O'Reilly vs. Finke

Call it as you see it. In her LA Weekly column about the highs and lows of Katrina coverage, Nikki Finke wrote of Fox News' Bill O'Reilly:

FNC's Bill O'Reilly, who spent last month verbally abusing the grieving mother of a dead Iraqi war soldier, then whiled away the early days of Katrina's aftermath giving lip to New Orleans' looters and shooters and then basically blamed the hurricane's poorest victims for expecting any government help at all.

"First, the huge, bureaucratic government will never be able to protect you. If you rely on government for anything, anything, you're going to be disappointed, no matter who the president is," he scolded. And, "If you don't get educated, if you don't develop a skill, and force yourself to work hard, you'll most likely be poor. And sooner or later, you'll be standing on a symbolic rooftop waiting for help."

Last night, O'Reilly retorted on the air:

Hi, I'm Bill O'Reilly, thanks for watching us tonight. Feeling sorry for O'Reilly, that is the subject of this evening's "Talking Points Memo."

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But the best was far left loon Nickie Finke writing in The L.A. Weekly. "Bill O'Reilly, who spent last month verbally abusing the grieving mother of a dead Iraqi war soldier, then whiled away the early days of Katrina's aftermath giving lip to New Orleans looters and shooters and then basically blamed the hurricane's poorest victims for expecting any government help at all."

Feeling sorry for me yet? Look, all this dishonest nonsense is ideologically driven. And it appears all day every day in this country, there are no standards anymore in the media.

O'Reilly goes on to say that Fox "dominated" hurricane coverage on cable. I thought they were pretty much unwatchable a lot of the time.