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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (9879)	5/1/2004 1:56:22 AM
From: Sultan	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 20773

lol.. Feud escalates between Toronto columnist and right-wing U.S. commentator JOHN MCKAY Canadian Press Friday, April 30, 2004 TORONTO (CP) - Should an escalating spat between a right-wing U.S. media personality and a Toronto TV columnist be added to the agenda of cross-border irritants Prime Minister Paul Martin and U.S. President George W. Bush will thrash out during their meeting Friday in Washington? After all, the issues that currently divide many Canadians and Americans - from the Iraq war to same-sex marriages - seem to be embodied in the verbal mud-slinging between Fox News Channel commentator Bill O'Reilly and the Globe and Mail's John Doyle. O'Reilly was once the nice-guy host of TV's syndicated Inside Edition, but now to many resembles an ultra-conservative shark on a political feeding frenzy, taking on all comers on his Fox TV program, as well as on his radio show and in columns and books. In his Wednesday online column (www.billoreilly.com), he proposed a boycott of Canada and its products if two U.S. military deserters who fled to Canada are given the asylum they've requested. He has, as well, called Canadians dishonest pinheads - and worse. O'Reilly decided to take on Doyle after the columnist endorsed a proposal before the CRTC to bring the Fox News Channel into Canada, adding that Canadian TV viewers needed a good laugh. "O'Reilly makes our Ed the Sock look like a reasonable chap," Doyle wrote in his Thursday column, which he began by calling Fox News and its supporters "the lunatic fringe of the American culture." Earlier in the week, Doyle wrote that Canadians should find out for themselves if "this Bill O'Reilly fella is as stupendously pompous and preening as he appears to be in the rare clips we see of Fox News." Such an attitude seemed to infuriate O'Reilly, who then invited several Globe columnists onto his shows. He called the Globe a far-left paper and Doyle a Canadian intellectual. O'Reilly has also written about the Chretien administration's disdain for Bush, the Canadian media's "brutal" treatment of the United States and even the incident in which some Montreal hockey fans booed the American national anthem. "Do the Canadian people have any idea how close they are to serious pain?" he asked, adding that "storm clouds are gathering to the south . . . it's going to get mighty cold mighty fast west of the St. Lawrence." This is the same O'Reilly who earlier this year ejected from his show some relatives of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks because they opposed U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. In fact, O'Reilly not only kicked them off the show, but also threatened to tear them to pieces for being anti-American. He also urged his supporters to initiate a writing campaign at Doyle's expense. Many obeyed, apparently, flooding Doyle's e-mail box with hundreds of hateful retorts, many of them with expletives to be deleted. Even the New York Times paid attention with an article this week that reprinted many of the postings. "You're lucky we don't attack Canada next. We hate communists here," wrote John from Virginia. "Canadians are worthless. Canadian equals coward," added Steve, who advised Doyle to stay away from Texas. But the hate mail was also followed by a flood of missives from sympathetic Americans, according to Doyle. "I think most of these people live in parts of the country that CSI couldn't use for their storylines because all the DNA is the same and there are no dental records," wrote Jami from Omaha. "The people who trust Fox News are the religiously insane, the rabid conservatives and those with the attention span of a cocker spaniel being shown a card trick," contributed Steven. On the flip side, O'Reilly made public a supportive note from a Canadian: "We need fair and balanced news from Fox because the Globe and Mail and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation are so far left. "Please don't use my name because I don't want the government to know that I'm illegally watching Fox on the satellite." In one of his columns last week, Doyle again made the point that Fox News Channel is "the most hilarious thing on American TV since Seinfeld," adding that the service's supporters would "give soccer hooligans a run for their money." But he has persisted with his lighter touch in contrast to what he calls the hectoring hysteria south of the border. He even quoted the Irish poet Yeats (both Doyle and O'Reilly have Irish roots): "Our hearts have not grown brutal from the fray." © The Canadian Press 2004

To: epicure who wrote (9879)	5/1/2004 2:00:35 AM
From: Sultan	Respond to of 20773

Here is the followup column.. And the laugh was still there John Doyle, well into his allotted 15 minutes south of the border, went toe-to-toe with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly and his ilk. Now he finds himself swamped with notes from sympathetic Americans who are frankly embarrassed for some of their countrymen By JOHN DOYLE Thursday, April 29, 2004 - Page R1 Let's start with a conclusion. The Fox News Channel, its chief ranter Bill O'Reilly and the channel's rabid followers are the lunatic fringe of the American culture. I can say this with certainty because I've now got an earful from O'Reilly several times over, but I've also heard from thousands of American readers who view Fox News and O'Reilly with utter loathing and deep embarrassment. Contd... theglobeandmail.com