His “criminals at the computer” line is obviously directed to “the guy who raped and murdered a 10-year old in Massachusetts says he got the idea from the NAMBLA Web site that he accessed from the Boston public library.” Not to those passing along gossip without fact checking it.
Except for anyone who dared to speak out against the war in Iraq. O’Reilly said, “When the military action starts, all of you people criticizing the Bush administration had better shut up and fall in line with the rest of us patriotic Americans, or I will consider you an enemy of the state and a traitor.”
So much for your first amendment right to protest.
Cite?
I don’t get it. O’Reilly has never taken a false story from traditional media and gone on about it?
And from what I’ve seen, he has it exactly backwards. The net is a hotbed of critical discussion: that includes both telling lies AND correcting lies. And frankly, the web does a MUCH better job of eventually getting to the bottom of stories than traditional media has, especially lately. Bloggers not only issue corrections, but they don’t bury them or play them down. And both partisan and non-partisan debunking sites like spinsanity.com and the dailyhowler.com do a far better job at catching errors than the punditry to which O’Reilly belongs: a punditry notorious for continuing to circulate false and misleading stories long after they’ve been exposed as such on the net.
That’s right, with my two hands on the keyboard I’m using my Weapons of Career Destruction in my war of terror against the helpless O’Reilly.
snort
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAH!
There’s no way I could have gotten out that sentence without laughing.
I really think Needledick the O’Reilly’s control issues have been tweaked. It is so much harder to intimidate someone you aren’t directly screaming at in person or on the phone.
Someday, I think it would be a hoot to be on his show. I am so inured to being screamed at in person because of the Mother of Mass Destruction™, that I think I could be mocking him on live television. I just hope I can bring my screwball placard on. I feel so Bugs Bunny when he’s frothing at the mouth.
I just noticed that the subject line of the OP claims O’Reilly calls internet posters “criminals at the computer”.
This is clearly false. At the end of the talking points O’Reilly uses the phrase “criminals at the computer”. However, it is reasonable to assume he is referring to the man who raped a 10 year old, not “internet posters”.
Debaser
So, he never called them a ‘traitor’ as was in the original quote.
BTW, that page also goes on to say
So that’s quite the unbiased web page. :rolleyes:
However, if you put “Once the war against Saddam Hussein begins” into Google, you get 144 sites, all talking about how evil O’Reilly is for saying that quote. So, we can probably assume it’s true. This also illustrates O’Reilly isn’t paranoid when he says that there are lots of sites out there devoted to destroying him.
Lets examine the statement:
The ‘we’ here is important. Despite that site claiming that O’Reilly speaks for the evil Department of Homeland Security and the equally evil Justice Department and CIA, the ‘we’ is harmless. O’Reilly often talks in terms of what the show thinks, not himself during talking points. This is just an unusual sort of 3rd person perspective that he uses during this segment of the show. He often says ‘we’, not ‘I’ and he says ‘the factor’ not ‘me’.
So, instead of saying “I want to see schools improve. I support school vouchers.” O’Reilly during talking points would say “The Factor wants to see schools improve. We support school vouchers.”
He considers these people enemies of the state. Good for him. I agree that foreign allies and celebrities working against the military are enemies of the state.
O’Reilly plans on calling these people out and spotlighting them. Again, what’s wrong with this? Many American’s are greatly turned off by the liberal, anti-war activism of Streisand, Baldwin, Robbins and others. The just points it out to the masses who respond by not going to those movies or buying those CD’s.
I just don’t see the Orwellian conspiracy here.
Wouldn’t that make the real problem be the amount of gullible dumbasses on the internet? And how do you propose we either make sure only smart people go online or make sure only truthful stuff appears online?
And it’s not the internet is the only way these ideas are created or spread.
Anyone else amused by the sheer amount of spin necessary to defend the master of the “No-Spin Zone”?
I agree. I am inclined to think he merely threw out some alliteration at the end. Certainly nothing in the rest of his article was devoted to showing how these internet people were breaking any law.
Gullible or lazy people are a fact of life. You can call that the “real problem” but it doesn’t change anything. If you can figure out a way to turn all these “gullible dumbasses” into witty and intelligent EldwoodCuses, please do so. Until then, it’s something to accept and work around.
I’ve addressed this several times.
Many people use “spin” to mean “something that I personally don’t agree with”. I actually find that amusing.
Read comprehensively dipshit. He didn’t just include “foreigners and celebrities.”
So anyone who actively opposes the war is an “enemy of the state?” Does that include my dad, who’s a Vietnam vet?
Fuck you! :wally
I got Diogenes to tell me to go fuck myself. I must be doing something right. 
That’s exactly who he is talking about. It was clear to me reading the article that O’Reilly was targeting those who work against the US war effort in large, meaningful ways. France bribing third world countries to vote against us at NATO comes to mind. As does hollywood celebrities organizing large protests. He specifically mentioned foreigners. He also specifically mentioned celebs (Streisand).
O’Reilly doesn’t give a shit about your dad or any other private individual who is against the war. He is talking about celebs and such. However, I can see how it can be read that way if you take a couple of the sentances literally and without context.
O’Reilly must have noticed this too, because he retracted it the next night on his program.
So according to O’Reilly, if you get an acting job, you lose your right to free speech?
Who in the name of Christ would so be goddamn stupid to believe this utter shit?
He said “Americans” who oppose the war, Americans.
BTW, why should celebrities have fewer rights than any other American? They were RIGHT, after all. Sean Penn was RIGHT. Michael Moore was RIGHT.
Presidents who send Americans to die under false pretenses are the “enemies of the state,” not those who try to to stop them.
Who in the name of Christ would be so goddamn stupid to not read the memo before making rediculous assumptions?
O’Reilly isn’t talking about taking away anyones right to free speech. He is just planning on using his right of free speech to put a spotlight on the celebs who oppose the war once it started.
Oh, I read it alright. He’s implying that as celebs, they they’re enemies of the state if they speak out against the administration. Whether or not he’s actively calling for a repeal of of the 1st Amendment for celebrities is not the issue.
So we can all see that they were right? And that GW was lying through his teeth?
Sounds like a public service!
Seems like you were making it the issue to me.
The issue is that O’Reilly clearly wants celebs to not exercise their right to free speech. And we’re calling him on that bullshit.
And even though it’s begininning to look like the evil liberal celebs were right, even if they were 100 percent wrong it wouldn’t make a difference. Michael Moore can say he believes W is the antichrist himself, and he still wouldn’t be an “enemy of the state”.
And O’Reilly’s right to free speech has nothing to do with the issue, because no one is saying he doesn’t have the right to say what he did. We’re just pointing out was utter and complete shit it is. Compare that with what O’Reilly is doing, which is an attempt to stifle, not argue against.