Of the many Fox News pundits and talking gasbags, Bill O'Reilly is near the bottom on those who should be asked to comment on issues of race. O'Reilly, after all, has a, to put it mildly, questionable history on race-related matters. Who can forget, after all,his infamous rant on Election Night 2012, where he bemoaned that the "white establishment" was now the minority and that the new majority wanted "stuff?" (And then doubled-down on them after Jon Stewart mocked him.) So perhaps on the matter of Ferguson, MO, O'Reilly should have just let sleeping dogs lie, especially since he's on vacation right now.
But asking O'Reilly to keep his mouth shut is like asking your dog to stop begging at the table; it'd be nice, but it isn't going to happen. So Bill-O interrupted his vacation on Friday to call into The Five and share his two cents on the ugliness in Ferguson:
O'Reilly complained that the media and some of the public have reached a forgone conclusion about the police killing of black, unarmed teenager Michael Brown, particularly in light of new revelations.
"Most people are upset and certainly they have a right to be upset and make a point that they don't want unarmed people shot for no reason — but there may have been a reason," he said. "There may have been a reason."
Do go on, Bill-O (yeah, like you need me to tell you). What reason?
O'Reilly said the video released by police on Friday purporting to show Brown stealing cigarettes at a convenience store.
"Now we know he is not a regular guy," O'Reilly said. "We see it on tape. We saw what he did in that convenience store. He’s not a regular guy.”
Really? Because stealing stuff from convenience stores seems to be a pretty "regular" thing for kids and teenagers to do. We may not like to admit it, but I'm sure many of us have done it or at least attempted it. Or is it only when a black guy does that it gets Bill-O hot and bothered?
But O'Reilly knows who's really to blame:
The Fox host went on to dismiss concerns that releasing details of the robbery constituted a "smear" since the police have stated the officer who killed Brown had no knowledge Brown was a suspect in a robbery.
"There comes a point where, we know what you're up to, alright? We know the racial agitators, we've seen them over and over again," O'Reilly said.
You know, there's a reason why O'Reilly's median audience age
is 72 years old. Because he speaks in racial code words that were last fashionable over half a century ago. I mean, "racial agitators?" You can't come up with anything more original than that? (And it's not his first time this year, as
this ugly flap from March when he called Rep. Barbara Lee a "race hustler," shows.)
O'Reilly, next time just keep quiet and enjoy your vacation. In fact, shut about racial matters entirely. The last thing Ferguson needs is gasbags like you adding more gasoline to the fire. What Wesley Lowrey said about Joe Scarborough also applies to you.