Posted on 08/11/2007 1:46:22 PM PDT by kristinn
The Honorable Harold Ford, Jr.
Chairman
Democratic Leadership Council
600 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20003
Dear Rep. Ford,
I appeared with you on the O’Reilly Factor on July 31, 2007, in my capacity as spokesman for FreeRepublic.com to discuss politics on the Internet. The host, Bill O’Reilly, falsely accused FreeRepublic.com of having the following comments on its site: "Homosexuals are dogs," "I hate blacks," "Hillary Clinton should be assassinated," and "A stray bullet should kill her."
To be blunt, those comments were made up by the O’Reilly Factor.
The O’Reilly Factor was not able to provide documentation that those comments appeared on FreeRepublic.com. A request for an on air retraction and apology has been ignored.
Let me assure you that, contrary to how the O’Reilly Factor portrayed FreeRepublic.com to you and the viewing public, FreeRepublic.com is not a site where people feel comfortable posting a comment such as “I hate blacks.”
As I made clear on the broadcast, those alleged comments cited by Mr. O’Reilly would be in violation of our posting guidelines and would not be tolerated by our moderators.
It is unfortunate that the O’Reilly Factor stooped to making up comments to besmirch the reputation of FreeRepublic.com in order to appear ‘fair and balanced’ in its campaign against the Daily Kos. Being that the O’Reilly Factor has declined to correct the record, I am writing you personally so that any misconception you have of FreeRepublic.com is cleared up.
Sincerely,
Kristinn Taylor
Spokesman
FreeRepublic.com
Appealing to their better nature?
I’m not sure they have one...
O'Really. BumP!
O’Reilly is an embarrassment to himself, to Fox. If he thinks ignoring your contacts is going to benefit him, he’s wrong.
I used to watch The Factor 3-4 times a week. Now, after seeing what he has said and done to us without cause or proof...he has lost all credibility with me.
O’Reilly making things up?? Noooooooooooooooooooooooo.
My opinion of O'Reilly has been damaged beyond redemption by his refusal to correct his lies.
Well done.
Harold Ford Jr. and his politically corrupt family are the racist in this picture.
Bill O’Riley fits right in with them.
I’ve seen very occasional comments like that but they never last for more than a few minutes. Between the mods and we the FReeple we do a pretty good job of rooting out the filth.
O’Reilly has lost all credibility in this household. He will say anything to inflate his ratings. He plays both ends against the middle to avoid alienating good and evil alike. He stands for nothing. His moral compass has two negative poles. He calls himself an independent, but in reality he’s a registered charlatan. If he were a politician, he would have to change his last name to Clinton.
As a FOX News contributor, there’s nothing Ford can do. He merely gets paid to give the liberal talking points, and he’s not going to be inclined to help FR anyway. My advice would be to write directly to Andrea Mackris, O’Loud Mouth’s producer.
C'mon EEE, get it right!
I’m glad you wrote Ford because he was as uncomfortable as you just sitting there being used as a prop (as you also were) while BOR(E) blathered on and on trying to show how fair he is trashing KOS—but also FR—in an appearance of balance. I know you were unable to deny or refute BOR’s charges right there, but of course later we learned that he was wrong, citing out of context and being ignorance of idioms (what? making fun of idiots?).
Rush cautions about appearing on these set up shows. Maybe you should pass next time.
I stopped watching The O'Reilly Factor 2-3 years ago because he's too liberal, and because he's clearly become so enchanted with himself that he's lost his willingness to see reality.
I watched your interview on the show, and it appeared to me that O'Reilly was rapidly scanning information he'd been given by his staffers, and with which he hadn't familiarized himself before the show. I think he told his staffers to find any negative posts they could, so he could live up to his (false) "fair and balanced" reputation, and didn't bother to check to see if what they came up with was accurate.
Anyone who spends time on FR knows that statements like those attributed to us are in fact rare and never tolerated. We have integrity that O'Reilly should envy and to which he should aspire.
Roger that.
Well done.
My impression is that Ford is a decent man.
A decent man from a very corrupt family.
An excellent response. I’m glad FR took the time to correct the record instead of letting it go. BOR truly is a bore and a boor.
If inappropriate user comments create a hate site, take a look at the comments on AOL.com’s news stories. There are some truly disturbed people posting there. I’ve reported the worst to the site administrators and have never seen the comments taken down. Of course AOL is still part of the MSM so they probably count on being shielded from bad publicity.
O’Reilly cut the person off by saying it doesn't reach anywhere near the level of KOS and refused to debate the point.
I got the idea that he is backing off the FR smearing without apologizing. Not good enough in my opinion though.
He needs to apologize and set the record straight.
That is my impression of him, too. I still won't vote for him, but that is because I don't agree with him politically.
One thing is for sure, you can't choose your family.
does o reilly have a site at which one may post? I hear he doesn’t even have mods.... hmmmmm....
Bill’s going to try and weasel out of it, since it’s the summer and he’s doing the long weekend kind of vacation (thankfully, Michelle Malkin is there, and boy is she getting good at it!) but sometime this is all going to come back and bite him in the patooty. If he had any sense left, he’d issue an apology and get it over with...but I won’t be standing on one foot waiting for it to happen.
I appreciate what you do, but I thought right after that broadcast that we received links to all the comments, and had shown they were on the site, but were taken out of context.
Since then I’ve been away, but I don’t see how the situation changed....
I’d really like to know what kind of dirt that Whorealdo and Oh’Really have on Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes that keeps those two POS losers of yellow journalism employed.
FNC really needs to rethink that theatrical lineup of presstitutes or it becomes nothing but a CNNPMSNBCCBSABCNPR fictional fiasco as well
Thanks for letting us know.
Great idea!
Great honest letter!
B T T T
With Rather out of the picture...someone has to. /snic
BTTT...
Wasn’t O’Reilly going to provide “proof” of his claims against FR? Whatever happened to that? And if said “proof” wasn’t provided by O’R, what has been done about it?
I saw that...was hoiping you would say...you are full
of it..prove it. Daily Kos is bad..but we are not the
Kos type...I blame the advisors on Fox...they should be in our corner, instead of the crap that OReilly put on
us...JK
You are a class act, kristinn.
O’Reilly`s running down of Free Republic wasn’t warranted. Real classless behavior.
He didn't stand up for his "friend" Dom Imus, so why should he defend FR?
Fox News is the house organ for the Teddy Kennedy wing of the Republican Party and O’Reilly is a charter member of the Bobby Kennedy fan club. If anyone wants to know what O’Reilly’s true politics are, then they need to dig up the comments O’Reilly has made about Bobby Kennedy, BOR worships Bobby. And O’Reilly’ s big ego like RFK’s personalizes everything, as this incident proves. O’Reilly is as every bit as reckless with the truth and twice as RUTHLESS.
Nice letter Kristinn, but you will never see the light of the Oh’Really show again. He is a liar and a fraud.
Pray for W and Our Troops
I have never been able to watch O’Reilly, nor have I been able to understand his appeal to others. I find him o’really irritating.
Very well done!
When O’Reilly and his lawyers bought out the woman who wanted to sue him for sexual improprieties, several folks here on FreeRepublic asked questions about that and suggested that O’Reilly may have sinned. He may never have forgiven FreeRepublic for that. So, quite naturally, any chance he gets to strike a blow at FreeRepublic, he will take. Years ago, I thought he was sincere and a patriot, but his behavior over the years has shown me the mistake of my thinking. He is all about O’Reilly. Many years ago, there was a really terrific film called, “All The King’s Men,” (based on the Robert Penn Warren novel)inwhich the lead character/politician made frequent claim to being one of the folks and to being one who was looking out for the folks. If you haven’t seen that film, let me just say, watch out for anyone who tells you he’s looking out for the folks!
As to Harold Ford, Jr. — Harold, I understand that Don Imus is still looking for you! lol
After having just a couple of letters from FR, at the end of his programs, he conveniently had a few days off and then never mentioned his huge error. This only hurts his overall judgement. He comes off the loser.
I just watched the BOR video. Disgusting. I don’t think I can watch BOR again even by accident after this. He is getting worse.
You know, as a Tennessean when I find myself agreeing 100% on a subject with Harold Ford Jr, then the counter to that must be stuck on stupid for sure.
A personal letter to Ford was the right thing to do. At least he was civil.
Nice letter kristinn.
It certainly wouldn’t be the first time O’Reilly has been way off the mark. For instance, some of the stuff he said about Libby was as if he got his info straight from DU. If he’s not careful, by attacking the hand that feeds him, his ratings are going to be lower than msnbc’s.
Same here. I refuse to watch him again, at least until he sets the record straight.
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