O'Reilly The Historian??

Sorry about the vanity. It is my first and hopefully my last, but this has me pretty well boiling.

I did a real double take this evening during Bill O'Reilly's conversation with General Wesley Clark. Talking about past incidents of wartime atrocities, O'Reilly twice mentioned Malmedy. The first time I merely thought it was out of place in what otherwise seemed to be a listing of atrocities committed against American troops. However, when Clark pushed him a little, O'Reilly spouted on about Malmedy being a massacre of SS Troops by Americans. It was, of course, precisely the opposite, but the learned Mr. O'Reilly seemed not to know that, nor did General Clark correct him. How dumb are we getting? Doesn't O'Reilly claim to have once taught history?

Sorry I didn't reply to this sooner.

Yes, what you pasted is exactly what the FNC website shows. The problem is, O'Reilly definitely said "Malmedy" on the air -- and the next night, answered a viewer mail about his incorrect assertions about Malmedy -- so, yes -- the transcript appears to have been scrubbed.

They changed it. Twice.

Upthread, there's a copy & paste from someone who saw it when it said Normandy.

I'm watching Olbermann's 9 am repeat right now, and he's covering it.

Obviously, the links I can find for the story at the moment (googling for things like malmedy transcript) all lead to liberal-leaning blogs, so if you want to believe that Olbermann is making it all up, that's your perogative -- though, I'd be surprised if there weren't screen captures of the transcript floating around -- but I did click to see the transcripts at Fox News when this was first reported, and they DID say "Normandy" then, and they now say "Malmedy." I don't blame you for wanting to see it with your own eyes to believe it, but I've seen it, and I think it's disgusting.

I'm not one of those people who think public apologies need to be made by O'Reilly or anything like that -- though, would it kill him to admit he screwed up -- but I think news organizations have pretty much a scared obligation to have their transcripts reflect actual reality, and to never change a transcript except to fix actual errors -- not to change words to what the person speaking meant to say.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.