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O'Reilly Lies on "Fresh Air"

A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY

I just read the "Reader Commentary" with comments from three readers about Bill O'Reilly's appearance on "Fresh Air". I decided to listen to the interview, and less than 6 minutes into it, heard O'Reilly defending his treatment of Jeremy Glick -- the son of a 9/11 victim, thrown off the show by O'Reilly after the interview was cut short on February 5, 2003.

I had seen the Feb. 5th program and I didn't think O'Reilly was fair -- he clearly didn't want to hear what Glick had to say. In the "Fresh Air" interview, O'Reilly blamed Terry Gross's misunderstanding about what happened on the fact that she read only a partial transcript in Harper's Magazine. He suggested she read the full transcript, which he said was "easily available." I can't find it on his website (no search feature) or on the Fox News website (just the transcript of a teaser from the night before about the show with Glick) but I did find it on the web site www.oreilly-sucks.com. I was not surprised to discover that O'Reilly lied in the "Fresh Air" interview.

First, he said that Glick called what happened on 9/11 an "alleged attack" (quote, unquote is how O'Reilly put it to Terry Gross). But Glick referred to "the alleged assassination and the murder of my father and countless of thousands of others." If I give Glick every benefit of the doubt, the assassination comment could refer to something apart from 9/11 ... but even if we assume Glick is just challenging the characterization of the event as an assassination, O'Reilly is lying on "Fresh Air" when he says Glick called it an "alleged attack." That makes it sound like Glick didn't think the attack happened -- clearly defamatory toward Glick.

Then, O'Reilly says that Glick blamed Bush the First and Bush the Second for "orchestrating the attack on their own country." A lie -- the word " orchestrate" never appears in the transcript. What Glick blamed on the Georges was "training militarily, economically, and situating geopolitically the parties involved ... " Despite O'Reilly's continued interruptions, Glick did manage to make clear that he was talking about "the people that trained a hundred thousand Mujahdeen ... radical extremists who were trained by this government."

When Glick mentioned our government's training of the Mujahdeen (which, although Glick didn't mention it, included Osama Bin Ladin) O'Reilly said "I don't want to debate world politics with you ... I don't really care what you think." Later, O'Reilly says, "I'm not going to debate this with you."

Shortly thereafter, Glick's mic is cut off and he is, apparently, thrown out of the studio.

A BuzzFlash Reader

A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY