aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

On the O’Reilly/Media Matters contretemps

Media Matters had an O’Reilly-is-a-racist report on Friday that immediately caught fire in the blogosphere.

I’m glad I missed it. While, generally speaking, I shy away from calling people racist, had I seen it I may have been swept up in it.

I am no fan of Bill O’Reilly; I am a fan of Media Matters.

I only caught up and tuned in when I happened on to this morning’s Matt Lauer Today Show interview of Media Matters’ Paul Waldman. I was wholly unimpressed with Waldman. When asked by Lauer about the possibility that O’Reilly’s comments could be understood in a more benign light, Waldman said:

WALDMAN: Well that’s fine for [O’Reilly] to give that message but what I think is really instructive was the reaction that he had when people started to raise some objections or raise their eyebrows at this… he lashed out… he criticized Media Matters. He said we smeared him just because we put up his words on a website…

LAUER: Well wait a second are you criticizing now for his reaction to the controversy? Shouldn’t we stick to the controversy in the first place?

WALDMAN:..and he attacked CNN and he attacked MSNBC and NBC. This is what Fox News does. They reacted as though they were partisan political actors and not somebody, people who are trying to be a legitimate news organization. They said it was all liberal news outlets who were trying to drum up ratings.

Forgive me, but don’t we have here a pot calling a kettle black? I’m all for liberals calling out Conservatives for any racist proclivities, but I am not looking to manufacture faux controversies by taking advantage of or purposefully misconstruing someone’s words.

Waldman never claimed there was anything demonstrably racist in what O’Reilly said - in fact, he specifically said, “it’s not about whether he’s making racist statements” - he kept the focus on O’Reilly’s incendiary reaction. That is a tried and true Right Wing media strategy; and not one I admire or respect. It’s not legitimate and not something I like seeing my liberal fellows mimic.

We claim we want a dialog on race but then pounce on anyone who dares to try. That is not a recipe for successfully addressing the race problem in America.

LATER: Crooks and Liars disagrees. And has the video.