Posted on 07/04/2013 11:17:11 AM PDT by Kaslin
Rush Limbaugh -- the most powerful talk-show host in America -- just rightly called out Fox News for telling him to avoid talking about immigration. Why would the most fair and balanced television news source do this? Are they trying to shy away from a subject which embarrassed their number-one voice?
For those Americans who still don’t understand the one-thousand page “Gang-of-Eight” immigration bill -- and that would be most Members of Congress, most of the Obama administration and virtually all Americans -- it is critically important for them to go back and watch the June 20th airing of The O'Reilly Factor, where radio talk-show host Laura Ingraham absolutely eviscerated host Bill O'Reilly over his misguided support of this highly-flawed and incredibly damaging piece of legislation.
Is that why Fox News would prefer that Mr. Limbaugh not bring up the subject?
With regard to Mr. O'Reilly and Ms. Ingraham, I hold a rare distinction in that I have been banned by both hosts. With regard to Mr. O’Reilly, I was told that it was because I criticized him a number of years ago in a column I wrote on poverty. As for Ms. Ingraham, it goes way back to the days when I was director of communications for former Senator Bob Dole and politely took her to task over the phone for some sophomoric comments she made regarding the senator.
The irony in all this is that I have a huge amount of respect for both personalities -- thin-skin and all. As a conservative, I happen to think Laura Ingraham -- like Mr. Limbaugh and Mark Levin -- is one of the most important voices out there articulating the need for traditional values, the rule of law, and just plain common sense. With regard to Mr. O’Reilly, I believe his voice to be vitally important for the debates of our times and believe that, more often than not, he does come down on the side of what’s best for the vast majority of Americans.
That said, he could not be more wrong on immigration. Worse than that, he could not have looked more foolish or ill-informed on the subject when Ms. Ingraham took him apart piece by piece on his own program. The segment has already gone viral and become a rallying cry for those Americans desperate to insert some sanity into a bill that sells out national security, the rule-of-law, commonsense, and oh, by the way, the millions of legal immigrants to this country who played by the rules, stood in line, waited their turn, and then proudly raised their right hands to become American citizens.
While the segment with Ms. Ingraham and Mr. O’Reilly should be watched in its entirety, one of the most important exchanges has to do with Mr. O’Reilly’s flawed belief that if the GOP does not cave into this embarrassing piece of legislation, that they will lose the Hispanic-American vote forever.
O’REILLY: “If they are indeed going to do what they say they are going to do on the border…and pay for it…if the Republican party is deemed by the Hispanic-voter to be anti-Hispanic…and it will certainly be spun that way…”INGRAHAM: “Well, if you spin it that way.”
O’REILLY: “I’M not going to spin it that way.”
INGRAHAM: “Well, don’t buy into their narrative. It’s a phony fraudulent narrative.”
O’REILLY: “I live in the real world, and I know what the narrative will be.”
INGRAHAM: “So do I and I read the bill.”
Just by watching that exchange, it’s clear that Mr. O’Reilly is in the tank for this bill and does not know what he is talking about. More than that, despite his denying it, he is in fact joining the chorus of liberals and advocates for illegal immigration screaming that the GOP is “anti-Hispanic,” a notion Ms. Ingraham easily knocked down earlier in the segment when she pointed out: “The Republican Party will win more support in the Latino, Black, female, young-people sector if they start putting forth a pro-growth agenda for the middle-class instead of touting legislation that is going to hammer the middle class.”
Game, set, and match. Mr. O’Reilly would do well to read the bill, admit he was exposed on every front, and then get behind a commonsense solution for the “folks” rather than being used as a propaganda tool by the left.
Better than that, Mr. O'Reilly should invite Mr. Limbaugh onto his program to debate the issue.
I give BOR this much credit, I watched that episode and she did destroy him. Since his show is taped, he could have edited out the dismantling he took, and he didn’t. Or maybe he did, and Laura destroyed him more than we will ever know, LOL
Fast forward 10 days and Laura rinsed and repeated the same beat down on Norm Coleman over the same issue.
bttt
“I tend to watch Fox Business Channel much more than regular Fox.”
Me too. I love Cavuto, I love Charles Payne, I watch Lou Dobbs, I like the Willis show, she’s good. I love to watch Stuart Varney in the morning. And I like most of the other more business oriented shows too. Keeps me up on financial affairs throughout the world. Great channel, FBN.
I just read yesterday an article saying the CNBC channel is dropping in the ratings like a stone. That is NBC’s version of Fox Business News. Not only has FBN now surpassed the older CNBC channel in the ratings war, CNBC’s best programs have all dropped individually in the ratings. Even Larry Kudlow’s show, which I consider the only show on CNBC worth watching. More Freepers, when fed up with what’s on the main Fox News channel, should switch over to FBN and check it out.
Mega dittos to all of them!!
I gave BOR a long long time before I finally switched off. I am patient, but the time came that I decided he was no longer worthy of my attention.
Nope, you're quite wrong.
I don't listen to Greta unless she has a guest that I particularly want to hear, or there's a hot event taking place somewhere. And that eventuality is very rare, indeed.
Here's an excerpt from my FR post # 1395 on last Saturday, June 29, the subject of the thread being the Trayvon trial, and which pre-dates your remark to me of today.
I wrote....."Greta's dumb questions, comments and high-pitched, rapid-fire chirpings have become almost unlistenable....and are as inane as the mentality of her (anti-Zimmerman) guests."
I think her voice is enough to drive even Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes nutty. She is the fingernails on my blackboard.
The rumor is that in fall a new personality will replace one of the pundits who make up the Fox evening line-up....and I'll hazard a guess it's Greta.
I don't dislike her. She's not a conservative, and I can hardly listen to her shrill chirps at all....but I DO hope it's either the obnoxious Shep Smith or the bland vanilla Bret Baier that gets bumped.
Leni
BOR is scared crapless of Rush.
I’m eating crow for the 4th of July. LOL
Being a fish hawk, it should go down your craw pretty easy, heheh.
Leni
>> his strange stances on issues which don’t make sense.
O’Reilly is a part-time man of integrity. The other time, he’s just proud.
“...more often than not, he does come down on the side of what’s best for the vast majority of Americans.”
That statement alone is wholly insulting. We do not need any bloviating, talking head like O’Windbag to tell us what is “best” for us. Mr. Bill doesn’t even live in the real world of ordinary people and never really has. That statement puts him in the same category as every other democrat who “knows what is best” for all of us common rabble.
I don’t want to hear any talking head including Ingraham or Limbaugh telling me what is good for me. Report what you will, comment on it and give your reasoning and I can decide if it is good for me, my family, my country, or not.
Yeah, Shep the queen may be off on Fridays but Fox spreads other nitwits like Jerry Rivers which they spread across their shows. I can tolerate Shep quite a bit more than Rivera and I can’t stand Shep.
You are talking about two completely different Fox news personalities and TV shows. Shep has two shows a day, the first one is Studio B with Shepard Smith which is a look at the biggest stories of the day. Included:Interviews with the top newsmakers. His second show is Fox Report with Shepard Smith, which is: An evening newscast reviewing and analyzing top stories of the day, which can be quite interesting. Geraldo on the other hand is on only once a week (thank God) and not even every week with a show called Geraldo at large, which is sometimes repeated the next evening. I can’t stand him and will change the channel. When he talks he sounds like he has small stones
That’s OK, muh cracka. Of course on the 4th of July it would properly be ‘muh fahr cracka!’ heh
Well said. That’s the problem already, pundits and politicians purporting to know “what’s best for us”-grown people, who deal more with reality, or what is reality for the majority of people, than they ever will. And they’re mostly lying at that, pretending to stand for what’s “best for us”. We know this is true, because amnesty isn’t best for most Americans, yet they push and push it, they never drop it, they bring it up early and often until they finally shove and weasel it through. They’re going to do that-if not this time, then the next time they bring it up. They want it so badly, for their own interests, that it’s going to happen. They are becoming more and more openly and blatantly pro-amnesty, no matter how it harms the majority of Americans. It serves their interests (political, business, whatever), that they’re going to inflict on is, one way or another, before they consider the issue over and done with.
So, added to the insult of purporting to know what’s best for us all, they’re lying on top of it.
LOL! I’ll have to do the “muh cracka” first, or he’ll never “get it”. He pays absolutely zero attention to politics or current events, in a fatalistic way. He’s probably right.
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.