MADDOW: Just like the fake ACORN controversy, Fox News knows that it has a role in this dance. That's not new. That's not actually even interesting about this scandal. Fox does what Fox does.
O'REILLY: Which is kick your network's butt every single night, madam. And you have to be kidding with this fake ACORN scandal stuff. Unbelievable. Do you live in this country?
Maddow responded on her own show on Thursday night: "A host at the FOX News Channel named Bill O`Reilly accuses us of, quote, 'howling' with left-wing indignation over the Shirley Sherrod affair. We respond with subdued, dignified barking and yipping – next." Maddow flagrantly claimed that the ACORN scandal was a fake:
ACORN has been exonerated by prosecutors in New York City and by the attorney general of California and by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Not that you`ve heard any of that reported on Fox.
(Here's what you didn't hear reported on Maddow. Jerry Brown, the leftist Attorney General of California, denounced "partisan" media in his report on ACORN, but also "pointed out that ACORN probably violated state civil laws by disposing of thousands of pages containing confidential information about employees, members and other individuals in a trash bin, failing to file a 2007 state tax return and engaging in four instances of possible voter registration fraud in San Diego." That's hardly an "exoneration" you boast about.)
Maddow also strangely suggested like someone who regularly gets trounced in the ratings that well, O'Reilly is trounced by "Deadliest Catch," SpongeBob, Hannah Montana, and other entertainment programs:
Of course, all of those shows also kill Mr. O`Reilly`s show in the ratings, as well as everything else on Fox, as well as SpongeBob, reruns of "NCIS" and "Hannah Montana, Forever," which is totally understandable. They are more watched than "The O`Reilly Factor," my lord -- which have which is totally immaterial to the discussion at hand, because when you got all kicked your network's butt, and madam on me, you weren`t really trying to tout your network's ratings. You were trying to take the attention off me saying that your network, Fox News, continually crusades on flagrantly bogus stories designed to make white Americans fear black Americans, which Fox News most certainly does for a political purpose even if it upends the lives of individuals like Shirley Sherrod, even as it phrased the fabric of the nation, and even as it makes the American Dream more of a dream and less of a promise.
O'Reilly returned to form on Thursday night, denouncing NBC again, and that "loon" Rachel Maddow in particular:
So Ms. Sherrod got hosed. And then, the story took yet another turn. Let me introduce you to the president of NBC News, Steve Capus. As you may know, NBC News has become the most liberal TV news organization in history thanks to its cable news arm. Mr. Capus has no problem allowing his personnel to wage dishonest personal attacks against pretty much anyone. A major violation of journalistic ethics.
Well, after the Sherrod case was exposed, NBC along with some other far left enterprises blamed the whole thing on Fox News, saying that we ginned up the story ginned up the story to make blacks look bad. I mean, one NBC loon actually said on the air that the coverage of ACORN, the Black Panthers, and Ms. Sherrod was designed to make white Americans scared of black Americans. Who is sponsoring this stuff, "Mad" magazine?
But as it turned out, Fox News was actually cautious when the Sherrod story broke. In his "Washington Post" column today, Howard Kurtz reports that FNC hard news chief Michael Clemente ordered his troops to take things slowly.
"Let's take our time and get the facts straight on this story. Can we get confirmation and comments from Sherrod before going on-air? Let's make sure we do this right."
Does that sound like a conspiracy to harm black Americans to you? So I assume Steve Capus will go on the Brian Williams broadcast and apologize to Fox News.
We are looking forward to that. As I said last night, it was I who made the big mistake as far as Fox News is concerned. Me. I failed to read the entire transcript of Ms. Sherrod's remarks, not good, no excuses. And I apologized yesterday to Ms. Sherrod. The bottom line is she deserves to be treated fairly by the media, but so does Fox News.
NBC News is getting crushed by FNC, crushed. And that means they lose millions of dollars every quarter in revenue. That's why Capus and his character assassins do what they do. If you can't beat them, slime them. And that's the Memo.
