I can’t believe O’Reilly is going after Free Republic. Any vile or inappropriate comments on this site seem to be removed within a split second - the moderators here are the best! And I also feel like a dope for all the defending of O’Reilly that I’ve done on this site.
I think he’s going WAY out of his way to prove that he’s “fair and balanced”, going after the left and right alike. But he has no basis whatsoever for attacking this site.
O’Reilly did concede to Kristinn that the hate remarks were a small part and/or planted. But the overall impression was that FR is a site with a lot of hate speech. He also said he researched threads about himself on FR and they were vile.
Two possibilities here:
1) He outright lied about the two "hateful" posts in question today that he supposedly "found."
2) He instructed one of his employees to sign up today specifically to make those posts to "prove" that FR is a "hate site."
If O’R spent any time reading the threads on this site he would see that, yes ,an obscene remark is made now and then but it is pulled rather quickly and the space where the remark was made states that it was pulled. There is some flame throwing on some links and most of us just read the articles that appeal to us. And there are lurkers ( I wonder if O’R knows what a lurker is) and there are trolls to be sure. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are conservative talk show personalities who read these posts too. It will be interesting to hear remarks on Talk radio tomorrow.
If O’R really spent any time reviewing many of the different kinds of threads on this site, he would find that the Freepers are by an large, a group of folks who when chips are down help each other too! Bet his mail bag will be full tomorrow!