Dodd vs. O’Reilly tonight…
Last night The O’Reilly Factor was to air an interview with Senator Chris Dodd over the Daily Kos bruhaha. Rumor is it got incendiary. But due to the bridge collapse that interview was postponed until tonight. Dodd put out a press release on the interview…
Presidential Candidate Chris Dodd today stood up to Bill O’Reilly’s tireless attacks on the progressive blogosphere and defended the democratic right to free speech in his appearance on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor. O’Reilly had launched a smear campaign against the political blog DailyKos, by selectively choosing a handful of objectionable comments out of the millions posted on the site and attempting to characterize the entire community with them. Dodd successfully exposed O’Reilly’s hypocrisy, referring to offensive comments O’Reilly has made in the past including when O’Reilly suggested that Al Qaeda “go ahead” and “blow up” Coit Tower in San Francisco. [The Radio Factor with Bill O’Reilly, 11/8/05]
“I hope that our discussion today reminds Bill that a free press is at the very heart of this nation’s values. The blogosphere is enormous - and to exploit such a tiny fraction of it in such a way is ludicrous, especially considering that Bill himself has said some things in the past that he may not want distorted,” said Dodd, after the show’s taping. “Democrats aren’t going to be lectured to about the crudeness of language or civility of discourse by Bill O’Reilly.”
Funny how things work out. I actually think O’Reilly would agree with most of Dodd’s statement; all but the characterization of O’Reilly himself. Tonight’s show should be a ratings buster.
Comment by erljr — August 2, 2007 @ 3:35 pm
Cannot wait to see this brawl between two warriors. Dodd, of course, has been pinned down to the second tier of Democratic presidential candidates, unable to convince voters he deserves to advance an inch. He reminds me in many way of Ted Kennedy: talkative, negative, and with a lot of empty bluster. He can never be taken seriously.
Comment by RGL — August 2, 2007 @ 3:35 pm
O’Reilly played the interview on The Radio Factor and IMO, Chris Dodd made an arse of himself.
Instead of properly condemning the vile picture of fellow Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman on Daily Kos, Dodd chose instead to read off the Media Matters songsheet.
Comment by Ira — August 2, 2007 @ 3:37 pm
Dodd had no idea what he was talking about. BO has to love it when people like Dodd come on the show and look like fools. Like his ego needs any more help.
Comment by Tom P — August 2, 2007 @ 3:55 pm
The part of the presser that wasn’t posted was a quote from Dodd that said:
“So now that you know what happens, you won’t have to watch. That’s right, I won. That’s all you need to know. Move on, nothing to see here.”
And then he leapt back into obscurity.
Comment by ImNotBlue — August 2, 2007 @ 4:17 pm
More pandering to the tinfoil hat sites by the Dems. Huge shocker. I look forward to tonight’s segment.
Comment by bigred — August 2, 2007 @ 4:36 pm
Really, who even knew Dodd was running for President? I guess that’s why he’s interjecting himself into this story.
Also, O’Reilly’s point is just that he feel the dems are turning to the far left by patronizing the Kos convention, while ignoring that of the more moderate DLC. He started out by stating that he thinks it will hurt the dem candidates long term, and I agree with that premise - very few are as far left as Daily Kos site, even when its patrons are not making vile posts.
Comment by Missy — August 2, 2007 @ 4:50 pm
Having visited the Daily Kos a few times since all this started, I agree with Dodd’s assertion that O’Reilly is tarring an entire community with a few cherry-picked comments. If he wants to fault the blog owner for not policing it better, that’s one thing. But O’Reilly breaks out the broad brush and declares the whole thing to be a “hate site.” This is not accurate.
Also, in his press release Dodd said this:
“I hope that our discussion today reminds Bill that a free press is at the very heart of this nation’s values.”
The Daily Kos is not part of the “press”…it’s an internet blog. An argument against O’Reilly’s criticisms should not include the right to a free press because that doesn’t apply here. If Dodd wants to discuss being against regulation of the internet, then that’s a whole other story.
I give Dodd credit for going on the show and defending his position.
Comment by FishOil — August 2, 2007 @ 5:51 pm
FishOil, there has been an effort by Kos to start cleaning up the site in recent weeks… a direct response to O’Reilly’s criticism.
There has been plenty of vile, disgusting remarks made on that site… and by more than just “a select few”.
Comment by bigred — August 2, 2007 @ 6:30 pm
#10 - BigRed, I’m not an apologist for the Daily Kos. As O’Reilly said, the administrator can police the website and thus remove “vile, disgusting remarks” as he/she sees fit.
Then again, O’Reilly has painted the website and all who go there with a broad brush, and in this instance he is wrong. If you saw the comments about the guy who went to O’Reilly’s home, you would know that there was a large number of people who took exception to what happened. The point being…I didn’t see any evidence of groupthink, so it is not accurate to portray every member of that site as “fascist” (as O’Reilly has done). I’m not privvy to how many offensive comments/images are posted on a daily basis, but there were over 1500 comments related to that Stark guy’s stunt alone….O’Reilly read off a few nasty remarks.
That being said, I don’t condone everything that O’Reilly has said on his radio show, for example, but I wouldn’t condemn his entire show based on a few comments that I found to be objectionable.
What I think you and I will agree with is the interest in the Democratic candidates attending their yearly conference. I think they would be wise to at least condemn such vitriol and simply make a push for civil discourse concerning the problems our contry faces.
Comment by FishOil — August 2, 2007 @ 6:58 pm
I just finished seeing the duel between Bill O’Reilly and Senator Chris Dodd, and it’s so pitiful Dodd appeared so cockomamie. He refused to acknowledge the bile and poison being peddled on that Daily Kos, and appeared so ignorant about what he was talking about. At least he was pretending to bamoozle us it is a civil and legitimate website.
It’s no wonder his ratings in the Democratic presidential primaries continue to be in low single digits. That was a pathetic performance by Dodd, almost as bad, if not worse, when Kucinich speaks. Years from now, Dodd will be but a tiny footnote in American politics that nobody will even notice.
Comment by RGL — August 2, 2007 @ 8:38 pm
Now that Daily Kos is in the spotlight they have to clean up their site..get rid of the antisemitism.the wish Tony Snow,Dick Cheney or insert your own Republican here dies threads,support for terror groups like Hamas,9/11 was an inside job threads and so on…but what O’Reiily and others need to do every chance they get is to remind every one of the “Screw them” remarks by DK founder Markos Moulitsos Zunigathe about the brutal murders of four American civilian contractors….
“That said, I feel nothing over the death of mercenaries. They aren’t in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them”
Every Dem that attend that DK meeting should be asked if they condemn those comments or not…if McCain,Rudy or Fred attended a meeting where the host had made some racist comments they would be challenged so why not here?
Comment by mlong — August 2, 2007 @ 9:21 pm
“What I think you and I will agree with is the interest in the Democratic candidates attending their yearly conference. I think they would be wise to at least condemn such vitriol and simply make a push for civil discourse concerning the problems our contry faces.”
Keep dreaming. The Dems will never say a negative word about the tinfoil hat sites. The entire goal is to see who can pander to them the most. There isn’t a single Dem candidate for president (other than say, Gravel, who has no chance) who will dare say a negative word about the leftloon websites.
Anyone wanna bet me on this one?
Comment by bigred — August 2, 2007 @ 9:33 pm
Just caught up on tonight’s show with the Chris Dodd interview. I didn’t think either side won, as it was basically two people talking over the other.
One observation - when he originally showed it on Monday, O’Reilly went to great lengths to warn the viewers about the graphic nature of the picture of President Bush and Joe Lieberman (in a lurid position) and warned that people with young children watching might want to change the channel for a minute or so.
He showed the picture at the top of the segment with Dodd, but forgot to warn the audience beforehand. Oh my, children have been permanently scarred.
Comment by FishOil — August 3, 2007 @ 2:32 am
Fish Oil: I thought one of the emails O’Reilly read last night said it all:
The emailer did a search and found 7200 uses of the F-Word on Daily Kos.
Daily Kos sure has a lot of cleaning up to do!
Comment by Ira — August 3, 2007 @ 12:37 pm
#17 - You’re right…I somehow missed that. Perhaps because it was a quick mention versus the long speech he gave before showing it on Monday.
I stand corrected.
Comment by FishOil — August 3, 2007 @ 2:25 pm
#18 - Well, who is to say that that e-mailer is correct, wouldn’t you agree, Ira? Heck, look at how I muffed accusing O’Reilly of not warning his audience about that Lieberman picture.
Besides, use of the f-word would fall under the category of vulgar, not hate.
Comment by FishOil — August 3, 2007 @ 2:28 pm