The Problem with Bill O'Reilly's Insistence that President Obama's a Good (Albeit Mistaken) Guy
Alas, O'Reilly did not prove to be very bold and most of America still "need to know the whole truth" about Obama. O'Reilly's bent backward so far giving Obama the benefit of the doubt that he's supine.
Fox News star Bill O'Reilly presents himself as the protector of "the folks" and independent, neither Republican nor Democrat.
Last Holy Thursday, O'Reilly told his audience that he doesn't believe that President Obama is a bad guy.
Ridiculing that thought, he showed a clip of "Dr. Evil" from an Austin Powers movie and assured his audience that Obama is not "Dr. Evil."
O'Reilly really seems to get that Obamacare is unconstitutional as well as unpopular and unaffordable, but he treats it as a good-faith mistake by Obama.
Obama really seems to get that Obamacare was not passed by a "strong majority" and that it would NOT be unprecedented for the United States Supreme Court to strike down a federal statute like Obamacare, but appears not to see anything sinister in Obama's public declaration to the contrary.
O'Reilly really seems to be looking forward to interviewing Obama again, and that surely would not happen if O'Reilly pronounced Obama a bad guy.
If O'Reilly did that, he'd be instantly added to the list of interviewers that Obama avoids like the plague, including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin.
O'Reilly's bent backward so far giving Obama the benefit of the doubt that he's supine.
If O'Reilly really doesn't know better, then it's because he stopped looking.
It could have been otherwise.
ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief and Republican attorney Heather Heidelbaugh appeared on "The O'Reilly Factor" on March 18, 2009 and Fox News provided a rush transcript the next day available at www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,520701,00.html.
O'Reilly began:
"Joining us now are two women in the middle of the [NYT-ACORN] story, Heather Heidelbaugh, an attorney who sued ACORN. She's in Pittsburgh. And from Washington, Anita MonCrief, whose name is all over the place here, a former ACORN employee who became a whistleblower and talked to Stephanie Strom the reporter.
"So Ms. MonCrief, The Times guy Hoyt says the paper didn't have enough to run the Obama-ACORN connection. They didn't have enough evidence. What say you?"
O'Reilly opined: "It's not Hoyt's job to dictate what the American people care about and what they don't care about. But I don't want to be unfair to Obama. I don't know how much Obama knew about his campaign people and ACORN. The man was busy. He was out all over the place. And it's certainly, Ms. MonCrief, I'm going to give you the last word. It's certainly possible Barack Obama had no idea what was going on in the field. But I still think that The New York Times totally booted the story and was very disrespectful to you, Ms. MonCrief. You gave them a great story and they basically spiked it."
O'Reilly concluded: "All right. Well, Ms. MonCrief, we will continue on the story. Ms. Heidelbaugh, thanks for helping us out."
A link to a video of the interview is provided at
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,520701,00.html.
Ironically, O'Reilly proceeded to "boot" the story.
Provided with a damning tape of a voicemail that the Times reporter had left for MonCrief to the effect that she had been ordered to drop the story, Team O'Reilly foolishly edited out a few words, purported to save time. The redaction became the story instead of what Obama knew and when he knew it and what Obama had said about his relationship with ACORN and what it really was. Then abortionist George Tiller was killed and O'Reilly focused instead on defending himself from the charge that his bold on air references to Tiller as "baby killer" went too far.
In "The war between the New York Times and Bill O'Reilly and the truth"
(www.renewamerica.com/columns/gaynor/090519), I wrote:
"It's...true that O'Reilly oversimplified his expose, apparently due to time considerations. If O'Reilly needed to redact,...he should have said he was doing so and posted a transcript of the unredacted voicemail on his website. Because what was done was done, viewers did not learn that Ms. Strom had used the 'story tonight for tomorrow' as the excuse for killing a real expose with monumental political implications that threatened The Times.
"In a subsequent phone call the same day as the voicemail, Ms. Strom frankly told Ms. MonCrief NOT that the other story was sufficient and made the story on which they had been working together insignificant, but that her editors feared 'a game changer.'
"The whole truth is really bad for The Times, the liberal media establishment, ACORN, the Obama campaign and, yes, now President Obama.
"But Americans need to know the whole truth."
Alas, O'Reilly did not prove to be very bold and most of America still "need to know the whole truth."
Otherwise Obama might be re-elected instead of rejected.
"Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." – John 8:32.
Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.
Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.
The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.
Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.