Chris Aable's O'Reilly Watch

Below find letters authored by Chris Aable to Bill O'Reilly, many of which have been posted across the internet or aired world-wide on the Fox News' "O'Reilly Factor".  This is not as much about O'Reilly as it is the bigger issue - how Fox News can allow a person who lies so much to panhandle his "no-spin facts" as truth when he lies almost every day, either through self-deception or deliberate public deception.   It is indeed a mad, mad world and we do need to evolve higher standards for the Media - because misinformed voters are just as deadly to a democracy as uninformed voters.   O'Reilly, as of October 2004, is being sued by one of his female workers for sexual harassment.  Even though he has claimed that "this country has become a nation of lawsuit filers" - he is suing his alleged victim.  Ironically, O'Reilly also attempted to sue Al Franken, only to have the judges throw the suit out of court as patently frivolous and without merit.    By the end of 2003, it was difficult to keep watching all the lies and outright distortions that O'Reilly makes. 

[Jan] [Feb] [Mar] [2003]

November 9, 2005

Mr. O'Reilly, as a psychologist I observe that you have a difficult time holding a mirror to yourself when it comes to accepting blame.
For years, you have been proudly touting your "boycott of France" because they weren't stupid enough to get involved in a war against Saddam. If they had, the Muslim riots we now see would have probably been far sooner and much greater. You even bragged for years about how France's economy has declined, in the context of your boycott. Sociologist and Economists know that boycotts can fuel poverty which often fuels riots. True, there are many contributing reasons for the riots, but pointing at other reasons in no way excuses you for your callous role in all of this.

Chris Aable
Los Angeles, CA

October 20, 2005

Your contract employee, Bill O'Reilly

Despite the repeated lies of Bill O'Reilly, Phil Donahue and Michael Moore do not subscribe to the theory that "Bush masterminded the 9-11 attacks. And, despite O'Reilly's repeated accusations (see Media Matters, 9/22/05), neither does Jeremy Glick, a one-time guest on O'Reilly's show (2/4/03) whose father was killed in the September 11 attacks. When Glick appeared on the show, he referred to the "political legacy" of the United States "training militarily, economically and situating geopolitically" the Mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan, some of whom (including Osama bin Laden) would later form Al-Qaeda. Following Glick's appearance, O'Reilly attempted to twist his remarks to suggest that Glick believed George W. Bush was involved in the September 11 attacks (9/18/03, 9/19/03. 7/20/04).

Oddly enough, O'Reilly had recently explained (9/22/05) the "rules" for his program as follows: "No slander and no personal accusations without facts to back them up. If the guest violates those rules, they are scolded by me and will not be invited back." And yet, he claims that the mother of her butchered son, who is protesting Bush's war policy, is "being manipulated". How does he know her motivations and what compels her? Could it be just grief and not wanting other mother's to go through the same thing or can O'Reilly read her mind? Do the rules he demands on his TV program apply to O'Reilly himself? O'Reilly also repeatedly lies about the various blogs with thousands of independent negative comments about his lies, saying "Nobody pays attention to those blogs." Quite the contrary, people most assuredly do pay attention, with the BoBo (Bill O'Reilly) site alone getting two million hits last month and climbing. But of course, if you disagree with O'Reilly or display any respect for intellectuals (who by definition respect intelligence) as John Stewart did when challenging O'Reilly's constant ethnic stereotypes about the entire French nation, then you're just a "pinhead" or as he tells his viewers, "you're drinking Kool-Aid". Is this the professional language of a news commentator or a schoolyard bully? Fair and Balanced? If so, why has Dick Morris been on hundreds of times with sweeping and negative criticisms about Hillary Clinton? Why haven't one of the millions of Hillary supporters been invited to present their opposing views if you guys are so "fair and balanced"? Perhaps you're too busy booking other guests who have also appeared on the show not dozens of times, but literally hundreds of times in the past several years: Bill Bennet, Ann Coulter and Newt Gingrich? Yes, "fair and balanced" all right, and unashamed to lie about it.

Chris Aable

September 30, 2005

An open letter to Bill O'Reilly

In order to get power and retain it, it is necessary to love power more than mercy and charity, although one can retain all attributes. However, although you might mean it to be connected with goodness, love of power consists of attributes that are the opposite of goodness, such as too much aggression, cunning, and cruelty. As a psychologist, I have observed that your words and actions on your show consistently meet the later three behaviors, although I am sure you quite disagree. May you find a sense of diplomacy beyond the embittered and embattled world of your own making.

Chris Aable
Los Angeles, CA


"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it".

March 10, 2005

Subject: Dan Rather


If any of your viewers think that Dan Rather should "retire" for running with a counterfeit document, then by the same logic, Bush certainly should too. Bush gave complete and deadly faith in a counterfeit "document" that stated "Saddam has weapons of mass destruction". Without investigation, Bush thought it was as real to him as Dan Rather and several others who examined the "Bush National Guard document" thought that particular piece of paper was real to them. Granted, both had their biases and may have wanted each document to be "real" - but when you are the leader of the free world and lives are at stake- you should be far more cautious and accountable than even the biggest news reporter. But yet, Fox "news" spent an almost perverted three weeks headlining Dan Rather's "dumb mistake", while putting Bush's far more deadly and costly "faulty intelligence" in their back pages. We need not wonder why, since Fox "news" is becoming increasingly more famous for being unfair, imbalanced - and unashamed.

Chris Aable
Los Angeles, CA

March 8, 2005

To Bill O'Reilly
Fox "News"

Ironically, you lie about your lies by arrogantly declaring that you have "never told a lie" on your filibuster TV show and then challenging people to "prove" it. Here are three for openers from just your 11/4/04 TV show: About last November's election: 1.) Democrats "lost votes from four years ago." 2.) That "18- to 24[-year-old]s didn't go" to the polls. 3.) That "committed Republicans didn't carry the day for the president; independents did." All three claims are outright lies. I can list hundreds of others, but since you've only asked for one, are these three "pithy" enough for you?

Chris Aable
Los Angeles, CA

P.S. Or should I go into your other lies such as: 1.) "The war in Iraq will be a cake walk". 2.) "Dean wants the troops out of Iraq right now" when Dean was asserting that troops should "stay in Iraq for stability" before, during and after your lie. 3.) "Hillary Clinton didn't go to one funeral or one memorial service of any of the regular folks killed at the World Trade Center, even though she's a senator of New York," despite the fact that Clinton attended several memorial services, including one for 79 restaurant employees. (Your propaganda also does not explain who those "regular folks" truly are.) Not to mention the hundreds of times that you have told guests that they "can have the last word" only to be interrupted by your last words, along with the hundreds of times you have lied when stating you "do not favor Republicans" when Dick Morris, Bill Bennet and Newt Gingrich are by far the most frequently appearing "analysts" on your show. So much for the great big lie of "fair and balanced". Your constant and consistent lies are not only a disgrace and danger to any type of journalism, even lowly yellow journalism, but a disgrace to Fox News, with its "flip-flop" propaganda spin. And that's saying a lot. The "spin stops" where? The spin not only starts with you and Fox "News", but the lies about your spin go on and on like a broken record. Your slogan should be revisited and renamed to: "Repeat a lie often enough, and people will believe it." But I guess somewhere down the line you and your conservative employers might have figured: If the undigested slogans work for those you label as "religious zealots" and "fascists" - why not you too? Some will believe your repeated lies and slogans, others such as myself will not, and history will record more of the truth than you care to dream of.

January 11, 2005

----- Original Message -----
From: chris@self-evolution.org
To: Joe
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Subject: Re: O'Reilly Brags About Fox's Lack of Skepticism


Congratulations to O'Reilly for finally "eating crow". With as many documented errors as he had, as researched by FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), he should have a daily diet of crow. Remember when he said Iraq was going to be a "cake walk"? After 1,400 American deaths and counting, I think he should now not only be eating crow but should resign for misleading potential soldiers into thinking this was going to be an easy adventure instead of the suicidal death trap it has become and still remains. I don't feel more secure now then I did before this war, I feel less secure, and any one who knows the psychology and sociology of the Muslim world would feel less secure also.

Ted Turner did not call Fox "Nazis", he clearly stated that the "group think" that many Fox "journalists" cling to is similar to what we saw in the rise of the Nazi party. You and O'Reilly may not like the historical comparison, but that does not make the facts of the comparison any less true. Fox's rare reporting of the 1,400 American deaths and almost never mentioning the tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths by our invasion is indeed highly similar to what the Nazi's did, in that they somehow think that the lives of those in the "in group" (us) is somehow more important than the "out group" (them). Fox is also similar to the Nazi propaganda machine in that it blows their own horn all the time, as if they are superior to every individual and group who disagrees with them. Psychologically, you and O'Reilly can't seem to apprehend a comparison of Fox's behavior with that of the Nazi's behavior, because the overriding hallmark of Nazism was Genocide. But Turner is not saying anything like that at all, he is making far more complicated and meticulous comparisons, those of which it seems O'Reilly can't even begin to grasp through that black and white mindset he talks and thinks through. You both seem to forget that the Nazi's were just as human as you and I, and the fear, anger, divisionism and aggression which gave rise to their power is not too distant from that which is in all of us. And neither of you probably like that comparison either. Fortunately, there are those out there who prefer to be ever mindful, ever watchful and ever vigilant of the ignorance and hatred that can foment similar atrocities of what we've seen in the past. Indeed, such atrocities are happening now in the Middle East, on both sides of the fence, and who is doing the most should never be an argument or justification for doing any.

Love and peace,
Chris

----- Original Message -----
From: <Joe
To: <chris@self-evolution.org
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005

I watched O'Reilly tonight and at the end when he does his "Most ridiculous item of the day" he named himself for making a mistake and correcting an error he made with a guest the night before. I think that took a lot to eat crow like that.

Surely you can't agree with someone like Ted Turner who called Fox
"Nazis".