Another socialist blog

Right-wingers seem to have a favorite debate tactic: when you don’t know what you’re talking about, make shit up. Bill O’Reilly uses it (pardon the term) liberally.

O’Reilly apparently needed to come across as tough on crime the other day. So when the Houston Chronicle, in an editorial, criticized Florida’s new sex offender law, he lambasted them for saying the law was too harsh. He complained that the editorial advocated “community service” for sexual predators. He read a long quote from the editorial that appeared to back up his points. And he accused a guest on his show from trying to “mislead” his listeners by saying otherwise.

Trouble is, none of what O’Reilly said about the editorial was true. The Chronicle never said the law was too harsh, certainly never called for community service for sex offenders. They did say the law should be more effective in preventing crime, which you might think would be enough to get you some points with a rabid law and order right-winger. Even the words he claimed to be quoting from the editorial, did not appear anywhere in the piece, nor did they appear anywhere in the Chronicle ever.

In its response, the Chronicle charitably suggests that O’Reilly confused their editorial with someone else’s. I think he made it up out of whole cloth, which is not out of character for a liar like Bill O’Reilly.

Ralph Waldo Emerson could have been talking about Bill O’Reilly when he said,

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

Thanks to the Chronicle for the Emerson quote.