A couple of weeks ago, Republican U.S. Senator Tom Coburn warned a town hall audience in Oklahoma against "being biased by Fox News," telling his constituents not to believe everything they hear on the network.
Yesterday, Coburn appeared on Bill O'Reilly's show to give Fox a chance to respond to his criticism. In the interview, O'Reilly repeatedly slammed Coburn for saying that Fox News had claimed that health care reform would send people who don't buy insurance to jail. O'Reilly adamantly denied that anybody had ever said any such thing on Fox and accused Coburn of launching an unfair and untruthful attack on FNC.
I'm sure you'll be stunned to learn that O'Reilly was lying through his teeth. Not only was Coburn completely accurate -- Fox News has repeatedly broadcast the false claim that health care reform would send people who don't buy insurance to jail -- the claim has been made on Bill O'Reilly's own show...by Bill O'Reilly himself!
Watch:
That's a pretty impressive display of dishonesty, even for Bill O'Reilly...but will his audience care? Sure, it's true that last November on his show Glenn Beck said this:
BECK: I don't have universal health care.
O'REILLY: Now, let's get -- well, you will soon.
BECK: Or I'll go to jail.
And this:
BECK: This is the first time in history in the country where, just to be a citizen, just to be -- not go to jail you have to buy something.
And it's also true that last month, Bill O'Reilly said this:
O'REILLY: The IRS is now going to have to enforce ObamaCare. ... The IRS gets them if they don't pay the taxes. Ask Wesley Snipes.
O'Reilly's reference to Wesley Snipes was a clear reference to jail -- Snipes was sentenced to three years in prison for tax evasion. But loyal Fox viewers know that O'Reilly and Beck couldn't possibly actually have meant anything that they said. After all, last night, Bill O'Reilly told them this:
O'REILLY: You don't know anybody on FOX News because there hasn't been anyone that said people will go to jail if they don't buy mandatory insurance.
And this:
O'REILLY: We researched to find out if anybody on FOX News had ever said you're going to jail if you don't buy health insurance. Nobody's ever said it. So it seems to me that what you did was you used FOX News as a whipping boy when we didn't qualify there. ... You were wrong to do that, senator, with all due respect.
And the loyal Fox audience knows that must be true, because Bill O'Reilly said it. Right?