Last night, Bill O'Reilly used recent instances of inflamed, occasionally violent liberal protests to give his viewers a lesson in Media Bias 101. Lefties dominate the mainstream press, and are reluctant to cover events that don't suit their agendas, he stated.
"The Mainstream media largely ignores crazy stuff generated by the far left because many media types sympathize with liberal politics." It's hard to put it more succinctly than that. NewsBusters has documented numerous instances of the same trend just in the past few days.
O'Reilly showed a number of clips of just the latest instances of leftist political outrage (video and transcript below the fold). He concluded that "One side gets scrutinized. The other side gets a pass. Awful." Indeed, while it seems one can hardly pick up a newspaper or turn on the television without hearing about the horrible, violent racists in the Tea Party movement, there has been relatively little coverage of the left's violence and vitriol.
Continuing now with our lead story tonight. Political hatred in America. No doubt it's growing. But the mainstream media largely ignores crazy stuff generated by the far left because many media types sympathize with liberal politics. Nevertheless, it is on the left that many disturbing things are occurring. Here are some recent examples.
[Clips of Canadian students protesting against Ann Coulter]
Bill: As we reported last week, conservative pundit Ann Coulter's speech in Ottawa was canceled by rowdy left wing students who didn't want her to speak. The situation was basically ignored except for here on Fox. Here's another example:
[Clips of Code Pink protesters at a Karl Rove event]
Last night in Beverly Hills, a group of Code Pink nuts disrupted Karl Rove's book signing. Police had to be called, the usual stuff. Again, did you see that on many news programs? I did not.
[Louis Farrakhan talking crazy]
A couple of weeks ago black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan once again incited racial hatred in front of 20,000 adoring fans in Chicago. And, once again, FNC was pretty much the only national news organization to cover that story.
[Sarah Palin putting down a protester]
Sarah Palin campaigned for John Mccain last week. Another far left guy tried to interrupt and was ejected from the premises. There he is. media coverage of this? Scant. S-C-A-N-T. Scant. That was a lone nut. No big deal. But it does point out that hatred on the left is bubbling, no question about it.
[Students rioting at UC Davis]
In California, students rioting because they don't like higher fees imposed by the state. While we cannot brand those students left wing loons because we don't know who they are, the odds are they are liberal people who are now getting hammered because California is in bankruptcy. Why? Because of liberal spending policies. Can you say irony? Can those college students spell irony? I don't know.
Truth is, far left violence and bad behavior is all over the place. Yet, do we hear about that on the network news? No. We hear about the tea party people. How bad they're behaving. Yet, where is the tape of that bad behavior? It doesn't exist. As I said, in the talking points memo, there is plenty of hate on both sides, but this is a media scandal. One side gets scrutinized. The other side gets a pass. Awful.
It is awful, but it is not likely to change. The mainstream media has, and will continue to report on the fringe that suits its agenda, ignoring both the mainstream of the Tea Party movement and conservatism generally, and the plethora of wackos on the left.
