vallierojas: The Right Word: outrage and betrayal

Michael Savage can't believe that, while he's banned from the UK, President Obama gets a homecomer's welcome in Ireland

Bill O'Reilly

Bill O'Reilly spent much of his programme on Monday night discussing the victimisation of Fox News by the far left (view clip). He is growing tired of the repeated attacks on the network's integrity and, more particularly, on their advertiser base.

"As you may know, the far left despises Fox News primarily because we are more sceptical of liberal America than most of the other national media. Billionaire George Soros is now funding the vicious far left website Media Matters to the tune of about $1m a year, at least, and that website is now threatening advertisers who appear on FNC."

It is understandable why O'Reilly would be concerned about losing advertisers in light of the recent cancellation of his colleague Glenn Beck's show. Though no official reason was given for the programme's cancellation, it is widely speculated that the loss of revenue resulting from the Stopbeck campaign's call for an advertiser boycott had something to do with it. Now the DropFox campaign is calling on companies to reconsider advertising on other Fox News programmes if, as Ilyse Hogue, project director of DropFox, puts it, "allying their brand with Fox News may be at odds with the values of their customer base".

One such company, Orbitz, has chosen to fight back against DropFox's efforts and issued a statement, which O'Reilly praised as patriotic, saying that Orbitz has a "strict policy of tolerance and non-discrimination, and that means we don't favour one side over another." Orbitz have now come under attack from their own customer base, however, because some of their supporters feel that its mission statement, which lists a commitment to equal rights for the gay community as one of their core values, is at odds with their support for Fox News, which has a rather challenged relationship with that same community. Bill O'Reilly, in particular, has made several unusual statements about the need to keep gays away from children and suggesting that if gay marriage is legalised people will end up marrying goats. O'Reilly had his own theories, however, why he believes the left are going after Fox.

So why is the far left increasing its attacks on Fox News? Well, the answer is very simple: the presidential election of 2012. Last time around, FNC provided honest coverage of both candidates. Studies done on the Obama/McCain race showed we were just as tough on the senator from Arizona as we were on the senator from Illinois, which does not play well in liberal precincts. If you do not openly support President Obama, you are the enemy.

Anyway, on a happier note, O'Reilly was thrilled to learn that in a recent poll conducted by Boston's Suffolk University, 28% of respondents named Fox News as the most trusted network, followed by CNN at 18%. Even better, O'Reilly himself was named the most trusted political reporter, with CNN's Anderson Cooper coming a distant second and Fox's Sean Hannity and Mike Huckabee tying for third place.

Sean Hannity

Sean Hannity remains keenly focused on the upcoming presidential election, which is just under two years away (view clips). Indeed, he is so caught up with finding the right person to defeat President Obama that he struggled to recall the incumbent's name this week. He was distressed, however, to find that one of his preferred candidates for the GOP nomination, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, is under a rather harsh spotlight once again, because of a tell-all book written by former staffer Frank Bailey, whom Hannity takes to task in an interview. Hannity's distress is evident in the tumult of his syntax.

You release personal emails that they sent you. You talk about petty little battles between Sarah Palin and her husband, whether they're true or not. You basically ? when Sarah Palin is on the phone with her daughter ? you know, you tell the story you want to. Listen to this: you're dragging her children in that sense, you are. Here, you work for them; here, they pay you; you're brought up on ethics charges, right? [?] You have a current investigation and you violated Alaska law going on right now, and you called the trooper ? and what.

Bailey's use of the emails in the book, which make Palin appear an opportunistic, vindictive and unethical politician, is under investigation by the Alaska attorney general's office, but Bailey insists he didn't violate any laws and stands by his stated reason for writing the book ? which was to expose Palin's wrongdoings so the public can make an informed decision about whether she is suitable presidential material.

Here's my point, you have an attorney general recently releasing a statement reaffirming their investigation on you. You got a 24-minute tape ? these are things that you did, and as I read the book, I don't care about. Why would you? You know what the most important qualities to me is ? faithfulness. If you didn't want to work for her and these things are going on, as bad as you said, you should have left then and there. But you didn't, you stayed there and now, all of a sudden, you're selling your book on her name. That's cheating!

Bailey reiterated that he was heartily ashamed of the things he did on Palin's behalf, though it does seem reasonable to ask why he did so many of them for so long. Although no one, including Palin herself is denying that the emails on which the book's revelations are based are real, Hannity more or less dismisses the revelations as salacious gossip and claims to be interested only in what the former governor says and does publicly.

Michael Savage

Oddly enough, none of the hosts on Fox News seemed to have any awareness that President Obama had travelled abroad this week to the UK and Ireland. Even those hosts with Irish names like O'Reilly, who are so proud of their ancestral links to the old sod, did not deem the president being welcomed as a hero by his long-lost Irish cousins as worth a mention.

So, it was left to Michael Savage to discuss the trips, but he was so gutted by a letter he had received (pdf) from the treasury solicitors department in London refusing to retract the ban that prevents him from visiting the UK, that he had very little to say about the president's "English vacation" (listen to clip). He had plenty to say about the Ireland visit, however, which he thought was "the stupidest act [he had] ever seen portrayed on a presidential stage". He felt that by embracing his Irishness, the president was shamefully playing the race card, because, up until now, he's been selling us all on the idea of his being the country's first "black" president. Now, all of a sudden, we're supposed to believe he is white, as well. Savage thinks that, fortunately, other Irish Americans won't fall for this, either.

Can you believe the nerve of this man? Can you believe the audacity of this phony president, this imposter? He visited his ancestral home in Ireland!? I mean, there's a limit to the stupidity of the American people. I mean, [HL] Mencken said, "no one ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the American people", but I believe Obama has taken this to a new low. Does he actually think that the 35 to 40 million Americans who trace their ancestry to Ireland are going to suddenly say, "you know what, although he's espoused every anti-American statement known to mankind in the last couple of years, although he sat at the feet of a rabble-rousing, anti-white, anti-American creature for 20 years, although he's shown his contempt for the middle class and the working class and the white male, in particular ? well, he ain't so bad, after all, because, after all, he's gone back to his homeland in Ireland." Who would come up with such an idea!?

To be fair to the president, like many Americans he has multiple ethnicities, none of which he has ever attempted to deny. But, in any case, the thing Savage finds hardest to accept is that even if the American people do see this cynical vote-getting charade for what it is, it won't make a difference. Regardless of whether the president decides that he is Irish or Kenyan, Savage believes he is a shoo-in for re-election. We have just endured a Republican president for eight years; now, we're going to have to endure a Democrat for the same length of time. And there's nothing anyone can do about it.