On his Monday night broadcast, “The O’Reilly Factor” host Bill O’Reilly used his “Talking Points Memo” segment to respond to accusations from FoxSports.com columnist Jason Whitlock that he was acting as a “slave overlord,” calling Whitlock’s charge “pure racism.”
OWe are living in a country that is rapidly changing,” O’Reilly said. “Rules of civility are pretty much finished. While America has always embraced robust debate, now there are elements on both the left and the right which are using disgraceful tactics to demean those with whom they disagree. Some examples: The Supreme Court is now going to hear the gay marriage issue. Some of those who support expanding the definition of marriage are accusing those who oppose it of being human rights violators, bigots, homophobes. So if you hold a belief that traditional marriage should have a special place in society, you’re a hater according to the haters.”
But it was Whitlock who drew O’Reilly’s ire in how he handled critics of his column reacting to Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher’s suicide earlier this month.
“Likewise, if in criticizing President Obama,” O’Reilly continued. “There are fanatical left wingers who say, ‘Those who disagree with President Obama are doing so because he’s black.’ It’s a racial deal. That kind of tactic should be condemned by all Americans. Let me give you a very vivid recent situation that is simply unacceptable. This man, sportswriter Jason Whitlock, who actually works for Foxsports.com injected race into the Kansas City Chiefs murder-suicide. Whitlock said that unnamed forces in America want guns in the black communities so that people of color could destroy each other. Whitlock went on to call the NRA, quote, ‘The new KKK.’ That, of course, is insane. And the only reason anybody ever heard about it is because Bob Costas mentioned Whitlock in his gun commentary on NBC.”
O’Reilly said he invited Whitlock on his program as a guest, but Whitlock declined and attacked O’Reilly for inviting him on Foxsports.com.
But it appears I was summoned to testify before Speaker of The Big House Bill O’Reilly, the FOX News entertainer. O’Reilly is fixated on the mistake I made on the Tom Joyner show. O’Reilly spent part of his Tuesday show telling his viewers that I was afraid to come on “The Factor” and discuss my views on the NRA, the Second Amendment and gun culture.
I’m a grown-ass man and it’s 2012. I don’t have to shuffle off to the Big House when summoned. O’Reilly is not Boehner, Pelosi or Obama. He’s a TV entertainer who has spent the weeks after the election crying about the end of “white establishment” America, the end of the days when an upstanding white man felt entitled to summon whomever he wanted whenever he wanted to the Big House to dance.
I don’t dance.
“Now, that is pure racism — nothing else,” O’Reilly said of Whitlock’s response. “Whitlock implying that I am some kind of slave overlord, and he gets away with that kind of garbage. In fact, he gets paid to spout it. Way beyond disgraceful. That’s poison, but not unusual. Hate speech now happening all the time. There comes a point when all good people must say enough. That point has now been reached in America. The Jason Whitlocks of the world deserve pity, but they also deserve to be exposed. They’re using base emotion to try to injure people. They are liars, and they are abusing freedom of speech. This stuff has got to stop.”