April 2, 2010

Bill O’Reilly Defends Al Franken?

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Yes, you read that right. Bill O’Reilly, the bloviating face of Fox News, actually came to the (somewhat) defense of Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) the other night on his wildly popular show. O’Reilly was speaking with Jason Mattera, editor of Human Rights, about the latter’s recent ambush of Franken (a classic O’Reilly tactic, of course) in an airport and interrogating him on the recently passed health care bill, without ever letting a dismayed Franken actually respond. Shockingly, O’Reilly scolded Mattera, who, as evidence of his intellectual rigor, previously claimed the left’s notion of freedom consists of “smoking cocaine,” for the Franken stunt: “The mistake you made,” O’Reilly intoned, “was you were disrespectful for him—to him, when you called him ‘Sen. Smalley,’ and you gave him a reason to blow you off.”

Here’s the video of the exchange, courtesy of Talking Points Memo:

OK, so O’Reilly was just giving Mattera some helpful hints, in father-like way, on how best to be a pesky right-wing journalist. Still, maybe Bill’s warming to that loveable senator from Minnesota after all.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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