I was pissed off last night, so I figured I'd add a little more this afternoon to explain why. O'Reilly doesn't realize how insulting it is for him to take on the voice of the average American. He is speaking only for people who agree with him and he's not an average American. He's not a populist. He's an elite media member. I am tired of Fox News and its brand claiming they speak for me, my neighbors, and are somehow above things like ratings and making money. They are perhaps the most egregious of the cable news stations in framing a story to look like it belongs in an action thriller. They use fear and nationalist images to get their point across and they prove that if opinion is repeated enough, it will become truth. It's manipulation in a time where we need to make hard choices and I cannot stress enough how damaged we are by this "news" source. Americans, in fact all people, get their information from media sources. We cannot make informed decisions when the news is cherry-picked and we are led to the opinion of the network. Minority voices are protected in this society and it helps public policy and debate to listen to a nuanced argument from all sides. This makes my blood boil.
Walking off the show felt like a stunt when I saw it, a stunt for ratings and gossip. It was people using their platform to sell the show and it felt contrived. It caused the audience to cheer and it made me watch the View to find out what the problem was.
While I agree with Behar and Goldberg, the example of Timothy McVeigh is specious. These were not Muslims--they had a specific belief system that led to a terrorist attack and it was a bas ized form of religion. Timothy McVeigh was not making the argument that we weren't Christian enough. His problem was he felt the United States government was becoming corrupt and therefore we had to take military action to avoid living in a police state. It was a bas ized form of the military. Those are the motivations behind the terrorist attack.
To accept that people of the muslim faith attacked us is to include Al Qaeda in the religion. While they may use Allah's name, it is not Islam anymore than the KKK is Christianity and American Pride. That is the argument that should be made.
And to suggest that a phrase used by the President of the United States, one to be more specific to the problem we face since there is more than one terrorist group facing the United States, is responsible for anti-Islamic sentiment is to ignore the 300 years of history on this continent with regards to war, politics, and immigrants. A seed has to be planted before the flower can blossom. Obama's words don't carry that much weight.
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