Bill Press: Anti-Islam Filmmakers 'As Guilty as the Terrorists' Who Killed Americans in Libya

NewsBusters.org ^ | September 16, 2012 | Jack Coleman

[Kaslin]

Radio host Bill Press is determined to win the title of most useful idiot to the jihad.

With his most recent lunacy this past Friday, Press is well on his way. (Audio clip after page break)

Behold, what passes for wisdom from the warped wasteland known as liberal radio (audio) --

Now here's the question though and the question that I ask you and it's not an easy one, I understand that.  What, if anything, should happen to the people who made this video? I gotta tell you, I think they are as guilty, that's my opinion, I think they are as guilty as the terrorists who carried out those attacks against our embassy in Libya. Look, we don't know everybody who was involved, but we've seen, I've seen some of them on television. This is a group of extremist, Muslim-hating, so-called Christians in southern California who are using their religion to stir up hatred against Islam. They're basing this on their Christian beliefs. They are, I believe, every bit as guilty as al Qaeda members who, think about it, who use the Koran and abuse their religion to stir up hatred against the United States. These so-called Christians, anybody who uses religion to stir up hate, is not a true believer. And certainly Christians who do so are not true Christians.

So these so-called Christians using their faith to stir up hatred against another of the world's great religions, it is absolutely disgusting and they've gotta know, they had to know what would result in that. After what happened with those Danish cartoons, right, or cartoons drawn for that Danish newspaper. After what happened with that nutjob Terry Jones down in Florida burning the Koran and people getting killed in Afghanistan over the protest that that, that that triggered. After what happened when we saw the video of American troops urinating on Muslim soldiers, right? After that, you had, they had to know that a video like this, not saying that the Muslims are not overreacting. I mean, they're hypersensitive about this stuff, I mean, Jesus, you know, just cool it, right? I mean, we show Jesus naked all the time hanging on the cross.

But, at any rate, their reaction is way overblown. But these, I hate to call them Christians, these so-called Christians had to know that that video would result in certain parts of the world, it would result in violence, it would result in lives being lost. I think, again, they are every bit as guilty and I think the United States, this is not freedom of speech. It's just the old thing, you can't cry fire in a crowded theater and have people trampled to death and say, oh, I was just exercising my freedom of speech. This is an abuse of the First Amendment. It's using, abusing their freedom of speech to cost innocent lives and to cause the taking of innocent lives in certain parts of the world. So, I think the United States ought to identify, yeah, we oughta be going after these terrorists that carried out the attacks in Libya and we are. I think we also ought to be identifying the people who made this video and go after them with the full force of the law and lock their ass up.

Press starts with a shaky premise and it's downhill from there. By the end of the week, as even the most oblivious had to be aware, it looked more likely that the attack on the US consulate in Libya was retaliation for the drone killing of al Qaeda's second in command, a native-born Libyan.

But even if the attackers in Libya were motivated by anger over the "Innocence of Muslims" video, does Bill Press actually want to allow "hypersensitive" Islamists to dictate what Westerners are allowed to upload to YouTube? Surely it doesn't take much imagination to see the censorious demands not ending there.

After "The Satanic Verses" came out in 1988 and the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the death of its author, Salman Rushdie, enraged Muslims murdered a Japanese translator and tried to kill two other people connected to the book's publication. Was Rushdie complicit in that onslaught, Mr. Press? Seeing how there cannot possibly be a statute of limitation for offenses against Islam, Rushdie must still be as guilty as those who responded to his book with violence against others, at least by Press's illogic.

Arguably the most bizarre of Press's remarks is that the filmmakers behind this video are "every bit as guilty as al Qaeda members" who "abuse their religion to stir up hatred against the United States." That's a rather tepid description of what al Qaeda has actually done over the last decade and a half, don't you think? I'd venture to say they went far beyond the "stir" stage some time ago in favor of full-scale mass murder.

Anyone who equates drawing a provocative cartoon as akin to beheading the cartoonist was lost to relativism a long, long time ago. Sigmund Freud once observed that civilization began with the first man hurling an insult instead of a rock.

This isn't yelling fire in a crowded theater, as Press claims. It's about being able to show a movie in that theater without jihadists burning it down.

[pallis]

Press is just short-witted enough to think Islamic rage is because of a non-movie. Sorry Bill, but your boy Obama screwed up, like usual. The Muslim Brotherhood scheme was idiocy, and it has backfired on the fraud who would be king. Man up to it.

[driftless2]

What a shock: all the people calling for censorship and abrogation of the constitution turn out to be card-carrying liberals. Reveals the petty, totalitarian minds of these creeps. Inside the body of every lib-leftist beats the heart of a fascist bursting to get out.

[Jimmy Valentine's brother]

Press is suffering from a crainial-rectal inversion.

Believe you ment cranial-rectal insertion,

[scooby321]

Arrest the makers of Dark Knight?

[FlingWingFlyer]

Excellent point!

[jazusamo]

Only in the liberal leftist mind of Press and those like him is this an abuse of the First Amendment.

Leftists fully stand behind the First Amendment for themselves but abandon it when it doesn't suit their agenda.

[zencycler]

Anyone public figure who says something like this should immediately be labelled as a RACIST! Holding the West responsible for words or taunts which provoke violent reactions among those in the middle east is casting us in the role of a superior being and them in the role of a wild animal, lacking the inability to control their emotions and therefore the need for full accountability when they don't.

This is the attitude you'd take if a man taunts a bear in the wild and then gets mauled. This is not something you should be saying when talking about relations with other human beings, all of whom should be viewed as equals, regardless of their race or nationality.

I'm sure, for example, that Press would not have made comments like this if any Mormons had reacted violently to the vile comments made about their religion by O'Donnell, and then caused harm to either him or anyone else at MSNBC. It's clear to see, in that hypothetical, that any such comments would universally by labelled as bizarre and outrageous. But it's a useful comparison, as it reveals the racist nature of such comments in this case.

[zencycler]

therefore the need for full accountability when they don't.

To clarify, I meant - and therefore also lacking the need for full accountability when they don't - in that sentence.

[Irenic]

Bill Press....poor thing.

[SkyDancer]

Didn’t Bill Mahr make an anti-Islamic video back in 2008 or there about??

[lentulusgracchus]

[Article] Press starts with a shaky premise and it's downhill from there.

It would be nice if he could learn to organize his thoughts first and speak in complete sentences.

The inability to speak standard English and the inability to think rationally seem to be closely linked. So why is this guy wealthy and famous, again?

[Americanexpat]

Hillary and the Admin are using this film to cover their own bungling efforts at foreign policy. Rommney and Ryan need to be all over this everyday.

[OrioleFan]

And Obama constantly spiking the ball over Bin Laden’s death is less important than a movie practically no one has seen? Press is auditioning for Carney’s job.

[GeronL]

I guess he wants those who made the Dark Knight to be prosecuted for that theater shooting too?

dummie

[jazzlite]

There is an army of people out here who think Bill Press and his ilk are responsible for those deaths because of their hard left, bring America to her knees views.

[lentulusgracchus]

Bill Press is essentially calling for [Sharia law] without the faintest idea that he is doing it.

Oh, yeah -- and ignorant, too. That's the other thing.

[Old North State]

This notion that ‘crying fire in a crowed theater’ is the standard that allows the government to justify censorship of published material is a red herring. The standard is one of clear and present danger to public safety. Documents and films do not in any sense create a ‘present’ danger. You cannot claim that your safely is at immediate risk because of something you see or hear or read on a medium. That some people become enraged and moved to violence is a reaction completely under the control of even the most fanatical of the extremists. They are certainly not motivated by fear for their lives of safety, but by hate for anyone who does not agree with them; just as Mr. press is motivated by hate for anyone who does not agree with him.

[DB]

Well I hope liberals are paying attention...

Who is it exactly that are ready to give up your and my first amendment rights to placate third world barbarians?

Who is it standing up for basic freedom?

Get a freaking clue!

[silverleaf]

rape and murder are the moral equivalent of questioning religious beliefs?

Bill Press no longer an atheist- now is the perfect muslim convert... death to apostates

[Yardstick]

It's just the old thing, you can't cry fire in a crowded theater..

Sorry Bill, but your analogy sucks.

Yelling fire in crowded theater crosses the line because it prompts an understandable reaction from reasonable people. If instead we establish the limits of speech based on the reactions of crazy people, then all speech is at risk, because crazy people will go nuts over anything.

This is so obvious that even a walnut sized liberal brain should be able to understand it.