From a Campaign Press Release:
WASHINGTON - Presidential Candidate Chris Dodd will appear on Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor tomorrow, August 1st in advance of attending the YearlyKos convention in Chicago to personally respond to O’Reilly’s attacks on the progressive blogosphere. As Greg Sargent of TPM Café writes, Dodd will be “the first Presidential candidate to personally appear on a leading right-wing show for the explicit purpose of defending the liberal blogosphere.” Last week, Dodd’s campaign was quick to point out the hypocrisy in O’Reilly’s attack on DailyKos for the objectionable language used by a handful of commenters on the site.
Tparty over at MLN puts this into perspective:
Three years ago, John Kerry took Daily Kos off of his site’s blogroll after a manufactured controversy. Last year, the traditional media willingly piled on to a manufactured controversy in the Lamont-Lieberman race, and the Democratic establishment remained silent. This year, the candidates are racing to see who can be the first to defend the netroots against the same type of attack. This is progress.
Update: To add, Sen. Dodd will become the first candidate (not campaign spokesperson) to go on Fox News for the explicit purpose of defending the blogosphere. The interview is scheduled for tomorrow night.
Not much I can add to that. I can’t stand Bill O’Reilly but I may have to tune in for this.
After his appearance Dodd heads to Yearly Kos where he’ll participate in the Candidate Forum, and a meet and greet event with Ned Lamont. I’m signed up for Dodd’s candidate breakout session and will have a full report when I get back from Chicago.
19 responses so far ↓
I’m very curious about what the response of the progressive blogosphere will be to Dodd’s actions. It’s a good try, but I think that too many still have their hearts set on Edwards for him to make much headway.
Dodd is smart to have Ned campaigning with him at Kos. No one better to have with you at the convention.
This is what I’ve always liked about him. I hope his appearance goes well. O’Reilly doesn’t play fair or even honorably on his show, so it’s going to be hard to come off well.
>>O’Reilly doesn’t play fair or even honorably on his show
It was O’Reilly alone that saved those students at Duke; and it was his staff that went to the mat for Staff Sargent Mike Salter.
It was O’Reilly alone that saved those students at Duke; and it was his staff that went to the mat for Staff Sargent Mike Salter.[/quote]
O’Reilly did not ’save’ the Duke kids alone. That’s absurd. I know former Duke lacrosse players, none of them attribute O’Reilly to saving anything, alothough it’s a perfect example of how he’d love to take credit for something like this,…he’s the embodiment of dellusions of granduer.
>>O’Reilly did not ’save’ the Duke kids alone
No one else picked up that story for weeks. Had Fox / O`Reilly not stayed on it there’s no telling what might have happened.
The defense lawyers saved the Duke students. O’Reilly was working on his ratings.
Back to the point of this thread for a moment if I may… am I not right in recalling that there was some post on O’Reilly’s blog that appeared to be a threat to Hillary Clinton? Didn’t the MLNers go bananas over that, trying to tie it to O’Reilly? But now they get upset because he’s called the “progressive” blogosphere out on being crass?
He may have a point here. I mean, let’s look at My Left Nutmeg. The very theme of their site is a genital metaphor… purely hilarious to the puerile among us. “Where CT Dems come to scratch that progressive itch.”
I have always thought that the poor bastards over there were in need of some sort of cream or powder for that itch. Maybe a round of penicillin.
Anyhow, you can find lots of crude language in their threads. So what? It cheapens the discourse they are participating in. I suppose it can’t be helped. When your intellectual quiver is empty, drop an F-Bomb.
It’s empowering!
Good God Headless, take a look at your own blog if you want to talk about crass and juvenile…
[quote comment="16743"]Good God Headless, take a look at your own blog if you want to talk about crass and juvenile…[/quote]
I knew you were a reader. I just knew it. And now everyone else does too.
I might be crass and juvenile! But I don’t swear
hey True Blue - talk about the pot calling the kettle black (oops.. was that rascist???)
give it a rest already …
The progressives are about the most foul mouthed - crass and sophomoric folks I have ever run across. It’s all negative nastiness - I see it on every lefty blog I have come across. They have no clue what civil discourse is about. The only way they know how to debate the issues is to marginalize or vilify their opposition - and they prove it everyday. Daily KOS should be called Daily GROSS.
I have to say to that when I was helping with various campaigns last year going door to door, the registered Democrats were the rudest and most unfriendly and the Republicans and unaffiliateds were always very nice when answering the door. That’s the truth.
But I only chalk it up to their mass disappointment and frustration.
Their own party has been a failure to them - and one only has to look at Congress to see the trail of Democrat broken promises.
Poor Dems - even with a majority they can’t get their act together.
and that goes for our state legislature as well.
On the other hand, I do agree that lots of Republicans, nationally and locally, have not lived up to Conservative ideals either.
In any case, rude and crass language which appears on KOS and on other lefty blogs really are unappealing and unnecessary. I try to hear both sides - but I refuse to listen to trash talk.
I have to agree with HH on this one.
It isn’t just liberal blogs, Republitarian. Conservative blogs and forums are just as bad–take a look at this Free Republic thread if you don’t believe me, or take a look at LittleGreenFootballs or RedState (although RS is less obnoxious). Being an asshole knows no ideology.
I’ll get hit for this, but Kos and O’Reilly use the same tactics to attack their enemies. They are the same.
I met Kos at the New Democrat Network meeting in 2006 when I was supporting Lieberman and he was, obviously, behind Ned. I actually found him to be a reasonable guy who was surprisingly respectful. I’m often surprised by some of the more offensive and ridiculous things he’s said.
I have no doubt that Kos is our version of Ann Coulter, but I don’t see Keith Olbermann on his show attributing her comments to every Republican. O’Reilly’s been incredibly unfair and I’m looking forward to seeing Dodd take him on.
That’s pretty interesting about Kos, jsrgnt, especially considering his public opinions about Lieberman.
I’ll amend what I said above by saying that O’Reilly does seem to take his madness a little further than most. I worry that Dodd is going to have a hard time with him–he’s very good at what he does.
Kos isn’t an O’Reilly or a Coulter. He has a basic regard for the truth, and lives in a fact-based world. Plus the front page of DailyKos is always civil. (but admittedly rough).
And Senator Dodd will have no problem with O’Reilly. When caught out on his crap, BillO always resorts to sheer bullying. Only it’s near impossible to bully a Senator with Dodd’s experience without coming off as an asshole.
I am very much looking forward to this. I saw the segment last night Bill did with Kristinn from FreeRepublic where he told Kristinn “You should ask your readers to donate money to hire a moderator who will delete hateful comment, I’m sure your readers would do that?”
Yeaaah,…..a site called free republic is gonna solicit donations to hire someone to censor the people donating. Bill is brilliant.
The thing about O’Reilly to me is this. He only really attacks people who attack him personally. In other words, you’re a threat to America according to Bill if you call Bill on his bullshit. His criticisms rarely have anything to do with the Constitution or how government operates. Sure he does criticize those things, but he saves his most righteous indignation for like some noname Jon Doe from the Kansas City Observer as being public enemy of America #1 for maybe pointing out Bill’s hypocrisy on an issue.
I called into his show once on the radio and told the call screener this. The call screener said, “I’ve been working for this guy for 4 years and you are absolutely correct, hold on, I’m putting you on the air.”
Needless to say, Bill hung up on me.
>>The defense lawyers saved the Duke students. O’Reilly was working on his ratings.
If that were true, than why didn’t Salter’s case ever make the air?
Fox/O’Reilly didn’t care - they went out of their way and accomplished what no one else did or could.
Some people just do the right thing for no reason other than it *is* the right thing to do.
[quote post="795"]Some people just do the right thing for no reason other than it *is* the right thing to do.[/quote]
Bill O’Reilly isn’t one of them.
[quote comment="16799"]>>The defense lawyers saved the Duke students. O’Reilly was working on his ratings.
If that were true, than why didn’t Salter’s case ever make the air?
Fox/O’Reilly didn’t care - they went out of their way and accomplished what no one else did or could.
Some people just do the right thing for no reason other than it *is* the right thing to do.[/quote]
Salter went to Duke? Or was he prosecuted by Nifong? Come on ACR!!!
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