Bill O’Reilly And Bernie Goldberg Blast CNN For Playing ‘Stupid Girls’ During Palin Segment

Mediaite.com:

During Monday evening’s O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly and frequent guest Bernard Goldberg took on CNN for its use of and subsequent apology for the Pink song “Stupid Girls” playing during the introduction to a segment about former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.


In the wake of the outrage over the song’s seemingly purposeful placement, CNN apologized and said “the music selection was a poor choice and not intended to be linked to any news story.” O’Reilly joked, to off-set laughter, “Then why was it used before a news story?”


“The most offensive part of all of this is this statement by a news organization whose only mission is to tell the truth and they say this was unintentional,” Goldberg said. “They have literally millions of songs in their database to choose from. They could have picked ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ from Frank Sinatra, they could have picked anything. They picked ‘Stupid Girls’ and they have the nerve to tell us it was unintentional.


O’Reilly then asked Goldberg what CNN meant by the song not being meant to be connected to a story. “What was ‘Stupid Girls’ connected to if not the news story about Sarah Palin?”


“CNN and other news organizations expect politicians to tell the truth; they expect business people to tell the truth; they expect church people, they expect athletes to tell the truth,” Goldberg responded. “And they issue a statement like this…. I’m guessing the people who watch them don’t like Sarah Palin all that much anyway, which is why they did it, and thought that, like in the old days, they could get away with it.


“Well, it’s not the old days anymore, CNN,” Goldberg concluded, “you can’t get away with this stuff.”

RELATED: CNN: Playing 'Stupid Girls' Ahead of Sarah Palin Story a 'Poor Choice'

Bill O’Reilly And Bernie Goldberg Take On Dan Rather: First Paragraph Of Obit Will Contain ‘Memo-Gate’

Mediaite.com:

Former CBS anchor Dan Rather was supposed to make an appearance on The O’Reilly Factor tomorrow, but it turns out he cancelled. On his show Monday, Bill O’Reilly chatted with Bernie Goldberg and pondered why that might be.


On Monday, Rather doubled down on his controversial report about President George W. Bush Texas Air National Guard service — the story that led to his leaving the network. “You lost in the court of law,” O’Reilly said. “Your assertion was not deemed credible.” How you do squared that? Rather would have to answer those questions, O’Reilly said, and that’s probably why he canceled.


Goldberg chimed in with his take. “I think Dan would rather be interviewed by an ideological soulmate — whether it’s George Stephanopoulos or Chris Matthews or somebody like that — rather than sit down and be grilled by you. [...] I don’t think he’d want to sit down and be grilled by you, so I don’t think it’s really that complicated.”


Rather made his reputation being confrontational, O’Reilly observed, so one would think he’d take the opportunity to go to come on the show. He added that, if he kicked O’Reilly’s butt, Rather would look like a hero, so “it’s a win-win.”


Goldberg agreed, and added:

You would think so. I mean, he took on in what turned out to be a disaster. He took on George Bush the elder on the CBS Evening News. He sat down face-to-face with Saddam Hussein who could have had him killed before he left the country. But, I know it doesn’t sound logical, but I think he is more comfortable with sitting down with a murderer, like Saddam Hussein, than he is — I know, you know what i’m going to say — than sitting down with you. I mean, look. The only reason people cancel, the only reason people cancel is because they have a conflict of scheduling and that wasn’t it.

O’Reilly said, “I think he is painfully aware of the fact that some day down the road when somebody writes the obit for Dan Rather, in the first paragraph it’s going to contain the words either Memo-Gate or Rather-Gate or something like that. I think that hurts him terribly.”


Goldberg added that Rather is “like Captain Ahab, who became obsessed with the whale, who did him in, he can’t let this go.”

 RELATED:  Dan Rather Outspoken: Still Battling CBS News

Bill O’Reilly: Media Matters ‘Coordinating’ With DNC & MSNBC Would Be ‘Blatant Corruption Of The First Amendment’

Mediaite.com:

If you turned on The O’Reilly Factor tonight hoping to hear Bill O’Reilly go on about liberal media bias, you’re in luck! O’Reilly’s entire first segment of the show focused on how influential, mainstream media outlets are getting information from left-wing media watchdogs and it has a disturbing influence on the general public.


O’Reilly brought up the last interview Andrew Breitbart ever did, accusing Media Matters of being in collusion with both MSNBC and the Democratic National Committee. O’Reilly reminded viewers that he’s been sounding the alarm bells about that website, and its ties to billionaire George Soros, for years, and then revealed that there is more evidence that what Breitbart said is correct. Remember when several media outlets noticed a divergent trend between Fox News coverage of rising gas prices under George W. Bush and Barack Obama?


Well, it came from a video compiled by Media Matters. And in the video, O’Reilly is saying that any politician who says they can lower gas prices is full of “BS.” But in the full context of the clip, O’Reilly does criticize the Republicans (which he says included Bush) for letting “big oil do whatever it wants” while refusing to “reign in corrupt speculators” who are trying to raise gas prices. O’Reilly then accused MSNBC of deliberately taking his words out of context, before explaining that unlike in previous years, when liberal media bias was just simply noticed in their selection of stories that reflected positively or negatively on both sides, “national news agencies are actually lying to you.”


O’Reilly warned that the presidential election might end up being reported unfairly by many major news outlets, before getting to the big problem at hand.


“But if Andrew Breitbart’s contention is true, that the Democratic party is now coordinating with Media Matters, who is coordinating with MSNBC, that is troubling, and a blatant corruption of the First Amendment.”


Then O’Reilly brought on Bernard Goldberg, who actually disagreed with O’Reilly’s contention that such collusion would have a noticeable effect on voting trends. He said that while Media Matters does have some allies in the media, these allies are not necessarily in positions of power, and Goldberg noted that Media Matters isn’t necessarily making journalists more or less liberal than they already are. Goldberg agreed that Media Matters is “annoying,” but its influence on the electorate is negligible.


O’Reilly shot back by referring to the out-of-context clip of himself being picked up by mainstream media outlets, suggesting that such a strong, mobilized effort to get the video out there would certainly affect people. Goldberg admitted that it might have a slim effect on certain voters, but maintained it would not affect the outcome of the November election.

RELATED: Tucker Carlson Suggests White House Is Coordinating With Media Matters To Attack Fox News

Bernie Goldberg And O’Reilly Rail Against The NYT For ‘Incredible Double-Standard’ On Race

Mediaite.com:

Bernie Goldberg and Bill O’Reilly are longtime critics of the New York Times for much of their coverage of politics, and for what they perceive to be an unacceptable left-wing slant. On tonight’s Factor, Goldberg noted that a number of conservative attacks on President Obama have been deemed “racist” by the left– when, in his perception, the left gets no such scrutiny when they attack black Republicans.


Goldberg began to list off critiques of President Obama that the New York Times had found racial undertones in– Newt Gingrich calling President Obama a “food stamp President,” Rep. Joe Wilson shouting “you lie!” at the State of the Union address, Mitt Romney claiming the President sought to create “an entitlement society.” “Any Republican who criticized Barack Obama… there’s a good chance that at some point members of the so-called Mainstream Media will label that Republican racist.” Goldberg did not expect it to work too well, however, telling O’Reilly that “you can’t cry wolf over and over again.”


O’Reilly agreed, noting that the New York Times was having an “awful time” financially, and part of that was that “if you are conservative, you’re a bad person, they can’t possibly respect you.” Part of the alarm O’Reilly also attributed to polling that made minority voters more important. “If you make the race for President about race, then you’re going to get the attention of minority voters, who Democrats desperately need to turn out in the numbers they did in 2008,” O’Reilly contended.


Goldberg dismissed the tactic as “name-calling” and decried the “incredible double-standard”: “they can call people who criticize Barack Obama racist… but liberals can attack a conservative black person,” he argued. “They mock them… but they say that’s not about race.”

Bernie Goldberg To Bill O’Reilly: 2012 Obama Media Bias Will Be So Subtle Voters ‘Will Not Even Catch It’

Mediaite.com:

With the 2012 elections fast approaching and the economy in a state of flailing paralysis, Bill O’Reilly took a look tonight at how the media is responding to the Obama Administration’s first tenure. With some in the media arguing that the President has little control over the economy, Bernie Goldberg told the Factor host this came off as yet another example of bias, and one which warned the next wave of pro-Obama fervor in the media would be significantly less feverish.


Goldberg, who wrote a book about the media’s relationship with the 2008 Obama campaign entitled “A Slobbering Love Affair,” did not expect that level of infatuation this time around. “If they slobber all over him this time as much as they did last night, the media and the President will have to get a room.” Unlike Sen. John Kerry or Michael Dukakis, Goldberg argued that President Obama “was a historic figure, and they fell in love with him.”


On comments by David Gregory that the President didn’t have much control over the economy, Goldberg gave Gregory the benefit of the doubt on bias, but told O’Reilly that it still “sounds like here’s another liberal journalist saying ‘don’t blame Barack Obama.’” He did concluded, however, that overt bias was not to be found in the press anymore this election cycle, and it would look much more like Gregory’s statements: “the bias… will be subtle, sometimes the audience will not even catch it.”


Goldberg also discussed the coverage of Muammar Gaddafi‘s death, which he found appropriate, though objected to “gratuitous” visuals of the dictator’s corpse.

Bernie Goldberg To Bill O’Reilly: ‘Media Activism’ Behind Steep Drop In Trust

Very telling:

Distrust in the media, according to the latest numbers, appears to be at record highs. On tonight’s O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly aired the results of a Gallup poll showing almost half of Americans think the media is “too liberal,” and that Fox News was overwhelmingly the television news source of choice. Why are Americans sensing this bias, according to poll results? Guest Bernie Goldberg argued it was because, in the post-Obama era, the media didn’t show bias, it showed activism.


47% of Americans, according to Gallup, thought the media was too liberal; only 13% found it too conservative. At 19%, Fox News was by far the most watched news source, with local news at 16% and MSNBC at 6%, which O’Reilly reveled in by calling those viewers “Fidel Castro supporters.” He turned to Goldberg and opened by asking about the latter’s former employer, CBS: “What happened over there?” Goldberg noted that the turnover in the anchor chair had hurt, but the downturn was not limited to that one station and had one particular origin: “its relationship with Barack Obama.” He elaborated that the media had always been biased, but “they moved from old-fashioned media bias to something new, media activism.”


This Goldberg equated with judicial activism– attempting to have a political impact from a pulpit that has no official political capacity– and the American people noticed. “There’s a price the media has to pay for [activism],” Goldberg concluded, “and they pay with their most valuable asset– their credibility.”

Bernie Goldberg: Irene Coverage Was The Product Of New York ‘Journalistic Narcissism’

Mediaite.com:

The post-hurricane debate over how the mainstream media treated the threat raged on last night, as the many factors in play led to various theories on whether Irene was sufficiently covered. On last night’s O’Reilly Factor, Bernie Goldberg argued that one of the main reasons the media cared so much about Hurricane Irene was “because it was heading for the center of the universe,” and that a larger hurricane heading for a different region wouldn’t have gotten the attention– though giving the caveat that “hurricanes are dangerous things and they’re no fun to go through.”


Goldberg made the point to host Bill O’Reilly that it was not just the large size of New York that made it such a media target, but that it is where “media elite journalists live,” and that many who cover the news suffer from “journalistic narcissism.” By way of contrast, Goldberg argued that, were “a bigger hurricane heading for Biloxi, Mississippi… it just wouldn’t get the same attention.”


O’Reilly disagreed, offering an alternative explanation for the media blitz surrounding the hurricane: Katrina. Besides the fact that “it’s the end of August, nothing else is going on,” the fact that the media was caught almost as flat-footed as the government by Hurricane Katrina left them hyper-sensitive to the potential of another nightmare scenario. While Goldberg didn’t back down on his claim that the New York factor contributed majorly to the coverage, he agreed that “in the post-Katrina age, nobody’s taking chances anymore,” nor are political leaders “going to get caught on the wrong side of the hurricane.”

Obama White House Attempted To Block FOX News At 2009 Interview

This is what happens when to a cable news network that refuses to kiss Barack Obama's ass: The One's minion's throw a hissy-fit and try to do everything in their power to deny access to their high Lord and master. FOX News, the highest rated cable news network for more than a decade now, remains at the top because they actually challenge politicians and other news makers. Then too, unlike the other lamestream networks, both liberals and conservatives get to voice their opinions on FOX and their hosts aren't all ideologists who cater to a liberal mind thought

As the U.K. phone-hacking scandal continues to engulf News Corp's British segment, one of the company's top-performing assets in the U.S. is enjoying a bit of unrelated vindication.


Rewind to October 2009: Fox News Channel and the White House were at war. In one particularly heated incident, Fox claimed the Obama administration had tried to oust the "fair & balanced" network from an interview with Treasury official Kenneth Feinberg, when the other four news nets in the TV coverage pool had been offered access. In the end, Fox was included, and a Treasury Department spokesman snarled: "There was no plot to exclude Fox News, and they had the same interview that their competitors did. Much ado about absolutely nothing."


Emails that surfaced last week, however, through a public records request by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, suggest otherwise.


"We'd prefer if you skip Fox please," a White House broadcast media staffer advised a Treasury Department public affairs secretary ahead of the interview. In other emails during the same time frame, deputy White House communications director Jennifer Psaki called Fox News anchor Bret Baier "a lunatic" and boasted that "I am putting some dead fish in the fox cubby--just cause." In yet another email, another White House press officer wrote: "We've demonstrated our willingness and ability to exclude Fox News from significant interviews …"


Proof of an anti-Fox agenda in the Oval Office? Judicial Watch thinks so.


"These documents show there is a pervasive anti-Fox bias in the Obama White House," said Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton in a statement. "The juvenile Mafioso-talk in these emails has no place in any White House. For the Obama administration to purposely exclude a major news organization from access to information has troubling First Amendment implications."

Bernie Goldberg Upset With “Supposed Journalist” Fareed Zakaria

Mediaite.com:

The all-out war between Glenn Beck and George Soros to make Godwin’s Law an official scientifically-accepted principle continued this weekend on CNN, where the billionaire told Fareed Zakaria that Fox News’ “falsehoods” were similar to what succeeded in Weimar Germany. On tonight’s Factor, Bill O’Reilly tried to make sense of Soros’ continued escalation of the feud while regular guest Bernie Goldberg wondered why Zakaria allowed that language to begin with.


Once in a while, O’Reilly said by way of explanation, “Soros comes down from this plush boardroom, or his private jet lands somewhere near CNN headquarters,” and he gives an opinion. This was highly perplexing to O’Reilly, as he didn’t believe Soros was “changing anybody’s mind” by speaking out, nor was he making much business. Goldberg argued that Soros merely spoke out because he believed in what he said. “I think he honest to God believes every syllable of what he said,” he argued, but that, more problematic than Soros’ opinions was the fact that “it takes two to tango,” and “supposed journalist” Zakaria didn’t challenge his propositions on the “American fascist dictatorship” forwarded by Fox News– “Zakaria didn’t ask a single question.”


At this point O’Reilly and Goldberg’s comments flew past each other a good deal, as O’Reilly was fixated with the reasoning behind Soros’ behavior, while Zakaria was far more interesting to Goldberg. O’Reilly argued that many who used similar rhetoric on the right are “in business to do that” and “are making money doing it,” but Soros didn’t need that. “Aren’t there drugs you want to give out for free?” he asked of Soros. Goldberg’s reaction to this was merely that he spoke what he believed to be the truth and Soros, as a private citizen with little influence as a speaker in the media, was not nearly as important as Zakaria in this context. “Zakaria is supposedly a journalist,” Goldberg concluded, “and a journalist just doesn’t sit there like a bump on a log when someone is making crazy statements like that.”

Bernie Goldberg: ‘Clinical Insanity’ For Bill Maher To Call O’Reilly’s Obama Interview Racist

Mediaite.com:

Bill O’Reilly finding something Bill Maher said distaste is not an awful surprise, but to deign it “unexpected” is certainly a new flavor of disapproval. Calling it “the lowest point of the far left” in recent memory, O’Reilly blasted Maher (and his guests on last week’s Real Time) for suggesting his interview with President Obama was racist, and regular Bernie Goldberg agreed: it was, he argued, “almost clinical insanity.”


“I never expected the interview to be labeled racist,” O’Reilly told his audience as he played a clip of the Real Time panel suggesting that the way O’Reilly asked the President if he knew about football had racial undertones. Goldberg agreed, arguing that “you’d have to be out of your mind to find racism in that interview” and, furthermore, that Maher’s argument that O’Reilly was disrespectful held no water given some of his previous remarks. “If you’re going to accuse someone of being disrespectful, you’d better come to the table with clean hands,” Goldberg argued, noting some of Maher’s insults against George W. Bush, including but not limited to “retarded child emperor.”


O’Reilly didn’t seem too concerned about Maher himself, though, or his audience. More specifically, he wanted to know what “the American audience’s reaction” was to such rhetoric, and whether that sort of dialogue was permissible in the eyes of many. “We live in a different America where we could say almost anything and get away with it,” Goldberg noted, though praised HBO for not censoring Maher. “HBO,” he explained (Goldberg is employed by HBO on the show Real Sports), had “never once tried to censor anything I’ve said, to their credit, and they’re certainly not going to try to censor Bill Maher.”


In addition to Maher, O’Reilly let out a bit of steam he had left from the segment before Goldberg on David Gregory asking Speaker of the House John Boehner about the birther movement. Goldberg understood the question to be an attempt at getting Boehner to say “these people are nuts,” but didn’t think the question was “crazy unfair.”

As always Goldberg did a great job here calling Maher's idiocy out, but I wish that Goldberg had brought up Bil Maher's real racist attack on Barry last year when he accused Barry of not being a "real Black President" due his handling of the BP spill. Like I've always said about Bill Maher, not only is he a major hypocrite, but a shallow prick with a serious Napolean complex.

Bill O’Reilly & Bernie Goldberg Go After Keith Olbermann, Never Mention His Name

Mediaite.com:

Bill O’Reilly is up to date on the MSNBC news that matters: the fact that the network “is the 28th rated cable network.” On his weekly media segment, Bernie Goldberg tried to remind O’Reilly of the actual shocking MSNBC news of the week, but as much as he tried to point out the importance of a media personality he called “the tallest midget in the room,” O’Reilly stuck tight to his point that, no matter what happens at MSNBC, “it really doesn’t matter.”


As much as Goldberg insisted, O’Reilly refused to speak of now-former rival Keith Olbermann, who departed MSNBC at the end of last week. He did note that “they took one of their guys out” over at MSNBC “and they’re moving everyone else around,” but that was as far as he was willing to go.”After a bit of goading from Goldberg, he finally noted that “I really don’t want to get involved in any of that personal stuff,” but adamantly refused to name names. Instead, he played the ratings boasting game. “Spike TV kisses [sic] their butt. The Carrot Channel!” he joked. He also later noted that, if the Olbermann story was a “business” one, then the true point of the story is “Fox News’ dominance” in cable.


Yet Goldberg did take a few swipes at Olbermann from his position, reminiscing that “this is someone who told the President to ’shut the hell up,’” among other things, and wondering what would’ve been of O’Reilly’s career had he shown such incivility. He also mocked the only MSNBC personality to get mentioned by name in this entire segment, Rachel Maddow, for being reported to live in a country house in Massachusetts.

"the tallest midget in the room"...classic.

Fox News Offered More Balanced Election Coverage Than MSNBC

Mediaite.com:

If you believe that the cable news landscape is symptomatic of our two-party political system, then you also probably, and predictably, saw a different tone in last nights election results. Fox News presented its coverage with a patina of celebration, while MSNBC’s took a more gloom and doom approach. But there was one important distinction between the two outlets: Fox News offered a far more balanced set of analysts for the election coverage than did MSNBC.


Almost all of the results from yesterday’s midterm elections are in, and there is little question that the GOP has good reason to celebrate the returns. The U.S. House of Representatives has returned to Republican leadership and though it’s premature to definitively say as much, many have seen this as a referendum on the Obama administration.


Fox News’ key decision in their approach to covering the election last night was putting their heaviest hitters on the bench, choosing their up-and-comers Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier to serve as hosts of their coverage, an overt effort to have their news anchors cover the election results instead of their opinion hosts (as opposed to MSNBC.)


But not everyone saw it that way. Writing for the Washington Post, Dana Milbank was rather harsh in his critique, writing:


As Fox’s Megyn Kelly announced that one Democratic senator, expected to lose big, was in a race “too close to call,” she commented: “That’s, uh, an interesting update.” When Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass), said by Fox commentators to be endangered, cruised to an easy win, Kelly commented: “Alas.”


The victory party would have to focus on the 60-seat gain Fox projected for Republicans in the House – an enormous win, though not at the upper end of the forecasts. Fox commentator Karl Rove, pleading for “perspective,” said it still qualified as a “blowout evening.” To be fair and balanced, Fox brought in a nominal Democrat, pollster Doug Schoen. “This is a complete repudiation of the Democratic Party,” he proclaimed.


Milbank’s understandable critique of Fox News’ tone is diminished by his own lack of fairness in his reporting; it seems like he’d have the reader believe that Democratic pollster Doug Schoen was the lone left-of-center voice on the channel. The truth is, FNC offered a panoply of left-of-center voices, including Bob Beckel, Juan Williams, Joe Trippi , Geraldine Ferraro and Kirsten Powers among a handful of others. And, to be fair, there is significant criticism on the left that these pundits might not be the strongest voice for the progressive movement, but they are on the air, nonetheless.


But don’t just take our word for it, read what other media critics had to say. Writing for Time’s Tuned In blog James Poniewozik seemed to agree that Fox News was fairer than the lot:


To be fair, NBC did join coverage earlier, after an all-new Biggest Loser.) Fox News, for all its image as the Republican-friendly network, actually seemed to have the most reserved coverage in tone of the three big cablers, going with a more reserved set and less flashy graphics (granted, by cable news standards) than its competitors. A whiteboard was even employed.


Credit where due, Fox also had a more, well, balanced panel much of the night than its competitor MSNBC. Holding forth from left of center for Fox were the recently-high-profile Juan Williams and Democratic political guru Joe Trippi. MSNBC’s main lineup, on the other hand, was basically its center-to-left lineup of nightly hosts: Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell. 

Good to see some people finally catching on to just how much of a joke MSNBC is these days.

Bernie Goldberg Assesses Media Relations With Obama Administration: ‘The Magic Is Gone’

Mediaite.com:

O’Reilly Factor resident media critic Bernie Goldberg noticed something strange this weekend: traditionally “liberal” media outlets are beginning to lash out at other liberals. Take, for example, SNL’s skewering of liberal Gloria Allred, or CBS’ Bob Schieffer going after David Axelrod this Sunday. Are these incidents a sign of a trend?, asks Bill O’Reilly. No, Goldberg declares, it’s not the beginning of a trend, but the end of one: “The slobbering has ended because the magic is gone.”


That “magic,” he explains, is the charm of the Obama administration that constituted the core of his thesis in his latest book, A Slobbering Love Affair. It was the driving force behind the extreme positive coverage the president seemed to consistently receive in the media, for example:

“On Christmas morning, about a month after Barack Obama was elected president, page 1 of the Washington Post, they did a story about Obama’s exercise regimen, and they actually talked about how he had– the sun glistened off of his pectorals and he had a well-toned body because he played basketball. That kind of embarrassing garbage isn’t going to happen anymore because, as I said, the magic is gone and he isn’t as popular as he once was.”

O’Reilly agrees that something has happened to the relationship between the President and the media, but he disagrees that the relationship is definitively broken. “NBC continues to be very active in supporting the president,” he counters, “and their two big franchises are down, but not that down.” On the other hand, CBS, which “has a vested interest” in defending the president, has attacked him. O’Reilly seems to have trouble reconciling the two behaviors. Goldberg finds it predictable, as “it’s not just easier– it’s safer now to go after Barack Obama,” thus networks will go ahead and take some stabs.

Goldberg seemed ultimately optimistic about President Obama’s chances with the media in 2012, concluding that once Republican opposition solidified during a presidential race, the “slobbering” would begin again.

Bernie Goldberg Derides Bill Clinton’s Excuse Of Sen. Robert Byrd’s Time In The Ku Klux Klan

Mediaite.com:

When Senator Robert Byrd died last week, many wondered how his eulogizers might treat an ugly part of his past: his role as a leader/recruiter in a West Virginia chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Former President Bill Clinton answered those questions while speaking during the memorial service, ostensibly defending Byrd’s part in the Klan by saying “he was a country boy from the hills and hollows of West Virginia,” adding “he was trying to get elected.” Fox News’ Media Analyst Bernard Goldberg took exception to the cavalier shrugging-off of Byrd’s racist past.

It’s a difficult thing to do – criticize the words of someone praising the past of someone who has just past (especially one who has given so many years of service to his country.) However, Goldberg dared to point out what he seemed to be an offhand and inappropriately informal explanation of Byrd’s time in the Klan. And he makes some very good points without stomping on the legacy of the departed Senator.

First, the excepted words of Clinton which raised Goldberg’s ire:

There are a lot of people who wrote these eulogies for Senator Byrd in the newspapers and I read a bunch of them. and they mention that he once had a fleeting association with the Ku Klux Klan. What does that mean? I will tell what you it means. He was a country boy from the hills and hollows of West Virginia. He was trying to get elected. And maybe he did something he shouldn’t have done, and he spent the rest of his life making it up. And that’s what a good person does.

Goldberg shows both deftness and reason in his critique of Clinton’s eulogy, given that damning the past of the “dearly departed” is ostensibly a very tricky wicket:

Well, first I thought the obvious. You don’t use a funeral to unload on the dearly departed. So I understand why Bill Clinton, you know, did what he did to some extent but he went way, way, way too far.

First of all, you heard the sound bite just then. Bill Clinton says well, he was just a country boy from West Virginia, trying to get elected as if, what, that somehow justifies joining the Klan? Even in the 1940s, Bill, decent people didn’t join the Ku Klux Klan. By the way, Robert Byrd wasn’t just a regular bigot in the Ku Klux Klan, he was a special bigot. He recruited the other morons who joined the could you Ku Klux Klan. Imagine today if some politician felt he had to bad mouth or bash black people in order to get elected. Do you think Bill Clinton would be be so cavalier or anybody else for that matter as to say, well, come on, he is just a country boy who is trying to get elected. Of course not.

And then the second thing Clinton said is that Robert Byrd spent the rest of his life making it up. That’s not even true. In 1964, Robert Byrd not only voted against the civil rights act, but he filibustered for 14 hours. One year later in 1965, He voted against the voting rights act. Now, in fairness, later on in life, Robert Byrd championed making Martin Luther King’s birthday a national holiday. We will give him that.

But this leads to one of two possibilities. Either he had a genuine change of heart, which is possible, or he is simply made another political calculation. Just as he joined the Klan for political reasons, maybe he realized that being a bigot wasn’t going to work anymore. I’m not saying that you use the funeral to bad-mouth the guy but Bill Clinton, ever the statesman, could have compromised and just said a little bit less.

Jon Stewart Admits He's Nothing More Than A Liberal Elitist Posing As A Comedian

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Newsbusters.org:

With that, Stewart and choir continued to sing the vulgar lyrics.

Unfortunately lost in all the gratuitous profanity was that Stewart admitted NBC, ABC, and CBS are liberally biased -- "the disorganized liberal influence you find on NBC, ABC and CBS."

Regardless of how "faint" Stewart might believe this influence is, at least he acknowledged it Tuesday night.

But doesn't that undermine his entire rebuttal?

Goldberg's point Monday was that the press are liberally-biased, and that Stewart is aiding and abetting such bias by almost exclusively focusing on Fox's conservative leanings.

Irrespective of whether or not "The Daily Show" host wants to be fair and balanced, the fact that he recognizes bias at the other networks but typically fails to call them on it while regularly attacking Fox makes him part of the problem AND thereby validates Goldberg's argument.

Earlier in the segment, Stewart said:

Not all of us have your guts Bernie. It takes a tough man to walk into O'Reilly's lion's den to criticize liberal elites.

Maybe so, but those same liberal elites know that when they go on "The Daily Show," the host is going to toss them softballs, which again was Goldberg's point.

Then too is the biggest joke is Stewart saying that he never calls himself "edgy", when in fact the "edgy" card is what he's exploited throughout his whole career--he wouldn't have his career if the lib media didn't consistently present him as "edgy". Look, I can admit that unlike Bill Maher, Jon Stewart can be funny at times, but when you take yourself as seriously as Stewart often does with politics and social commentary (again, part of Goldberg's point), don't get your panties all wet when the same people you obsess over, FOX News, calls you out on how much of a phony you are.

Bernie Goldberg Calls Jon Stewart A "Safe, Jay Leno With A Much Smaller Audience"

Mediaite.com:

Last week Jon Stewart made a particularly strong critique of the overgeneralizations and stereotypes made by the pundits on Fox News, saving special pique for Fox News media analyst Bernie Goldberg. Appearing tonight on The O’Reilly Factor, Goldberg got his chance to return the volley, and, for fans of these sorts of media battles, he did not disappoint. Goldberg pushed back hard at Stewart, and reached to a personal level rarely seen in these sorts of media battles.

Now that's what I call a smackdown.

Bernie Goldberg Reviews Sarah Palin's Book, Smacks Down Jon Stewart

Bernie Goldberg Slams Glenn Beck