And just to say it again because this point seems to be escaping some people. O’Reilly has not denied the Mackris allegations. He has acknowledged that believes she has tapes (his property now, no doubt) and he made a semi-confession on his radio show.
The settlement came a day before a hearing was scheduled during which O’Reilly’s team was demanding disclosure of the tapes. I think that demand was a bluff designed to determine for sure that Mackris had the tapes. On the off chance that she didn’t, they could have been much more aggressive about denying the allegations and defending the case. Without tapes it would have been very low risk to go to trial and a finding of no liability would have been a huge PR score for O’Reilly and Fox. If she didn’t have tapes then settling the case was a stupid thing to do and O’Reilly’s attorneys gave him incompetent advice, IMO.
BTW, isn’t it illegal to file a charge of extortion aginst somebody and then to say a week later that it never happened? Isn’t that an admission that O’Reilly lied in his complaint? Isn’t it defamation as well?
Not remotely. Do they teach you at Liberal School to simply repeat false claims until they become true?
I’d sure appreciate an unbiased cite for the claim that Jones’ accusations were impossible because Clinton was not in town. It would have been much easier for him to shut down her claim on those grounds than anything else, at least insofar as the court of public opinion is concerned.
Now, I agree that Jones’ suit may have “alleged damages that didn’t occur.” That is, she claimed that there was some retaliatory behavior against her, but was unable to show relevance or materiality (the ridiculous “she-didn’t-get-flowers” on Secretaries Day). But she didn’t allege false FACTS - she alleged facts and urged conclusions of law be drawn from those facts. Her facts were true – they simply did not compel the conclusions of law she urged.
Was Jones’ suit solely a political entity?
In a sense. She was financed by political enemies of Clinton, and, absent that financing, her suit likely never would have gone forward. For this reason. you may argue it was political. But the events underlying it happened, and Jones could have sued regardless; what would have stopped her was the financial realities of persuing an iffy verdict.
You cannot claim to be applying a neutral, even-handed analysis to both this case and the Clinton case. You’re not. It’s patently obvious.
I can see that you place a great store in denials. Clinton unambiguously denied sex with Monica, but that denial was a lie. I don’t know whether you believed his denial at the time or not.
Are you now saying that if O’Reilly were to catagorically deny these allegations, you’d accept his denial?
Ehhhh…It was rather a vague and weak “semi-confession.” You quoted it here, and while it sounds like he sure did something, we can’t know what exactly he did. I know you are highly motivated to believe the worst about him, but the fact is, many won’t be so motivated. And he didn’t give them all that much to work on, with that weak “confession.”
Now, I am leaning towards believing that he said those things. I am leaning towards believing that there are tapes. But we don’t know and we may never know.
I also have a speck of a doubt about the woman’s claims, and her reasons for suing. I put myself in her place (which isn’t really fair, I know) and I can’t imagine tolerating what she allegedly tolerated for so long. I can’t imagine continuing to be “horrified” and “disgusted” for so long and doing nothing. There’s something fishy with her. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t suspect him–I do.
IANAL, but I’d guess that if it was not legal, his lawyers wouldn’t have crafted that statement for him, where he denies everything. Because I’m sure that denial did not come from him.
O’Reilly never
“filed a charge” of extortion–a point that several of us noted in a different context early in the thread.
Had he gone to a prosecuting attorney with his original claim of extortion, he might be liable to a charge of making a false claim (but see Kobe’s accuser for the likelihood of that happening). However, by filing a civil suit, he left law enforcement and the state out of the picture completely. He is only liable for whatever various individuals choose to perceive about his behavior.
Not at all. I place a great store in non-denials. They are always more revealing than denials.
Tom, I know that O’Reilly didn’t file a criminal charge, I was speaking figuratively and mostly facetiously. The fact that he didn’t try to file any criminal charges was revealing in itself.
Please provide a cite where Neil Armstrong has explictly denied participating in a phony moon landing. Ah ha! The lunar landing conspiracy must be true!
Please provide a cite in which the CIA explictly denies being involved in JFK assassination. Ah ha!
Please provide a cite in which you have denied being a left-wing agent provocateur, participating on these boards from a planned script in an effort to impose a One World Order on the United States, under directions from the Masonic Zionist Catholic Cabal.
I have no idea if Armstrong has explicitly denied it or not but any cite which can be foumd of Armstrong saying he WAS on the moon is the same as a denial of fakery.
I don’t know that a denial doesn’t exist, but I also don’t think Oswald acted alone, so there.
This is just silly. A non-denial of accusations which haven’t been made, or which are patently absurd is on a much different level than a legal complaint filed with a court.
O’Reilly ADMITTED that he thought she had tapes. He said as much in his own complaint. How could he think she had tapes of conversations that never took place? Really, it boils down to that. If he didn’t engage in these phone calls- if it was all a fabrication- then why did he think she had tapes?
No he didn’t. The complaint said that her quotes looked like they were transcribed, so where are the tapes? It was “put up or shut up” from the very beginning.
That being said, I believe the settlement is damning for O’Reilly and with nothing else is an admission of guilt. O’Reilly’s personality is such that if the charges were false, I think he’d prosecute the extortion charge all the way. I was a big proponent of delaying judgement until we had the facts–now that we have the most we’ll ever have, I’m confident there were two scumbags in this case.
I wonder what ole Bill thinks of trial lawyers now that he basically got a really good one to help him work out a deal to pay some hush money? This whole episode is pretty darn amusing.
He said in his complaint that he believed the conversations were transcribed from tapes. He couldn’t have believed that unless he knew the conversations had occurred. His attorney said explicitly in a television interview that he believed Mackris had tapes. Bo Diedl, an private detective hired by O’Reilly admitted that the conversations occurred but said that Mackris could have “just hung up.”
Mackris’ attorneys’s only said that they had incontrovertable proof but would not explicitly say they had tapes.
O’Reilly has still not denied a single allegation and has actually retracted his own against Mackris as well as paying her (according to some reports) ten million dollars to go away.
It’s blindingly obvious that O’Reilly made these phone calls and that Mackris had tapes. If she didn’t have tapes then he was an idiot to settle.
No need for ad hominems. The constant hammering you take here from the world of fact is nobody’s fault but your own. The fact that you want desperately for something to be false doesn’t make it false. Shall we continue?
Can I do so without your automatic dismissal that it’s unbiased? Tell me your view is amenable to changing and I’ll go to the trouble.
Apparently you stipulate that she lied about having suffered job discrimination, the basis of the suit? Oops, guess not:
She alleged *no * material facts that were true.
What was that you said about repeating false claims until they become true? You are not only wrong, you are childishly so in refusing to recognize that.
When you have neither the law nor the facts on your side …
You’re better than this. Or so I’ve been used to thinking. Have I been wrong about that?
Given the quantity of conspiracy theories and the large numbers of allegations of various stripes(“we did go to the moon, but not in the time or manner originally broadcast”, etc.) I find it reasonable to suppose there are some which have not been denied, even in the affirmative.
Still, the whole line of arguement bothers me. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The logical thing to do is reserve judgement. Actual claims which can be disproven? Knock yourself out. “Lack of denials” is not significant. december used to do this crap all the time. “Why hasn’t there been some huge outcry about XXXXX! Liberals must hate XXXXX.” It was stupid bullshit when he did it and it is stupid bullshit when you do it.