You might recall the Bill O'Reilly Defamed Me diary, with the Bill O'Reilly Defamed Me- a Follow Up a day or two later. If you don't, I'll give you a thumbnail.
In O'Reilly's ongoing attempt to smear Daily Kos, he picked up a grossly anti-semitic quote and accredited it to me. I not only did not write it, but was criticizing it. Olbermann picked it up two days later and gave O'Reilly "Worser" (he also got "Worst" that night) for it. Well, now he has apologized.
Take the flip to read more, and to find out why O'Reilly hit my newly-minted term, a "Powerball Fuck-Up."
I won't repeat, or link, the original comment. In summary, it accused Jews of being both greedy and cowardly, more interested in making money than joining our nation's armed services. I originally quoted it in a diary entitled Holocaust Denial, Anti-Semitism, and other Daily Kos HATE Meta, and criticized it, saying "Was there some kind of contest to see how many stereotypes could fit in one paragraph?"
Then it got fun. You see, O'Reilly hit the Powerball Fuck-Up. Why? Well, you figure the odds.
First, how many bloggers use their real name? I use "dhonig," which is not only my first initial and last name, but is also EXACTLY the same as my professional email. How many? Maybe 1 in 1,000? 1 in 10,000? Call it 1 in 5,000, just to pull a number out of the air.
Okay, how many bloggers are also attorneys? better odds there, as we seem to be overrepresented. But how many are also actual litigators, people who's names show up on Westlaw searches on top of cases in Federal Courts of Appeal an the Supreme Court? Perhaps 1 in 500? That seems overly conservative, but let's go with it. Okay, multiply them together. We're already at 1 in 2.5M.
How many Jews blog? Yeah, a lot, but we're less than 2% of the total population. Even if we're represented at double that rate, we're still talking about 3 per hundred, or 1 in 33. We're up to 1 in 8.5M already.
Then it gets really fun. You see, add into consideration the actual statement about Jews that was accredited to me. It had to do with cowardice, unwillingness of Jews to serve their nation. Oops. My father, you see, is an Army vet. My Grandfather was one of the first Americans in Europe during World War I, and my other grandfather was in the Navy in the same war. But it gets better. My stepfather was a veteran of World War II, Korea, AND Vietnam, and now rests at Arlington National Cemetery. How many bloggers can say that? Maybe 1 in 10,000? 1 in 825 BILLION now.
But wait, there's more.
My father-in-law is a Holocaust survivor. That's pretty much a conversation stopper when you call me an anti-Semite, don't you think?
Well, credit goes where credit is due. On O'Reilly's first day back from vacation he apologized, actually apologized. If I had even the slightest idea how to YouTube, I'd have posted it.
Big thanks to
I would have preferred that O'Reilly mentioned Daily Kos, rather than just "a far-left Web site," but that's okay. I castigated O'Reilly and Fox when the story ran, and I now give them credit for doing the right thing. Having blogged it before, I wanted to blog the follow-up.
coffeeinamrica for a VIDEO LINK.
Also, I have to admit, it's pretty darned fun to know O'Reilly had to back down. That doesn't happen often.
Enjoy.