Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
O'Reilly had Chris Dodd on to yell at him for going to YearlyKos. Dodd brought up O'Reilly having said that the US shouldn't protect San Francisco in case of a terrorist attack, that we should let them bomb that city. O' Reilly throws a fit and says that he didn't say that on his TV show. He's right, he said it on his radio show.
And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.
Video of the confrontation with Dodd below the fold:
Comments
The funny thing is that in the next segment, Dennis Miller came on and criticized a) Dodd being on the show in the first place, and b) the lack of substance of the topic of conversation. But both were actually Billo's fault as he invited him on the program and immediately made KOS the topic of discussion. Why did bill do both these things? Because he knows they would lead to a dog fight, major TV fireworks. He does this kind of thing all the time - his show is utter sensationalism, only interested in entertaining rather than informing. Also this will give him something to hammer democrats about in the coming weeks rather than spend airtime on more important issues like the Gonzales debacle.
Posted by: Aaron | August 6, 2007 11:31 AM
Dodd should go back on and profusely apologize for mistakenly claiming what BillO had said on TV... and the go on to read BillO's radio quote about Al Qaida and San Francisco verbatim.
Posted by: tacitus | August 6, 2007 11:52 AM
Where I'm not sure that Dodd is right is when he says that the real issue is that O'Reilly objects to the ideology on Kos. O'Reilly is a calculating demagogue. He and his staff know his audience and they need to gin up a controversey for each show. I don't believe O'Reilly has any genuine respect for his own viewers; I don't believe he cares about where Chris Dodd appears or what he believes. I think that O'Reilly cares about ratings and making as much money as he can. I don't believe he cares about how deeply he compromises himself to further those ends.
O'Reilly would like his viewers to think of him as a newsman who got sick of liberalism at the networks. But O'Reilly's beefs with the network had nothing to do with politics. When he left straight news in 1989, he did so to host Inside Edition, a tabloid/gossip program. At that point, O'Reilly gave a clear signal that sleazy showmanship and money were more important to him than serious reporting. He made the jump from serving consumers of news to serving consumers of titillating rubbish. Obviously, he liked the rewards brought by the change in career direction.
Posted by: Dr X | August 6, 2007 11:55 AM
Dennis Miller has become so depressingly stupid that it's stunning. How can you just sit there and lie and agree with this asshole that he didn't say what he's ON TAPE as saying?
Posted by: plunge | August 6, 2007 12:07 PM
I'm so old that I remember when Dennis Miller was funny.
Posted by: Pieter B | August 6, 2007 1:12 PM
Damn...Chris Dodd has balls. I would love to see him sitting in the Oval Office, but he probably just alienated half of America with that interview.
Posted by: Brandon | August 6, 2007 5:07 PM
Dodd just earned a few points in my book.
I'm also amazed O'Reilly got through five minutes without yelling "Shut up!" at a guest. I guess he did notice the guest was a Senator, eh?
Posted by: mollishka | August 6, 2007 7:11 PM
I notice you trimmed off the preceding paragraph of O Reilly's remarks, Ed, in which he said that if San Francisco bars military recruiting, it shouldn't receive the protection of the military. It was a demagogically made but legitimate point. Of course, without the context it just looks like animus towards SF.
By the way, I'm no fan of O Reilly. But IMO if your point becomes much stronger by removing the context, that's the time you need most to include the context...if you intend to argue honestly, that is.
Posted by: Gerard Harbison | August 7, 2007 8:38 AM
San Francisco was never going to bar military recruiting. Voters passed an advisory ballot opposing recruiting on public school campuses, on the grounds that the military has discriminatory recruitment policies. That's about as mild a protest as you can get at the ballot box, and it is in no way "legitimate" to suggest that a city should be denied military protection as a result of such a protest. Denying military protection is something you do to a region that secedes from the country.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | August 7, 2007 9:09 AM