Farenheit 911
by kos
Tue Jun 15th, 2004 at 12:25:24 EDT
Tom Tomorrow went to the NY premier of Moore's new move, and lived to tell the story. From what he could tell, O'Reilley couldn't handle the truth and left early.
And speaking of O'Reilley, remember when Republicans were outraged that anyone would use Nazi imagery against their political enemies? Remember how MoveOn.org was an "extremist" organization because of two losing submissions to the Bush in 30 Seconds contest that morphed Bush into Hitler?
Well, funny how the Hitler analogies come easy to the other side.
From the June 10 broadcast of The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:
O'REILLY: Joseph Goebbels was the Minister of Propaganda for the Nazi regime and whose very famous quote was, "If you tell a lie long enough, it becomes the truth." All right? "If you tell a lie long enough, it becomes the truth."
And that's what Stuart Smalley [O'Reilly regularly refers to Franken as Stuart Smalley, a character Franken created on Saturday Night Live], and Michael Moore and all of these guys do. They just run around.
O'Reilly then provided what he claimed to be an example of Franken's alleged propaganda; yet in the example O'Reilly provided, Franken was telling the truth:
O'REILLY: Stuart Smalley is actually telling people in the media that he's beating Rush Limbaugh in New York City on the radio.
I mean, it's -- those of us in the media who know -- all right -- is -- Stuart Smalley can -- why don't you just say you're 6'4"? [laughter] OK? I mean, that's how blatant a lie that is. It's just an absolute lie. And people just stare -- you just stare at that. And he runs around, saying it.
As Media Matters for America previously noted, on May 31, The New York Times reported that, among listeners ages 25 to 54, midday ratings for WLIB-AM in New York, which include three hours of Al Franken's radio program, The O'Franken Factor, have been higher than the midday ratings for WABC-AM, which include three hours of The Rush Limbaugh Show.
O'Reilly concluded by smearing Hollywood celebrities who attended the premiere of Fahrenheit 9/11 as equivalent to Goebbels's credulous followers:
O'REILLY: So who turns out for the screening of this movie [Fahrenheit 9/11] last night? You ready? Now, here are the celebrities that turn out. Here are the people who would turn out to see Josef Goebbels convince you that Poland invaded the Third Reich. It's the same thing, by the way. Propaganda is propaganda. OK?
Billy Crystal. Martin Sheen. Leonardo DiCaprio. Ellen DeGeneres. David Duchovny. Sharon Stone. Meg Ryan. Ashton Kutcher. Demi Moore. Norman Lear. Rob Reiner. Jodie Foster. Chris Rock. Larry David. Jack Black. Matthew Perry. Diane Lane.
On his FOX News Channel show that same day, O'Reilly continued the Nazi analogy by comparing Moore to infamous Nazi-propaganda filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl.
This movie will be big. The Right is afraid. And when they are afraid, they bring out the big artillery.
And seriously, what's a harsher attack than calling someone a Nazi?
I smell fear and desperation.
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