The Projected Man

One of the worst movies played on Mystery Science Theatre 3000 was the 60s British sci-fi flop, “Projected Man.

The plot’s unimportant…something to do with a guy beaming himself across the planet, but one of the best lines line was when Mike and the Bots said the tile referred to "a guy who tries to apply his faults to everyone else."

If any pundit has earned the title of Projected Man, former Inside Edition anchor and FOX News host Bill O’Reilly is the leading candidate..

In his latest column, posted online and syndicated to a number of papers, O’Reilly goes after political Web sites for the alleged crime being purveyors of hate speech.

O’Reilly starts off with a reference to the manufactured controversy over Michelle Obama.

It was also painful to see how political Internet sites analyzed both of these situations. On the far left, they basically ignored the Michelle Obama controversy. Only one prominent far-left site dealt with it, and it blamed conservatives for trumping up hostility against Mrs. Obama.

For future reference, a “far left” site is one that disagrees with Bill O’Reilly on occasion.

It’s interesting that O’Reilly leaves out who one of these conservatives is: himself.

Apparently, the “far left” site Media Matters took issue with O’Reilly’s casual reference to the days of southern hate crimes when he said, “"I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels."

O’Reilly also forgets to mention the firestorm, which was not limited to one site as he claims, led to an issue of one of his trademark half-apologies, in which he tried to deflect criticism by making the absurd claim that he was actually complementing Mrs. Obama.

After this bit, O’Reilly’s column then goes into hackneyed autopilot, playing the old “cherry-picking a few random comments from a thread of hundreds to dismiss a political site as ‘extremist’” game.

Discussing former first lady Nancy Regan’s recent fall in her home:

[..]that was a far different story. On the crazy-left Huffington Post, the following hateful comments were posted about the former first lady:

“Like her evil husband, she has lived far too long. Here’s hoping the hag suffers for several weeks, then croaks in the tub.”

“The old bat will probably steal everything in the hospital room.”

“I feel no pity for the (woman) who took delight in watching thousands die of a horrible disease and watching the poor having to eat out of dumpsters because of her husband’s political beliefs.”

I’m guessing “crazy left” is a bit more extreme in Bill’s hierarchy than plain ol’ “far left.”

O’Reilly accuses the site’s founder Ariana Huffington of furthering hate speech because the comments were not deleted immediately. [“She should ] be taken out to the village square and publicly scolded,” O’Reilly writes.

Lest you believe Bill is simply, out of the pureness of his heart, calling for people to be more respectful, bear in that when he was accused of the same thing, comments threatening the life of Hillary Clinton on his Web site were left up long after they were brought to his attention. This isn't the first time O'Reilly has expressed such canned outrage towards the Web. He attacked DailyKos using the same tactic last year.

But the Projected Man act is nothing new for O’Reilly.

Remember the so-called ‘War on Christmas?”

A few years ago, Bill was going around the airwaves claiming that an evil ‘secular-progressive’ conspiracy was out to get Christmas. The crown jewel of his supposed evidence was that certain discount stores were referring to ‘holiday trees” rather than “Christmas trees” in their ads and that “Happy Holidays” was the preferred greeting in place of “Merry Christmas.”

Yet, oddly enough, over on the Bill O’Reilly Web store, you were able to order O’Reilly Factor ornaments for your “holiday tree.”

This leaves me, naturally, asking two questions:

1. Who, in their right mind, would actually want an O’Reilly Factor ornament for their tree? (I was holding out for the Hannity and Colmes nativity set myself.)
2. Why does Bill constantly find it necessary to attack others for behavior he is guilty of?

And, of course, the idea of O’Reilly accusing others of hate speech is laughable in the first place.

Here are a few choice gems from Bill over the years:

- There was the time he used a racial slur on the air.

Searching for a word to describe someone who assists immigrants crossing the border, O'Reilly came up with "wetback" (2/6/03). The incident was explained away by Fox officials as an unfortunate gaffe (New York Times, 2/10/03), but the Allentown, Pa. Morning Call (1/5/03) had O'Reilly using the same racist term in a speech earlier in the year: "O'Reilly criticized the Immigration and Naturalization Service for not doing its job and not keeping out 'the wetbacks.'" O'Reilly denied making the comment (Washington Post, 2/17/02), but the reporter stands by his account.

- Or maybe when he more or less said it would be OK for terrorists to attack San Francisco.

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.

- Or this one, which manages to be bigoted in all sorts of ways.

“During an interview for Stuff magazine (11/02), O'Reilly opined that "the most unattractive women in the world are probably in the Muslim countries." O'Reilly later insisted (New York Daily News, 10/10/02), "There was no malice intended. It was just in jest."

There’s tons of these floating out there, but you get the idea.

O’Reilly ends his column on this note:

A few years ago, people who spewed hatred in public were ostracized. Now they can join clubs on the Net.

For those involved in Internet “hate speech,” the real problem is you aren’t aiming high enough. Why settle for an anonymous comment on some Web site? With a little determine and practice, you can follow Bill’s shining example and land a coveted spot in primetime on a major cable channel!

Photo by me