the McCarthy reference above - are you afraid your earlier post was ineffective?
And what are you whining about - you people on the left seem THRILLED that our Marines may be in trouble here, idolizing Murtha. If not for him, we wouldn’t even be talking about this until the investigation of these alleged crimes is concluded. But he wants to jump the gun and blame the Marines now, stating that the killed “in cold blood”.
Having never served in the Marines, I was under the impression (mistaken, apparently) that Marines never spoke ill of another. Murtha has certainly blown that theory all to hell.
Comment by Missy — June 4, 2006 @ 11:10 pm
I sincerely hope you’re joking. The term “Nazi” is used to define those Germans who MASSACRED ALLIED FORCES AT MALMEDY. Which is what this thread was SUPPOSED to be about, not how often KO gets out of his studio. Any inference on your part that the use of the term by me or anyone else might be referring to YOU says a lot about you, and it’s not good. The Joe McCarthy reference obviously went over your head too, because its use was to identify what was LIKELY BOR’s source for his feeble understanding (or intentional rewriting) of history. I won’t repeat my post here, because you might want to go back and read it for the first time.
And I don’t need cardboard “patriots” like BOR or Limbaugh or Gibson or Bush or Cheney or Rumsfeld or you to explain what “service” is all about. My 82-year-old father is a WWII veteran, and has the same feelings about BOR and the others who wrap themselves in the flag that I do—probably even stronger, since he actually fought for his country. For Rep. Murtha, an American hero and patriot of unquestioned integrity, to have to apologize to ANYONE for his positions on matters of war is outrageous. Or are we really not fighting for “liberty” and “freedom” in Iraq, which inconveniently happens to include the First Amendment.
Comment by museglet — June 5, 2006 @ 2:20 am
That’s right, you’ve got it!…these “Sideshow Bobs of O’Reilly defense” are now walking in a circle, forever stepping on the same rake. And they think that makes what Olbermann said “false” and “clears up any confusion”! Oh my, what a laugh! Yes, they are now defending Bill by saying he quoted…HIMSELF! So how can he POSSIBLY be wrong now? LOL!!
You guys are spinning so fast in your “No Spin Zone” that you are losing your balance and falling over and vomiting!
Spud is right. It is NOT MSNBC’s, Wesley Clark’s, Keith Olbermann’s, or anyone else’s responsibility to figure out what O’Reilly was referring to. He should have made that clear UP FRONT. Even so, Olbermann said this about the first time he said it:
“Still. It could’ve been a mistake. We make them — even historians do. O’Reilly had not explicitly called the Americans the war criminals at Malmedy. Our troops too were accused of crimes against prisoners in the second World War. It was assumed he had simply made a foolish error. And, though he got beaten up appropriately in some places, it was largely dismissed as merely that — a mistake. Then came this Tuesday night.” (tape of O’Reilly following in which he repeats the same mistake and makes it clear that he’s talking about American soldiers slaughtering Nazis AT Malmedy, not AFTER Malmedy)
Oh, and the first time, Billo said it was the 82nd Airborne who did this! That’s quite a mistake! And that’s NOT “the US 11th Armored Division” at all, is it?
Now you can tell the O’Reilly supporters are grasping at straws. Missy, WE are not the ones who brought Nazis into this discussion. O’REILLY did! And Joe McCarthy became part of this discussion, and Joe McCarthy became worthy of being called McCarthyesque, precisely because his behavior in this instance is very reminiscent of how McCarthy tried to defend Nazi actions back in his day. Unfortunately, the McCarthy shoe now fits O’Reilly all too well.
And don’t even BEGIN to accuse me, museglet or anyone else of being “thrilled” about “our Marines” possibly being in trouble. How absurd. How can I be “thrilled” about people being slaughtered in their homes? How can I be “thrilled” about our Marines not only possibly having done this, but about the FOR CERTAIN trouble they are in every day in Iraq, putting their lives on the line? “Thrilled” is not the word I would use to describe it. Far from it.
I don’t “idolize” Murtha either. I don’t believe he’s jumping the gun and calling for a rush to judgment either. Neither am I. Let’s let the facts of this matter be sorted out.
In the meantime, you know who IS calling for a rush to judgment…namely, a rush to judgment that nothing important here happened, so everyone should just move along?
Bill O’Reilly.
HE is the one rushing to judgment. And he did it, not once, but twice. By telling Wesley Clark that whether or not AMERICANS SLAUGHTERED CIVILIANS in Haditha really didn’t matter, because at Malmedy in World War II, AMERICANS SLAUGHTERED NAZIS, and, well, hey–same difference, eh?
And THAT, because you once again seem to have forgotten what the point is, is what we were talking about in the first place.
I challenged you defenders of O’Reilly to find a way to defend him by using facts and without, in the absence of facts, attacking Keith Olbermann–and, I should have added, anyone else–instead.
You couldn’t do it. You failed.
You are now officially morally bankrupt. And it’s all because you couldn’t let go of your need to support Bill O’Reilly, no matter how wrong he is.
Congratulations.
Comment by tanne — June 5, 2006 @ 7:08 am
Yes, tanne, Spud is right. If O’Reilly’s statements were ambiguous or unclear, it is now up to him to ensure that they are clarified. If not, he must admit that he misspoke. I am just responding to the overreaction of you on the left at O’Reilly’s misstatement. Good Lord, you’ve even managed incorporate it into O’Reilly’s bio at Wikipedia, and of course were able to link a picture of Olbermann into the story. Mission accomplished, moonbats!
But I do NOT idolize O’Reilly as you do Olbermann. O’Reilly is not God; he does make mistakes, and I don’t agree with him about everything. I am not like you, tanne; I don’t defend his every word and move as you do with Keith. I believe you are almost engaged in idol worship with Keith, however, based on the unbelievable defenses you put up for him. He has NEVER made a mistake, from how you write about him. But I do hope that I’ve read you wrong, because if I’m right, you need help desperately! He’s just a newscaster; get over it!
And mugslut, I am sure your father is an admirable man and served our country heroically. But many feel differently about those in politics and in the media who are acting as judge, jury and executioner regarding the actions of the Marines at Haditha. Wouldn’t you want to be granted the benefit of the doubt if it were you on trial?
Comment by Missy — June 5, 2006 @ 11:48 am
Media Matters for America reports that FOX has “corrected” the transcript so it now accurately reflects what Mr. O’Reilly said.
Comment by moi-meme — June 5, 2006 @ 4:32 pm
Tanne,
Bill O’Reilly deserves to be put under much more scrutiny than Keith Olbermann because, at least for the time being, he’s at the top. On that I think most everyone here agrees; just as George Bush deserves to be under more scrutiny than any other elected official. And American soldiers deserve to be put under more scrutiny than Iraqi soldiers or Afghanistani soldiers or even Italian soldiers or British soldiers; because we are the sole superpower and the world watches us, and we set the standard.
Now with that I have to take some of what you wrote to task. You use a tactic that Mr. Olbermann and Mr. O’Reilly use quite often: a lie is most effective delivered between two truths. You claimed twenty posts down that people made certain accusations that were actually never made. You claimed that people were accusing KO of not writing his own scripts. No one said that. Then you said KO was being accused of never going out and reporting from the scene. All that was said was that he no longer did for Countdown; nobody said that he never had. And bringing up Joe McCarthy; McCarthy justified Hitler and the Nazis? Please! Everything bad is attributed to McCarthy. Both the left and the right attribute anything and everything to him. Did you know he was responsible for global warming and the crucifixions of Jesus and St. Peter as well? People that read ICN are not as dumb as you think.
Then you made the familiar leftie ’swiftboating’ accusation. That term was started about six months after the 2004 election by Democrats in response to Republicans using the term ‘Rathergate.’ A smart tactic by the left I have to say. It flows in sentences much better than ‘Rathergating,’ it’s much more complicated to dispute; and it’s ingenious as swiftboating is actually something Kerry did to the swiftboat veterans, not something they did to him. And who will remember 20 years from now that John Kerry had anything to do with the term, much less the red state/blue state creation(in response to Democrats being connected to ‘reds’ or communists)?
As far as BO’s Malmady reference, it was not some plot by him to manipulate viewers, and any suggestion that it was is simply insane. It was a big-time screw-up, and it has only hurt him. If you have to make references to where to find some obscure quote to prove BO is correct, then BO needs to explain it up front. And using that viewer email to make his viewers think he hadn’t misspoken, instead of just admitting he messed up, was petty. I can forgive him for messing up the Malmady story. I can forgive him for messing it up twice. But if he really thinks his viewers are so easily manipulated, he is wrong.
Where you have it wrong, Tanne, is in thinking we who read this blog can be manipulated by you, and be mad at BO for getting a 65 year old story mixed up. Everyone gets things mixed up sometimes, but most of us are capable of admitting it. Are you?
Comment by erljr — June 6, 2006 @ 12:55 am
Whew. You guys are better at cooking up fantasies to fit your worldview than I EVER could have imagined!
Missy, that’s precisely what I’d like to see from O’Reilly–an admission that he misspoke and an apology. It’s not coming, though, is it? Please don’t blame those who are asking him for one for “overreacting”–that’s called “blaming the victim.” We reacted perfectly appropriately.
For the record, I don’t have anything to do with Wikipedia, and I am not responsible for incorporating anything into O’Reilly’s biography there, which I couldn’t care less about–including inserting a picture of Olbermann. So you can quit the namecalling and finger-pointing. Besides which, anyone can edit Wikipedia so a devotee of O’Reilly can and probably has already taken anything down that anyone else put up there.
This is not about who I think is God. I don’t think anyone is God. But it seems to me the difference between the newsperson I admire, and O’Reilly, is that mine can admit making mistakes (I’ve seen him do it). Bill? Not gonna happen. Ever.
Again, this is not about me and my nonexistent “worship” of Olbermann and “belief he can do no wrong.” I don’t, and I don’t. You are the ones with the problem because you are waiting for O’Reilly to apologize…now that you all have FINALLY run out of excuses and ways to “explain” that he isn’t “really” wrong…and that apology is not forthcoming.
Don’t even try to imply that museglet is acting as “judge, jury and executioner” regarding Haditha either. I am sure museglet is doing exactly what I am…waiting for answers. Which is far more than Bill O’Reilly did, with his eagerness to equivocate anything that might have happened there with “American soldiers shooting Nazis at Malmedy” and implying the whole thing wasn’t even worth looking at any further, forget about it, it’s all the same thing, who cares!
Moi-meme is correct. Fox has finally gone back and corrected the transcript. I guess if caught in a lie often enough, they CAN be forced into reflecting the truth of what happened on their “newscast.” Too bad they had to be publicly shamed into it.
erljr, you have a point about O’Reilly needing to be subject to scrutiny because so many people watch him. Exactly. He has the power to mislead many, which is part of what makes this so outrageous. Same thing with American soldiers.
But then I depart with you. Again, you are trying to deflect and make this about me and not O’Reilly, but I will dismiss your accusations quickly. First, you accuse me of saying people here accused KO of not writing his scripts, when they didn’t. False; read what “Have you ever noticed?” said. The implication was that his scriptwriting somehow didn’t count, because he got his reporting from other sources (absurd). Second, you accuse me of accusing others of saying that Olbermann never goes out and reports from the scene, when they didn’t–or if they did, they only meant that he doesn’t do it now. Again, false: “Have you ever noticed?” said “he can talk about what other people see all day long but he can’t actually bring himself to go there and report on something himself.” “Missy” said “ESPN had this same problem with him when he was a sports anchor.” All such statements are FALSE, but they were indeed made.
In short, I did not lie about what other people said here in their pathetic attempts to slam Olbermann for calling O’Reilly on his lies.
Your accusing John Kerry of “swiftboating” others instead of vice versa is so absurd, and such an obvious attempt at distraction and diversion from the actual subject at hand, that I am not even going to address it. Again, this is not about John Kerry; this is about Bill O’Reilly. How many times do you guys need to be led back to that?
But Joe McCarthy? I’m glad you brought him up. If you want to see how what Bill O’Reilly said about Malmedy compares to what Joe McCarthy said about Malmedy, I highly recommend you either Google “joe mc carthy malmedy” or wait for the transcript of last night’s Countdown to appear on the MSNBC Web site. I’m sure you somehow missed last night’s show, but please do read the transcript; I’m sure you will find it quite informative. (Although, for the record, it says nothing about Joe McCarthy being responsible for what happened to Jesus or St. Peter. Then again, I never said he was.)
You are wrong about BO’s Malmady reference not being “some plot by him to manipulate viewers.” Of course it was. Why does he say anything, if not to influence his viewers? It has NOT “only hurt him”; again, read last night’s Countdown transcript (it should be up after noon). You are right that he needs to explain himself if he can’t be clear, but in this case, he just plain lied. You are also right that using that viewer email to make his viewers think he hadn’t misspoken, instead of just admitting he messed up, was petty. When you say “I can forgive him for messing up the Malmady story. I can forgive him for messing it up twice. But if he really thinks his viewers are so easily manipulated, he is wrong”…well, you’re admitting a lot more than some people will ever admit.
I am not trying to manipulate anyone. All I am trying to do is tell the truth. Why not be mad at BO for “getting a 65 year old story mixed up”…when the CORRECT version of the story is ON THE RECORD and DOCUMENTED? It’s not as if he has to recall it from personal memory! The historical record is there! And yet he still got on television and tried to tell a four-star general that “YOU KNOW!” the Americans were responsible! Can you blame anyone for being angry about that? Especially those who, unlike me, were there, or had friends or loved ones who were there?
Sure, “everyone gets things mixed up sometimes, but most of us are capable of admitting it.” You ask if I am. Yes, I am. But I didn’t GET this mixed up. Bill O’Reilly did. I wasn’t in the wrong here; HE was. And no amount of bloviating by you, or any of his devoted fans, is ever going to change that fact.
Comment by tanne — June 6, 2006 @ 7:24 am
tanne,
Looks like everything that can be said has been said, and I do hope O’Reilly apologizes. But for the record, my criticism of Olbermann has nothing to do with his ESPN days. A search showed this statement in post #26, made by “Have you ever noticed?”
Sorry to disappoint you, but that poster is not me. We’re all anonymous here, so I have no problem using “Missy” for all of my comments. Keith’s actions at ESPN happened long ago, and I don’t think they’re particularly relenvant to the topic here.
Comment by Missy — June 6, 2006 @ 9:38 am
I did some fact checking myself and found on the internet sites that do say that there was an order from The american side to shoot the SS on site at Malmedy. So Bill was not incorrect it is Olberman that is the liar here. So easy to find and they make it sound as if Bill O’Reilly was incorrect. Very blatantly misinformaing the public. It is outrageous!
Comment by for truth and justice — September 8, 2008 @ 4:05 am