You Little Ladies Need To Monger Some Fear

Maybe all of us saw the craziness that was Bill O’Reilly on the View this week (or like me, you saw little internet clips…that were maybe edited and took his words out of context…like Shirley Sherrod! But he’ll still have his job! And chances are, they were not edited, because this looks like his signature shtick to me. I digress.)

So via Jezebel, this clip (if you need recaps and paraphrasing, Jezebel has it here.)

 What is wrong here should be pretty evident.

Well, Most of it

[PS: Now with links to them discussing the aftermath, and Bill’s giddiness about ratings!]

See, I already expect Bill to spout hatin’ on the president and an entire minority nonsense. I also expect Elizabeth to chime in with a moot point that makes no sense, because that is what she does! I also expect the audience to cheer for said nonsense. So, while I am bothered, this is par for the course for Bill and company’s misinformed fear mongering.

What bothers me then, is the condescension.

Look how he talks to Joy Behar, which, her bunny ears response is JUST as childish, but that’s how he opens “conversation”? By talking to someone who has been on television JUST as long as he has like they are infantile, and entirely devoid of any thought? That is not the making of a “fair and balanced” conversation. That is a tactic to infuriate and alienate the people you are “teaching”, and to exactly elicit the response that he got from them because it makes him look sensible. It posits him as an authority while these “hysterical liberal” women who cannot handle his patent twisted propoganda laden version of the truth look, well, like the lesser party of the debate.

Clearly bothersome. Even more bothersome? His later re-wording of what he said after Barbara Walters takes him to task and calls him out. He pretends like he didn’t just call all muslims terrorists. He did. He really did. and Hasselback’s “confusion’? Totally made up, dumb and more patented Obama blaming. (Because when all else fails, blame Obama! He is the perfect strawman for all conservitives to show that they do NOT discriminate anyone! He got them all confused about whether they should discriminate against one of the world’s largest religions! They used to be able to clarify and discern between muslims and terrorists during the Bush administration, but not NOW! Not when the President affirms religious freedom in America and asks that we refer to them terrorists as extremists. NOT AT ALL. IT IS SO CONFUSING for white privileged people with very public voices that want to scream “Reverse Racism” every time a white person is questioned about their white privilege every chance they can get but they cannot understand or grasp when they, themselves, are racist. Yes, I can see why they would be so very confused. Thank God Whoopi walked off and didn’t call him a racist. I’d hate for her to be a racist.

You know, I have a lot of faith in Barbara Walters. She is very smart, and she has been in this journalism business for a very long time. (She has interviewed Hussein and Castro. She can clearly handle egomaniac despotic sadists) So why does she let Bill off the hook? She is smart enough to see through  these tactics, astute enough to call Bill out for talking to her co-hosts as if they are silly children. But she doesn’t — she only admonishes her co-host’s behavior, again making him look correct and collected. When in fact he is on an entirely different planet called Evil Genius Douche. Yes, she corrects him, and makes him apologize, but it is only muttered and completely overshadowed by Hasselback’s Obama blaming seconds later. His message is loud and clear, and he knows how to get it out there. Absolutely deplorable.

[But wait, there is more! Still doubting these were inflammatory tactics? Doubt no more!]